Before I Forget You

Some people come into your life not to stay, but to change your whole life. I don't know where love begins. Maybe with a short look. Maybe by hearing a name. Maybe by seeing a smile that was not even meant for you...

And maybe love begins at the moment you realize that you can no longer live the way you did before.

I fell in love without ever talking to her, not even once. Maybe this is the strangest truth of my life.

I have known her for years, but I have never been able to say even one simple sentence to her. Not because I didn't want to. Not because she didn't want to. It was just...

Some distances cannot be measured.

Sometimes two people are so close that they can hear each other's breathing. But they are also so far apart that saying "hello" feels like trying to cross a high wall.

She was from a family that often visited our family. There were parties, family gatherings, visits, weddings, funerals...

There was always a place where I could see her.

But seeing her was the only thing I could do.

Sometimes she stood in a corner and talked with other people, while I watched her from far away. Sometimes she walked past me. Sometimes our eyes met for a very short moment.

That one moment was enough for me to think about it all day.

But what did it mean to her? I never knew.

Maybe she never noticed my looks. Maybe she did notice them and pretended not to.

And maybe... no. It is better not to imagine things I don't know. I could not even call this relationship love.

How could I?

Doesn't love have to start with talking? With knowing each other? With laughing together? With walking together? With hearing the voice of someone you love?

I had none of those things.

I only had one look and thousands of words I never said. The first time I realized that I loved her was just an ordinary day. Nothing special happened.

We were at the home of one of our relatives. She walked into the room. That was all. There was no music. Time did not stop. Nothing strange happened.

She simply walked into the room, and for a few seconds, I forgot what I was doing. After that day, everything changed. Not on the outside.

Inside me. Whenever I knew I was going to see her, I started thinking about my clothes. About my hair. About the things I might say, even though I might never say them.

I even thought about what I would say if we happened to stand next to each other. But I never said anything. Many times, I talked to her in my mind. I had thousands of conversations with her.

I said hello. I asked how she was. I asked about her life. Sometimes we even laughed together. But in the real world, whenever she came close, all those words disappeared.

Only silence remained. There was only me, with a heart beating louder than any sound. And there was her, who probably did not know that only a few steps away, someone was trying with all his heart to say just one sentence.

One night, I dreamed about her. In my dream, we were walking together on a quiet street. The air was cool. There was no one around us.

For the first time, we had a chance to talk. I looked at her. I wanted to make up for all the years of silence with a few sentences.

But no sound came from my mouth. My lips moved, but no sound came out. She looked at me as if she was waiting for me to say something. I tried again. Still, there was only silence.

Then she slowly moved away from me. The more I followed her, the farther away she went.

I woke up. The room was dark. It took me a few seconds to understand where I was. I put my hand on my chest. My heart was beating fast.

I could not sleep for the rest of the night. In the morning, for the first time, I decided to write down my words.

I found an old notebook. The first page was empty. I looked at it for a while. I did not know what to write.

Then I wrote: «"For you, who will never read these words..."» That one sentence was enough.

It felt as if a door had opened inside me.

I started writing. I wrote about the first time I saw you. About the first time I realized that seeing you was different from seeing other people.

I wrote about the fear that stopped me from talking to you.

I wrote about my family. About our traditions and the respect we had for them. About the invisible wall between us.

I wrote that sometimes I wished that, just for one day, for only a few minutes, the world had no rules.

There would be no families. No judgment. No fear. Only you and me. And I could say: "Hello."

Just that. Maybe it was the simplest word in the world for other people.

But for me, it was the hardest word. From that day on, my notebook became the only one I could talk to. Whenever I felt sad, I wrote. Whenever I saw her, I wrote.

Whenever I dreamed about her, I wrote. And every time I could not tell her something, I put it on paper.

Little by little, the number of pages grew.The first notebook was full.I started a second one.

Then a third.

Sometimes even I wondered how one person could have so many things to say to someone he had never spoken to.

But the truth was that I was talking to her. Just not with my voice. With my pen. With my imagination. With my dreams. With my silence. Years passed.

During all those years, I saw her many times.

At parties. At relatives' homes. At family gatherings. In the street.

Sometimes we were only a few steps away from each other. But those few steps felt like a thousand kilometers to me.

One time, we were sitting with other people. She was on the other side of the room. I pretended to listen to what the others were saying.

But all my attention was on her. Suddenly, she laughed. I heard her laugh. That short sound was enough to stay in my mind all night. That night, I wrote in my notebook:

«"You laughed today, and once again, I was not the reason."»

I looked at that sentence for a while. I did not erase it. Because it was true. I had never been the reason for her happiness. I did not even know what made her happy.

I did not know who sat beside her when she was sad. I did not know what her dreams were.

What books she liked. What she was afraid of. What kind of future she imagined for herself.

I only knew a small part of her.

The part I had seen from far away. And maybe that was the greatest pain of my love.

I had fallen in love with a picture of her that I had created from far away. But as time passed, my feelings did not become weaker. They became stronger. They grew deeper. And every day, I became more used to the idea that maybe I was never going to be with her...