It started with silence.
Not the awkward, heavy kind but the comfortable sort where the air between two people feels… safe. He was her seatmate, the kind of boy who seemed to carry winter in his chest. His words came rarely, his smile rarer, and yet, somehow, she found herself waiting for them like sunlight in January.
At first, they barely spoke. He’d nod, she’d nod back. That was it. Then one day, over something small maybe a joke, maybe an unguarded comment he laughed. Not politely, but for real. After that, their words grew bolder, their conversations freer. They started sharing reels, little pieces of humor and life that only they would understand. He still had that cold edge, but sometimes she caught glimpses of warmth, and she began to fall for that hidden fire.
He once told her he wasn’t interested in any girl, and she believed him. But friends whispered things maybe he liked a girl in their class, maybe he had someone online. He never mentioned it himself, and she never asked. She thought, “If I keep my feelings to myself, it won’t hurt as much.”
So she didn’t confess. She kept their connection simple, quiet and comfortable.
Then one morning, the seating chart changed. He was moved across the room.
No more side glances when something funny happened. No more quiet comments only she could hear. Weeks passed, and they didn’t talk—not out of anger, but because distance quietly pulled them apart.
She caught herself glancing at him sometimes, remembering the small, stolen moments, the reels, the laughs. And she realized something: maybe it wasn’t about confessing, or about whether he liked someone else. Maybe it was enough that they had shared that quiet closeness, however brief.
Sometimes, she still smiles at a reel she knows he would have liked, and for a moment, it’s like he’s right there beside her cold, distant, and just a little warmer than anyone else.
