There she is.

There she is.

We talk often, but never about the things that matter. We circle them. I joke, I dodge, I keep it light, because light is easier than honest. I usually settle for less, for almosts, for maybes, but she is not less. And she’s not too much either. She exists in that unbearable middle where everything feels possible and fragile at the same time. She feels natural, like something I wasn’t supposed to find, but did anyway.

I’m afraid of taking that step. Afraid of moving forward, of letting my voice betray me, of asking her to go out with me and watching the moment change forever. Afraid that the way she looks at me now will disappear the second I ask for more. So I stay here, suspended, wanting, waiting, choosing silence over risk, even though silence hurts too.

She’s obsessed with romance. Real romance. The kind people mock because it believes too much. And even if I don’t fully understand it, I see it in her, in the way she listens, in the way she remembers small things, in the way she hopes without apologising for it. She carries stories inside her, and somehow she has become the closest I will ever get to living inside one of them.

Not in a physical way. Not in the ways people usually measure desire. But in my mind. In my chest. In the quiet moments when I imagine what it would be like if I were braver.

Because with her, everything already feels like the beginning of something. And beginnings are cruel. They make you believe before they make you certain. They make you imagine a future you’re not sure you’re allowed to want.

And maybe the most honest thing about all of this is that I’m not afraid of her. I’m afraid of myself. Afraid of wanting this as much as I do, and still standing here, doing nothing, hoping that feeling alone might somehow be enough.