There's a way the air changes when something is about to end. It hums with a sadness only hearts can hear — low, steady, undeniable.
She didn't know how she first sensed it. Maybe it was in the way he smiled a little less. Maybe it was in the way their little accidental collisions grew fewer, quieter — as if the universe itself was gently preparing her for a heartbreak she hadn't asked for.
One ordinary afternoon, she heard it. A whisper in the hallway.
He was leaving.
Leaving. Such a small word to carry so much ache.
She felt it like a thread pulling loose inside her chest — a tiny unraveling she couldn't stop.
At first, she told herself it didn't matter. That their story — whatever it had been — was already finished, folded and tucked away in the quiet drawers of her heart. But the truth was sharper:
:You can't mourn someone twice if you never stopped missing them the first time."
She walked the office halls differently after that. Every glimpse of him felt heavier, more precious — even if he never looked her way. Even if she kept pretending not to notice.
There's a strange kind of grief in losing something you never really had. No memories to hold onto. No promises to break. Only the fragile hopes she had built in silence, now crumbling in her hands.
And then, somewhere in that quiet sadness, something stirred. It wasn't a sudden revelation, but something that had always been there, tucked too deep to name.
But now, she said it — softly, tearfully — to herself:
"I love him."
It felt different than she had imagined. Not romantic or poetic, just... real. Raw. Like handing a piece of her soul to the empty air.
A love that had no room to bloom.
A love that had never really been hers to begin with.
She had once bought a necklace.
A simple, beautiful piece from Buscalan — something people wore for protection, for meaning. She had bought it with a quiet, foolish hope. That maybe someday, she'd give it to him.
To say, "Take care. Stay safe."
To offer something real, even if he never knew what it meant.
But now, with the news of his leaving, she realized that day would never come. The necklace would stay in its box. A quiet reminder of something that never got the chance to grow.
And in the hush of that realization, she wrote it.
A letter.
One she knew he would never read.
One she would never be able to give him.
But she needed to write it anyway.
Not because she expected anything — but because the truth inside her had grown too heavy to keep carrying.
It wasn't just a goodbye.
It was a confession.
A quiet scream folded into ink and paper.
She loved him.
And with that love came the necklace — the gift she would never give. A token of care, a symbol of hope, a prayer wrapped in silver.
Now, it all felt futile.
The letter remained unsent.
The necklace stayed in its box.
Because he was leaving.
And with him went every unspoken word, every almost, every what-if.
She sat at her desk in the quiet hum of the office, staring blankly at her screen, lost in the silence that had always defined them. Wishing, just once, that she could say:
"You were worth every moment of this silent love."
But the silence, it seemed, had already spoken for them both.
And so she said goodbye — not out loud, not to his face, but in her heart.
Because this wasn't about him knowing.
It was about letting go.
Even if it hurt more than she had ever imagined.
Because love, she realized, is often quiet. A stillness that lives inside you, even when the world keeps moving on.
Maybe someday, someone else would hear her words.
Maybe someday, she'd give her heart freely.
But for now, she held onto the necklace.
And the letter.
And the memory of a boy who would never know how much he meant.
Because in her story, he would always be the part that changed everything — even if he never knew.