There are certain eyes you can forget in seconds.
Beautiful ones.
Sharp ones.
Soft ones.
Eyes that belong to people you pass every day without remembering the shape of their face a week later.

And then… there are the other kind.
The rare kind.
The kind that stay.

Her eyes stayed with me.

Not in the dramatic, poetic way people exaggerate when they talk about fate.
No.
This was different.
It was quieter.
More subtle.
More real.

It wasn’t what her eyes looked like — I still couldn’t describe their exact shade, or whether they were warmer or colder than the moment itself.
It was what they did to me.

Those eyes had a strange honesty in them, as if she wasn’t trying to hide anything… yet somehow was hiding everything.
A contradiction wrapped in a single look.
A story I could sense was deeper than what she let people see.
A mystery that didn’t push you away — it pulled you closer.

And that was the dangerous part.

Because the more I tried to forget that moment, the more it replayed in the back of my mind. Even while working, even while talking to other people, even while pretending to be busy, I kept going back to her. To that second. To that look.

It felt like my thoughts kept orbiting the memory of her without permission.

I didn’t want to admit it at first.
It was just a moment, I told myself.
A spark.
A coincidence.
Nothing more.

But some coincidences feel like they’re meant to be noticed.

Maybe because they shake something inside you.
Maybe because you recognize a piece of yourself in someone else without knowing why.
Or maybe because somewhere deep down, even if you refuse to say it out loud, you want something to happen.

And with her, I did.

Not in the physical way.
Not in the desperate way.
But in the curious, magnetic, undeniable way.

There was something in her eyes that made me want to understand her.
To know what she hides when the world isn’t watching.
To hear the tone of her voice.
To see how she smiles when she’s not pretending.
To find out what hurts her, what heals her, what keeps her awake at night.

It’s strange how a single glance can wake up parts of you that have been asleep for years.

I found myself imagining small things, stupid things — how she might laugh, how she might look when she’s annoyed, how she might sound saying my name.
I caught myself wondering what kind of music she listens to, or whether she prefers late nights or early mornings.
I wondered if she reads.
If she overthinks.
If she’s been hurt.
If she trusts easily, or not at all.

I wondered too much.
And I felt it.

My chest had that subtle heaviness, the one that tells you something new is starting inside you even if nothing has technically happened yet.

Connection doesn’t always begin with words.
Sometimes it begins with attention.
With the way someone stands out without trying.
With the way their presence changes something in the air around you.

Her eyes did that.

They carried a softness that wasn’t weakness, and a fire that wasn’t arrogance.
A strange mixture — gentle but strong, guarded but open enough to make you curious.

It was the kind of look that stays with you not because it was perfect, but because it felt… true.

And truth is rare.
Especially these days.


—

That night, I tried to distract myself.
Tried scrolling my phone, watching something, cleaning — anything to pull my mind away from thinking about her.
But it didn’t work.

Every time I blinked, I saw her.
Not her face — her eyes.
That exact moment.
That calmness.
That quiet intensity.

It felt like her eyes asked a question I didn’t yet know how to answer.
And maybe I didn’t have to.
Not yet.

What surprised me most wasn’t that I remembered her…
but that I wanted to.

It felt like life had been silent for a while.
Routine.
Predictable days.
Simple conversations.
Nothing surprising, nothing unexpected.

And then suddenly — her.

A spark in a world that had started to feel dim.
A reminder that something inside me was still capable of reacting, of feeling, of noticing.

Maybe that’s why her eyes stayed with me.
Not because they were beautiful — though I’m sure they were.
Not because she wanted attention — she clearly didn’t.

But because they woke up something in me.
Something I had forgotten.
Something I didn’t even know was missing until it returned.

I didn’t know where this story was going.
I didn’t know if our paths would cross again.
I didn’t know her name, her voice, her story.

All I knew was this:

If destiny was real,
it would look exactly like the way she looked at me.

And somehow…
I had a feeling that this wasn’t the last time I’d see her.

Always and Forever.