By now, she had developed methods.
Since she still didn't have her glasses, she couldn't recognize faces properly from afar. So she identified him in other ways—his walk, the shape of his hair, the slight bounce in his step. Blurry silhouettes became familiar patterns. That's how she spotted him, again and again, in fragments.
One day, she was having lunch in her favorite little corner when she saw him again. This time, he wasn't alone. He came back with a group of guys, and she assumed—perhaps too quickly—that he was an extrovert.
She watched too closely, trying to focus, trying to see if it was really him.
Then it happened.They made eye contact.
It lasted less than a second, but her body flared with heat as if it had been hours. Embarrassed, she immediately looked away and practically hid her face behind her hand as he passed by.
Later, she found out the truth.
There was a park there.
He hadn't been partying. He'd been walking, enjoying nature.
And just like that, something in her shifted.
The crush was still there, sure. But now it was layered with admiration. Quiet reverence for a boy who had just been living his life—blurred in the distance, yet somehow growing sharper in her heart every day.