He watched her get bullied and could not understand why she took it.
But unlike everyone else, he could not stand by and watch.
----------
He became friends with her, and with him too. The three of them, together, felt unstoppable.
When he looked at them, he felt like he belonged. They to him, and he to them.
Three people who were really only themselves with each other.
She became less afraid; opened up to them, and they helped her change. They taught her to hope when she never had before.
They became the reason she smiled, and she was the reason they stuck together.
And it took him a while to realise he'd fallen.
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"Ok, here's the plan..."
He watched as she listened intently, almost as if his was the only voice she could hear.
It pained him that the voice was not his, nor the idea, nor the look that she wore on her face.
It was always somebody else, never him. Still, she seemed happy. He saw how day by day, she was making new friends, and while he was glad for her, a part of him wished it wasn't so, that she would only be his.
But when she turned to him questioningly, all he could do was make a silly face and tell her he was alright.
Because he couldn't tell her the truth.
----------
They sat on the roof together again, just the two of them, sharing a meal.
"Oh, there you are. Someone's looking for you." It was a classmate.
She nodded and stood up to leave, but he caught her hand.
"Is all that... Are they really that important?"
Her eyes met his through her hair, and she hesitated for what must have been forever.
"But... someone else needs me."
Someone that wasn't him.
And he realised that he had helped her change into something that everyone else wanted, and that she didn't understand.
No, she didn't know.
She didn't know that all he wanted her to be,
was her.
And as he let her hand slip away from his, he realised that she had never been the lonely one.
It had always been him.
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