Chapter 2 – The First Conversation
Days passed, maybe even weeks, but I kept seeing her. Sometimes in passing, sometimes from a distance. She had this effortless way of drawing attention—not because she tried, but because she was just... her.
I told myself it didn't mean anything. That it was just one of those passing moments in life where someone catches your eye and then fades into the background. But that wasn't what happened.
She stayed.
Not physically, but in my mind. In the quiet moments when I wasn't thinking about anything at all, suddenly, there she was—her voice I had never heard, her laughter I had never listened to, and those eyes I couldn't forget.
And then, one day, it happened.
We spoke.
It wasn't planned, and it wasn't dramatic. There was no perfect setup, no carefully crafted words. Just a simple moment where we ended up in the same place at the same time.
She looked at me first.
And then she smiled.
"Hey," she said.
Just that—hey. And in that one word, everything changed.
I should've responded immediately, but for a second, I just stood there, caught between reality and the strange realization that this was the first time I was hearing her voice.
"Hey," I finally replied, feeling ridiculous for how much weight that small word carried.
She didn't seem to notice my hesitation. Or if she did, she didn't make it awkward. Instead, she laughed lightly—like we had done this a thousand times before—and said something else.
Something ordinary.
Something that I don't even fully remember now because, at that moment, I wasn't focused on the words.
I was focused on her.
That was the first conversation. Simple, forgettable to anyone else, but unforgettable to me.
And just like that, she was no longer just someone I saw.
She was someone I knew.