She is the quiet girl. Not shy, she just has little to say. She's the girl that everyone likes, the girl who would do anything to help someone else. She's the girl that doesn't gossip about anyone, and would not let a person get away with bullying. She's the girl whose never had a boyfriend or a date to a dance, and yet she appears to be always happy. And, she is secretly in love.


From afar she loves him, admiring his gentle kindness. He's on the football team, and has a lot of friends. She has a few classes with him, and yet, he never notices her. She loves how his dark eyes sparkle when he speaks, and how his smile lights up an entire room. The way his dark hair lays across his eyebrows makes her heart flutter, and merely hearing his laugh puts her on cloud nine. But as much as he makes her feel good, he tears her apart inside. As he passes her in the hall, not even sparing her a glance, her heart cracks just a little more. She aches to have him smile at her, and make her laugh as he does with his girlfriend. But, she believes that it will never be. So she sits in silence, being silently tortured by her desire for him. For years she watches, continuously putting on a content face when, in reality, her heart is being torn apart, piece by piece.

Senior year rolls around, and she has given up hope for him ever wanting her. After all this time he has not said one word to her, spared her one smile, not even a glance. Her heart is raw and broken, and the glimpses of him that she gets during the day no longer hold her fragile spirits high. Her desire for his affection has become a cage, a prison, preventing her from seeing the beauty in a summer day, or the positive things she has in her life. She slowly spirals into despair, and can no longer keep up the charade of apparent happiness. The rest of the year goes by for her in misery. On graduation day, she cries, not for losing her friends, but for the loss of a love. She leaves the building, openly mourning for the one who got away. Then, someone touches her arm and she turns around. He looks at her, and finally gives her the smile that she has been waiting for, a smile meant just for her, and no one else.

And he said to her,“Hey, I just wanted to apologize for never saying anything to you before, and to say goodbye before you leave”. And she thought, after all of those years of agony that he put her through, all he could say was sorry, for knowing full well that she existed, and still choosing to say nothing to her. The only time that he felt he needed to say anything to her was when she was leaving forever. And with that, her desire for his affection was lost. He wasn't the guy that she had thought he was, and she no longer felt the need feel sadness as she realized she'd never have him. Instead, she began to feel the sadness for all the good times she passed over, waiting for him to notice her, and discover that he wanted her too. As a final goodbye she said to him,



“Thanks”

“For what?”, he replied.

“For setting me free.”

With that, she walked away, leaving him standing totally bewildered, and leaving behind the years of sadness and despair she'd felt for him, realizing that he was never worth it. As she got farther away, she smiled a true smile for the first time in years, because she was finally released from the prison of a love that was never meant to be.