The Girl Behind the Mask

I’ve never been good at entering rooms.

Something about walking into a space full of people makes my body shrink like my bones know I don’t belong. I keep my head low. My eyes trace the floor. I pretend to scroll through my phone. I act like I’m invisible, because sometimes that feels safer than being seen.

But then I glance up. And the world the loud, crowded, blurry world goes still.

Because you’re there. Always there. In your usual spot. Wrapped in your own quiet presence like it’s a soft blanket only you can wear.

You sit with your hoodie pulled just right over your head, a mask covering the lower half of your face, headphones in, your fingers gently tapping to a rhythm only you can hear. You're never trying to draw attention. You never raise your voice. You don't speak unless you have to. And yet somehow, you are the loudest feeling in the entire room.

I’ve never seen your full face. Not even once. But God, I swear… you’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever laid my eyes on.

It sounds impossible, right? To fall this hard for someone whose mouth I’ve never even seen. But beauty doesn’t always live in the obvious. Sometimes, it lives in fragments in stolen glances, in soft energy, in mystery. And you… you are the perfect mystery.

Your mask may hide your lips, your smile, your expressions but it could never hide you.

Because your eyes, they do all the talking.

They shine like stars who’ve seen lifetimes. Soft and faraway, but present. They speak in a language that only poets and dreamers understand the kind of language I didn’t know I could still hear after growing so used to silence. They’re warm, almost melancholic, like they’ve cried and loved and survived things no one has asked you about.

Your eyes have depth not the kind you can fake with contact lenses or makeup. No. It’s something more… ancient. Like the moonlight touching ocean water. Like late night thoughts that you can’t explain but feel too deeply to ignore.

And even though I can’t see the way your mouth moves when you laugh, or how your lips curl when you’re thinking even though I don’t know the shape of your smile I can feel it. I can feel it in the way your eyes soften when something amuses you. In the way your lashes lower when you get shy. In the way your presence pulls my gaze like gravity, every single time.

And I don’t mean this in some shallow, surface way.

You’re not the kind of beautiful that depends on looks or filters or outfits. You’re the kind of beautiful that makes time feel slow. The kind of beautiful that makes people question what love is made of. The kind that makes strangers fall in love without ever hearing your voice.

You don't say much hardly anything at all but that only adds to the magic. Because in your silence, there's elegance. In your quiet, there's comfort. And in your stillness… there's home.

Sometimes I sit there, far across the room, pretending to be busy, pretending not to notice you but I do. I notice everything. The way you cross your legs. The way you hug your arms around yourself when the AC is too cold. The way your head bobs ever so slightly to the music you're listening to. I even notice when you change playlists I don’t know how, but the mood around you shifts when the song changes. I wonder what it is. I wonder what you listen to, what lyrics are comforting you when the world feels too loud.

And maybe one day, I’ll know. Maybe one day, I’ll ask. Maybe one day, we’ll sit beside each other, two quiet souls finding warmth in the spaces between words. Maybe I’ll say, “Hey, I see you always listening to music… what are you listening to today?” And maybe you’ll smile a smile I’ve never seen before but always imagined and you’ll pull out an earphone, offering me a sound from your world. And I’ll fall in love all over again, this time with the melody you carry.

But until then, I’ll keep admiring you from where I am.

And maybe that’s what this love is right now not loud, not messy, not reckless. But gentle. Secret. Soft.

Maybe it’s loving someone in the most human way: quietly, hopelessly, and honestly. Loving someone who doesn’t even know you exist… yet. Loving someone who doesn’t need to say a single word to change your entire day.

I don’t know your story. I don’t know your name. I don’t know your voice, or your laugh, or what makes you cry. But I know you. I know your silence. I know your light. I know the kind of energy that makes a shy boy like me look up from the floor and believe even for a second that maybe love still exists in this world.

And maybe, just maybe…

You’re the proof.