One-Sided Love Story: When Loving You Was My Quiet Battle

One-Sided Love Story: When Loving You Was My Quiet Battle

 

When Loving You Was My Quiet Battle

I loved you in silence.

Not because I was afraid to speak, but because I knew your heart already belonged somewhere else. Every day, I watched you smile, laugh, and talk about dreams that never included me. And every day, I pretended it didn’t hurt.

You called me your best friend.

I called you my world — in my mind, in my prayers, in my sleepless nights.

I was always there when you were sad. I listened when you talked about the person you loved. I wiped your tears when they left you crying. And each time, my heart broke a little more, quietly, so you would never hear the sound.

I memorized your favorite songs, your coffee order, the way you tucked your hair behind your ear when you were nervous. I noticed everything — because loving you was the only thing I was good at.

Sometimes you’d hold my hand when you were scared.

Sometimes you’d hug me when you felt lonely.

And every time, my heart would lie to me and whisper, “Maybe this means something more.”

But it never did.

One day, you told me you were in love again. Your eyes were glowing the way mine never did when you looked at me. You asked me if I was happy for you.

I smiled and said yes.

That smile cost me everything.

That night, I went home and cried the kind of cry that doesn’t make noise — the kind that sits heavy in your chest and steals your breath. I realized something painful and beautiful at the same time:

I didn’t lose you.

I never had you.

Still, I don’t regret loving you. Because even if my love was one-sided, it was real. It made me softer. Stronger. More human.

And if loving you was my quiet battle…

Then losing you is my quiet victory.