The next day, I sat at my bench near the back of the class, my eyes drifting forward without much intention.
Lyra was laughing.
Mike had said something—probably one of his usual silly jokes—and she laughed easily. Not loud. Not forced. Just comfortable. Natural.
I watched the way he spoke without hesitation. The way he leaned in without thinking twice. The way she responded without guarding herself. They shared a moment that existed fully in the open, in real space—unfiltered, undelayed, not hidden behind a screen.
And I felt it again.
That quiet jealousy.
Not because of what they were.
But because of what they could be.
The ease of it. The reality of it. The way laughter didn't need time to be shaped into words.
No matter what their dynamic actually was, I envied that place—being able to exist beside her so freely, so visibly.
Yet I stayed quiet.
Like I always did.
I shut my emotions down the way I'd learned to—folding them inward, locking them away, pretending they didn't matter. I told myself I was being mature. Or maybe I was just hiding. Running from something I didn't know how to face.
Nothing changed that day.
And it wasn't going to change anytime soon.
That night, the quiet followed me.
And with it came a question I hadn't meant to ask myself.
What was I to her?
Not in a dramatic way. Not something that needed a name. Just—where did I exist in her life?
In class, I was almost nothing. A familiar presence at best. Someone she knew, but didn't really meet. I didn't sit beside her. I didn't make her laugh there. I didn't share moments that could be seen, remembered, or talked about.
But in messages, I was there.
I was the one she talked to every night. The one she trusted with her worries. The one she opened up to when the weight became too much. Behind a screen, I was clear. I spoke. I listened. I mattered.
That contrast unsettled me.
It was strange—being real to someone in words, yet nearly invisible in front of them. Like I existed in a version of her life that only appeared after the day ended. Like I was part of her thoughts, but not her world.
I didn't know which version of me was more honest.
The quiet one who watched from a distance.
Or the one who typed carefully, choosing every word.
Maybe both were real.
Or maybe neither was enough.
I didn't find an answer.
The next morning came. The class moved on. And I carried the question with me—unresolved, but heavier than before.
That night, we texted like usual.
Nothing special started it. No heavy topic. Just the familiar rhythm we had fallen into—small jokes, passing comments about the day, conversations that didn't need purpose to exist.
Then, somewhere between messages, she asked something unexpected.
She asked me about friends.
If I had many.
If I had ever lost someone I was close to.
If it ever hurt.
I stared at the screen longer than I meant to.
The truth was simple, but not easy to explain. I hadn't really had many friends to lose. I kept people at a distance without fully realizing it. Bonds never felt permanent to me, and I never learned how much importance to give them. It wasn't that I didn't care at all—I just didn't know how to hold onto people.
So I gave her the simplest answer.
I told her I didn't really care much about friends or bonds. That I hadn't lost anyone important. That it never affected me the way it seemed to affect others.
She didn't reply immediately.
When she did, her message was short.
She said she would be sad if she lost me.
The words stayed on my screen longer than they should have.
She would be sad if she lost me.
The conversation kept moving, but my focus didn't. My replies came slower. Shorter. I reread that line again and again, trying to understand it the way I understood everything else—logically.
I couldn't.
So eventually, I asked.
I typed a single word.
Why?
She replied almost immediately.
She asked me why I would even ask that. Why it surprised me. She said it was obvious she would be sad—because losing someone like me would hurt.
That only confused me more.
I told her I didn't really understand. That I didn't see much good in myself. That I wasn't someone special. I told her I was quiet, awkward, and often unsure of everything—including myself.
There was a pause.
Imperfectly perfect, she said.
She told me I was imperfectly perfect to her.
I stared at the message.
Then I laughed.
Not out loud—just that quiet kind of laugh you make when something feels unreal. When your mind immediately pulls up reasons why it can't be true.
Images came without asking—Lyra laughing in class, Mike standing beside her, the way conversation looked effortless there. Real. Comfortable. No pauses. No overthinking. No screen between them.
And then there was me.
So I replied before I could soften the thought.
I asked her what was so perfect about someone who couldn't do anything without a screen behind him. Someone who could talk freely only when he had time to type, erase, and rewrite. Someone who couldn't even speak to her normally. Someone who wasn't even… normal.
The words felt heavy once they were sent.
I didn't mean them to sound bitter. Or self-pitying. They were just honest. That was how I saw myself—someone brave only in messages, invisible everywhere else.
For a moment, there was no reply.
I wondered if I had said too much.
Or if I had finally said what I always avoided saying.
And sitting there, phone in hand, I realized something uncomfortable.
I wasn't just afraid of being close to her.
I was afraid of what she might see if she ever looked at me the way I looked at myself.
She replied after a while.
She said that was exactly why she called me imperfectly perfect.
She said she knew I wasn't confident. That I struggled to speak in real life. That I hid behind texts sometimes, and doubted myself more than I admitted. She said she wasn't blind to any of that.
But she also said none of those things erased what I was to her.
She told me I was always there when she needed someone. That I listened without judging, without rushing, without trying to turn her feelings into problems that needed fixing. That I never made her feel small for being tired, or broken, or unsure. That with me, she didn't feel pressured to pretend she was okay when she wasn't.
She said that even when I didn't say much, my presence mattered. That my words—quiet as they were—stayed with her longer than most loud ones ever did. That I made her feel understood in ways she didn't know how to explain.
That's why, she said, I wasn't perfect.
And that's why I was perfect in my own way.
Imperfectly perfect.
I read the message slowly.
Then I smiled.
Not out loud. Just a quiet, disbelieving smile—thinking of how I couldn't even speak properly in front of her, how I froze in real life, how I needed a screen just to be myself. Thinking of how easily she laughed with Mike, how natural they looked together, how comfortable real conversations seemed for everyone else but me.
What was so perfect about someone like that?
And yet—
For someone who always tried to understand things logically, her words didn't fit into anything I knew. I couldn't argue with them. I couldn't reason them away.
They didn't make sense on paper.
But they made me happy.
For the first time, I felt like I wasn't being measured by what I lacked. Like I didn't need to be louder, braver, or different to be enough for someone.
It felt like finding a place where I belonged—
Without having to change.