My crinkling eyes met your wandering ones and in an instant memorised them. There was something so inviting about them. Hazel, with what seemed to be rays of golden sunshine bursting in them. There was something so enigmatic about you, something that sent a chill down my spine. You were in the room but you weren't present. And you didn't care. Well, you didn't care until I started to speak. I would sneak a glance your way to see if you were listening, and always started shivering when I saw that you were. At first I thought it was all in my mind. But then you smiled at me. You had actually smiled at me. It was weeks of nothing but my trying to decipher what your behaviour meant. 

I had never actually liked someone before. All the boys I'd met up to that point were so unworthy of my attention, they were shallow, believing a girl is nothing more than her looks. I don't think I am 'pretty' by any means, so it came as a shock to me that in a room full of girls who were objectively prettier than me, extroverted, so smart and genuinely interesting and funny, you were paying attention to me. I didn't know what to do with this realization. All of the other people who looked at me before... well, nobody looked at me like that before. I had people tell me they liked me before but they never actually saw me. They were mistaking my being nice for 'flirting', they were looking at me and seeing a different girl. You were looking at me like you were looking at a Renaissance painting at a time when my self confidence was lower than the Dead Sea level. At the time I was feeling so unfit in my body, I felt like the elephant in the room. And you were actually listening to me. And talking to me. You were laughing at how awkward I was in a way that made me feel like I belonged in the room, and not like I was an intruder like everyone else did. You were teasing me about my 'lore'. And our short conversations were always the highlight of my day.

And with each conversation, the better I felt in my skin. 

And then, you became the enigmatic boy I met again. You started talking less and less with me. You looked at me for no more than a stolen glance. And slowly you faded. But whenever I refuse to look in the mirror, I remember how you looked at me, and I brave the mirror again.