They say people vanish only when they die.
I vanished while still breathing.
No one noticed when I skipped meals, when I sat in the corner of classrooms, when I walked home alone. Even my parents sometimes forgot I was there—like a misplaced object in the house, blending into the furniture.
I lived in a world of greys. Days repeated, nights stretched endlessly, and silence was my only companion.
Then she looked at me.
Just once. Just long enough to remind me I existed.
Her smile was sunlight against my faded walls. Her voice added colour to a world I thought had only black and white.
We became friends. We laughed, we talked, we built a fragile little world where my silence had meaning, because she listened. I loved her, though I never dared to say it. She loved me too, I think. But fear—fear of losing that fragile world—kept both our mouths shut.
Until the day she chose someone else.
I smiled when she told me, because fools always smile. She deserved happiness, even if it wasn't with me. She still saw me, still cared, and that was more than the nothing I once had.
Now, I walk the old streets again. Grey returns, silence deepens, but somewhere in the distance her laughter still echoes.
And I remain what I've always been.
Not invisible.
Not forgotten.
Just a fool, carrying the weight of a love too quiet to be heard.