She was the girl I’d hurt.
The one I humiliated.
The one I made cry.
The one I punished just for being light when I was made of everything dark. And now she was breaking in front of me, and I’d done that.
“I didn’t—” I swallowed hard, my throat burning. “I didn’t mean for it to hit you.” My voice came out small. Weak. “The ball. That was—”
But even as I said it, the words tasted like ash.
It didn’t matter.
Intent never mattered when someone was already bleeding.
Her breathing hitched, sharp and uneven.
When she finally looked at me, it wasn’t anger that I saw. It was betrayal.
Quiet.
Pure.
The kind of pain that doesn’t scream, it just stops trusting.
And I’d never seen anything like it. Not even in the mirror.
“T-tired,” she whispered. Her voice cracked, but she forced it out anyway.
She paused, shaking, trying to breathe through the words.
“No one sees…m-me” Her chest heaved, her lip trembling.
My lungs locked.
I see her.
God, I’vealwaysseenher.
From the first day, when she sat there in her corner, writing instead of talking, shoulders small but spine straight.
When she smiled at everyone else except me.
When she got hurt, she still showed up.
She was never invisible. Not to me.
Maybe not seen, but she’s always been in my eyes.
Always.
And maybe I never said it.
Maybe I never knew how.
But she’s the only thing in my life I’ve never been able to look away from.
And that—that would never change.
