I still remember the first time we met.
We were just kids in high school, attending different schools, living separate lives that somehow crossed paths on a basketball court. You had joined my cousin's team for a local tournament, and neither of us knew then that a simple afternoon would become one of the memories I would carry for the rest of my life.
I remember catching you looking my way.
And then looking away just as quickly when our eyes met.
I remember the shy smiles, the stolen glances from across the court, and the way neither of us seemed brave enough to say what we were thinking. We were young, awkward, and trying so hard to pretend we weren't noticing each other.
But we were.
Everyone could see it.
What I found out later made me smile for years. You had secretly asked around for my number. Too shy to ask me directly, you somehow managed to get it anyway. Back then, it felt like the sweetest gesture in the world, that someone would quietly gather the courage to find a way to reach me.
Your team became champions that year.
And just as quickly as you came into my life, I had to leave. My family moved away, and whatever story might have been waiting for us was interrupted before it even had the chance to begin.
Then six years passed.
Six years of growing up, changing, and wondering about the people we once knew.
When we finally saw each other again, I invited you and your brothers to hang out. I thought it would be easy. I thought we would laugh about old memories and pick up where time had left us.
But the moment you arrived, I realized something had not changed at all.
You were still nervous.
The same shy smile. The same hesitation. The same boy who used to steal glances from across a basketball court.
What I never told you was that I was blushing the entire night too.
I spent the evening pretending I wasn't nervous, trying my best to act natural around you. Meanwhile, you seemed so uncomfortable that before the night was even over, you found an excuse to leave early.
At the time, I laughed about it.
Now, it's one of my favorite memories.
Because years had passed, life had happened, and yet somehow we still made each other shy.
There was something beautiful about that.
No grand romance. No dramatic declarations. Just two people whose hearts seemed to forget how to behave whenever they were around each other.
And now, looking back, I realize that some of life's most precious moments are not the loud ones. They are the quiet ones. The lingering glances. The nervous smiles. The words we never found the courage to say.
I wish I had more memories of us.
I wish there had been more time.
But perhaps that is why the memories I do have feel so sacred.
You may never have known how fondly I carried them all these years.
The basketball court.
The championship.
The number you secretly asked for.
The reunion six years later.
The way we both became shy all over again.
Thank you for those moments.
Thank you for making a teenage girl feel special, and for reminding a grown woman that some feelings can survive the passage of time.
Rest peacefully.
Somewhere in my heart, you'll always be that shy boy across the basketball court, looking away whenever I caught you staring, and smiling when you thought I wasn't looking.
