prologue

The rain fell heavily, as though it was shared in the sorrow of a woman standing without an umbrella to shield her. Her shoes were soaked, her body trembling with the cold, yet she did not truly feel it. What she felt instead was the pain stabbing at her heart, like a blade cutting deep, silent and precise, as though it could split her entire being without ever being seen or understood.

Across the street, a couple walked beneath a shared umbrella, so close they seemed inseparable. Their fingers were intertwined, and the girl leaned gently against the man's shoulder as their soft laughter was swallowed by the rain. Under the glow of campus lights, they looked like a scene out of a love story peaceful, effortless, as if the world belonged only to them. Every glance he gave her carried an easy warmth, the kind that needed no explanation.

And in the middle of that rain, she stood still.

Alone, without shelter, she became nothing more than a witness to a happiness that would never be hers. Behind her back, she held a letter tightly its ink already smudging, its words dissolving into the rain. What was meant to be a confession had become only proof of feelings that arrived too late.

The rain grew heavier, but she did not move. Until finally, her strength gave way, and she sank to her knees in the middle of the wet road, crying in silence as she carried a wound no words could release. She could have run. She could have sought shelter. But she stayed, drowning in the quiet grief of a love that never had the chance to begin.

Because sometimes, love is not meant to be seen or held.

Sometimes, it exists only in silence loving from a distance, never returned.

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