When She Looked at Me
I’ve been waiting for you
I didn’t know it was happening—at least not at first.
Love, I mean.
It didn’t come all at once. There was no lightning strike, no swelling music. Just her laugh on a Tuesday afternoon. The way she tucked her hair behind her ear when she was nervous. The way she looked at the world like it had secrets worth discovering.
I think it began in the quiet, in the way she sat beside me without needing to fill the silence. Like being near was enough. Like she understood something about stillness that no one else did.
She wasn’t loud or wild. She didn’t need to be.
She listened with her whole heart, spoke with care, and moved through life like she was stitching beauty into the fabric of everything she touched.
And when she looked at me—really looked—I felt like I mattered. Not for what I did. Not for how I tried. But just… for being.
That was new for me.
We were sitting beneath the stars the night I finally let myself say it—what I hadn’t dared to name. The air was cool, and the world had gone quiet in that sacred way it does when something important is about to be said.
She was watching the sky, tracing constellations with her eyes. Her hand was resting inches from mine. Close enough to feel, but not yet touching.
And I just… said it.
“I think I’ve been waiting for you.”
She turned to me slowly, and for a moment, I panicked. Wondered if I’d said too much, or said it too soon. But then she smiled—soft and sure—and leaned into me like gravity had been pulling her toward that moment all along.
She didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to.
Because I saw it in her eyes:
The same ache. The same knowing.
And in that moment, I understood something no poem or song had ever made clear— love isn’t just a feeling.
It’s recognition.
It’s coming home.
It’s the world finally making sense when someone else walks into it.
And for the first time in my life, I knew what it meant to be seen. To be chosen.
To be loved.
All because she looked at me—and didn’t look away.
