They never called it love.Not when their fingers lingered too long. Not when silence between them felt louder than words. Not even when leaving each other felt like losing oxygen.They called it hunger.A craving. A momentary lapse. A mistake they kept repeating.

She learned early how to disappear. Not in the way of vanishing footsteps or closed doors—but in quieter ways. In swallowed words, in silences that stretched too long, in the careful shrinking of herself so no one would notice she was breaking. In a house filled with voices, hers was the one that never seemed to matter. Love, to her, was a distant thing—soft, unreachable, and never meant to stay. Until the day she met him. He did not save her. He simply saw her—and somehow, that was enough. In his presence, the world felt less heavy, the silence less cruel. For the first time, she felt warmth, like sunlight tracing its way into the cold spaces she thought would remain untouched. And slowly, dangerously, she began to believe she could be more than invisible. But light, she would learn, is never given without consequence. Because just as she started to find herself in him, the life she came from began to pull her back—testing how much she was willing to lose for something she was never meant to have. And in the end, she would have to ask herself— if being seen was worth the risk of being left in the dark once again.