There are some days where the sky doesn't cry, but it still feels soaked in sorrow.
Today was like that.
Gray—not stormy, not bright.
Just quietly heavy.
Like my chest.
I walked to school the way I always do, counting cracks in the pavement like maybe, just maybe, I could step into a version of the world where I meant more to her.
But that's not how it works.
And she—Laura—
She exists like wildflowers by the road.
Effortless. Free.
She never tries to be beautiful.
She just is.
And I?
I'm just a boy walking past the flowers, pretending the breeze is enough.
---
She greeted me at the gate today.
A soft "Hey, Aiden,"
Like it didn't rearrange the stars in my chest every single time.
I smiled. Not too much. Not too wide.
Just enough to hide how loud my heart was.
She walked beside me toward the classroom, her voice spilling stories about her dog, about a funny dream, about how she tripped yesterday on a rock shaped like a heart.
I laughed.
Not because the story was funny—
But because she was telling me.
And when she talks to me, the world quiets.
Even the parts of me that ache.
---
In class, she sat two desks away.
Close enough to hear her turn a page.
Far enough to not hear my heart break.
The teacher spoke of constellations today,
and I wondered if I was just a star in her sky—
one of many,
distant,
dim.
Sometimes she turned around and passed me notes.
Little doodles.
A smiley face.
A frog in a hat.
She didn't know I kept them.
Pressed between pages like fallen petals—
memories I wasn't supposed to water, but couldn't help it.
---
At lunch, she shared her orange slices with me.
She peeled them with slow fingers, offering half.
I took them with shaking hands.
"They taste better when you don't eat alone," she said.
And I almost told her—
I never do. Not when you're here.
But I didn't.
Because we were friends.
And friends don't look at each other like that.
Friends don't fall silent when the other smiles.
Friends don't dream of what it would be like to be loved back.
---
We walked home together that day.
It had rained earlier.
The sidewalks shimmered with puddles,
each one a mirror of things I couldn't say.
She jumped over a big one and turned to me, laughing.
"You walk like the ground might fall if you're not careful," she teased.
Maybe it would.
Maybe if I took one wrong step,
every hidden feeling would spill out,
messy and loud.
And she'd know.
And everything would end.
So I stayed quiet.
Always quiet.
---
We reached the bend in the road where we always split.
She had to turn left. I had to keep straight.
She lingered, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear.
"I'll see you tomorrow," she said,
and there was nothing special in her voice—
no weight, no pause, no hidden meaning.
But I stood there long after she left.
Watching where she disappeared.
Holding on to the ghost of her "tomorrow."
Wishing I was someone she missed when we parted ways.
---
That night, I sat by my window.
The sky was still gray.
But the stars had started to blink through the clouds,
soft and unsure.
Like maybe even they didn't want to be alone.
I wrote her name in the fogged-up glass.
Not her full name.
Just Laura.
Just enough.
I wondered if she ever thought of me when the world was quiet.
If she ever heard a song and thought,
That sounds like Aiden.
If her heart ever skipped a beat—
and it was because of me.
But probably not.
And maybe that's okay.
Because love, real love—
the kind that stays even when it hurts—
doesn't always need to be returned.
Sometimes, it just needs a place to exist.
Softly.
Silently.
Like a secret the soul promises to keep.
And mine?
Mine belongs to her.
Always has.
And she'll never know.
There's a kind of beauty you don't notice until you stop rushing.
The way the morning sunlight slips through curtains.
The way a tree's shadow dances when the wind forgets to be still.
The way Laura's hair catches that golden hour light…
like it was made to be admired in silence.
She doesn't know it—
but I watch the world more closely because of her.
---
We're thirteen now.
Middle school.
It's louder here.
Busier.
People change clothes, change laughs, change circles.
But not Laura.
She's still the same girl who hums to herself when tying her shoelaces.
The same girl who talks to plants like they're listening.
The same girl who once cried when a butterfly died on the sidewalk.
God, the world doesn't deserve her tenderness.
And I—
I don't deserve how much I notice.
---
Today, she walked in wearing a yellow scarf.
It wasn't fancy.
It wasn't even new.
But it made her look like spring had wrapped itself around her neck and decided to stay.
I swear the whole hallway looked brighter when she passed.
And I wonder—
Do others see her like this too?
Do they feel the quiet peace in her presence?
Or is that something only I get to feel?
If so…
then I'm both lucky and cursed.
---
In art class, we were told to draw something that inspired us.
Everyone picked clichés—mountains, oceans, a superhero.
I picked a chair.
It was Laura's chair.
Second row, third seat from the left.
Where she always sat.
Where her elbow rested when she scribbled notes.
Where her ponytail swayed when she laughed too hard.
It was the closest I could get to sketching her without confessing I wanted to.
When the teacher asked me why I picked it, I said:
"Sometimes, inspiration doesn't need a face. Just a presence."
Laura smiled when she heard that.
She didn't know.
She couldn't know.
But her smile—it stayed with me for days.
---
She lent me a book today.
"Read it. You'll like it," she said.
It was a simple story—
two friends and a garden and time passing slowly.
But every line felt like she had underlined it in my soul.
I read it in one sitting.
Then again the next day.
And once more—just to feel like she was speaking to me through pages.
I slept with that book next to my pillow for a week.
Not for the words.
For the hands that had held it before mine.
---
Once, I heard someone say admiration is distant.
But no.
Admiration is close.
It's in the way I memorize her handwriting.
The curve of her "y".
The way her lowercase "a" loops like a music note.
It's in the way I know she hates the smell of gasoline but loves the smell of old paper.
It's in how I remember she taps her left foot when she's thinking.
In how her eyes shift upward when she lies—
but only white lies,
like "I'm fine"
or "I'm not cold" when she clearly is.
I wish I could wrap the world around her shoulders when she says that.
But all I ever do is offer my jacket and pretend it's just friendly.
---
There's a tree near the back of the school.
It's old, cracked, and stubborn.
But it blooms the prettiest pink blossoms every spring.
Laura said it's her favorite tree.
Now it's mine too.
I sit under it sometimes when she's not around.
I imagine what it would feel like to be sunlight on her face.
A breeze in her hair.
Anything that gets to touch her without fear.
But I'm just Aiden.
The boy who walks beside her,
laughs at her jokes,
and hides poetry inside his ribs like secrets buried beneath the floorboards.
---
One day she said, "Aiden, you're always so quiet."
I shrugged.
But inside I screamed,
I'm not quiet. I'm full of you.
My silence is a shrine, Laura. I've built temples with your name in every echo.
But I smiled.
That half-smile I've mastered.
The one that hides hurricanes.
She smiled back.
And in that smile was a lifetime.
A lifetime I'd never have,
but one I'd cherish anyway.
---
Admiration isn't about wanting to own,
it's about wanting to protect.
To preserve.
To keep someone untouched by the world's sharp edges.
And Laura?
She's a painting I never dared to sign.
A song I hum but never sing.
I love her in the way rivers love the moon—
always reaching,
never touching,
but forever reflecting her light.
END OF EPISODE TWO