Matt

I never knew what love was… until I saw it.

I used to walk the school halls like a ghost in human form. Quiet, cold, distant. No one approached me. No one dared. And I... didn't want them to either.

But then he appeared.

Blonde hair, spring-green eyes, soft freckles that looked like stars on her pale skin. She laughed easily, greeted everyone, spoke tenderly even to strangers. She was everything I wasn't. Everything I didn't understand.

And yet, I couldn't stop looking at him.

He walked past me every day, sometimes humming songs, sometimes playing with his backpack. Sometimes he'd sneak a glance at me… and I, cowardly, would look down.

I wanted to talk to him. I wanted to tell him something. I wanted to know his name. But the words died in my throat.

He was light. And I was afraid of dirtying her with my shadows.

So I just looked at him in silence. And in my chest, without him knowing, something began to grow that I had never felt for anyone.