Laughter danced through the air like music from another life soft, careless, beautiful. It came from a table near the window, where two souls leaned close, lost in their own easy rhythm. Their fingers brushed, lingered, held like love was a natural thing, not something rare or hard-won. Not something fought for in silence.
Across the street, behind the smudged glass of a quiet bookstore, someone watched.
There was no jealousy in those eyes. Just stillness. Just that quiet ache that comes from knowing exactly what something is and exactly how it feels to never have had it. The way warmth wraps around people who don't even notice they're warm, while others stand in the cold, memorizing every flicker of heat just in case they get the chance.
Love, they say, is the greatest thing. But for some, it becomes the cruelest.
Because the ones who carry it so freely often don't see it for what it is a miracle. A chance. A gift. And the ones who have spent their life chasing even a whisper of it? They know. They know its weight. They know how much it costs to be unseen, how loud silence can get when you're the only one listening.
There had been glances once. Hopes. Moments that almost became memories. But they never did. It was always just short of being real. Close enough to feel it, far enough to lose it.
Still, the heart never stopped opening.
That's the thing about those who've never had love they often become the best at giving it. They understand what it means to be gentle. To wait. To see someone fully. To hold space without expecting anything in return.
So the one in the bookstore just stood there. Watching. Feeling it all. Not bitter, not angry just knowing.
Because knowing love's worth, even without ever being chosen by it, is a kind of love, too. Quiet. Unreturned. But real.
And sometimes, knowing is the most honest form of love there is.