Almost Us ep 2

Some nights, they stayed up talking under a blanket of stars, conversations stretching so long the world felt like it had shrunk to just the two of them. There were pauses when the air felt heavy with something unsaid, moments when the dreamer almost confessed—

But then the other would laugh, break the spell, move on to another topic, and the words would vanish like smoke.

It was cruel, in a way—how close it all felt. How much like a couple they sometimes seemed.

When they leaned against each other on tired evenings.

When they fell asleep on the same couch after movie nights.

When they laughed until tears ran down their cheeks, faces inches apart.

It was everything a relationship looked like—except for the one thing that mattered most.

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Sometimes the dreamer wondered if maybe, somewhere deep down, the other knew.

Because there were glances—soft, fleeting glances—that felt like they held questions neither wanted to ask. There were smiles that lingered, silences that hummed with something heavier than words.

But nothing ever crossed the invisible line between them.

Maybe the other person didn’t feel it.

Maybe they felt it but didn’t want it.

Maybe it was easier this way—for both.

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The hardest part was the craving.

The craving for more than this careful friendship. For the right to call at midnight just because. To hold hands in public without pretending it meant nothing. To belong to each other in the way couples do—messily, completely, fearlessly.

But craving and reality rarely walk hand in hand.

So the dreamer swallowed it all—the confessions, the longing, the ache that came every time they watched the other talk about someone else with eyes that sparkled differently.

Smiled through it. Stayed the friend. The safe place. The one who never asked for more.

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Because some loves are too fragile to name.

And maybe this was love too—the kind that asks for nothing in return, that chooses the other person’s happiness even when it breaks you a little.

The kind that stays hidden because it’s easier to carry the weight alone than to risk losing what little you already have.

So it remained unspoken, living in the spaces between almosts, in the stolen glances, in the silent what-ifs that would never become anything more.

Because some loves aren’t meant to be lived out loud.

Some loves are only meant to be felt.

Maybe life would have been different if the words had been spoken.

If the silences had been braver, if the laughter had paused long enough for confessions to slip through. If the heart hadn’t been so afraid of shattering what little it already held.

But the thing about time is that it doesn’t wait for you to gather courage. It moves. People move. Feelings, though heavy, get carried forward until distance takes root where closeness used to live.

One day, the messages became shorter. The late-night talks turned into polite check-ins. The umbrella walks in the rain belonged to another season entirely.

And maybe that was the real heartbreak—not some big, loud ending, but the slow fading of something that once felt endless.

Because now, looking back, it was clear: the silence had cost everything.

The dreamer had thought keeping the feelings locked away would protect what they had, but instead, it buried them under years of almosts and maybes.

And the other person? They had moved on, laughing in someone else’s arms, smiling in photographs the dreamer wasn’t part of.

So the regret lived on, sharp and unyielding—the knowledge that it could have been something, that it almost was, that love had been right there waiting to be spoken into existence.

But it never was.

And now, it never would be.

Because some chances only come once. And once they’re gone, all you’re left with are echoes of what could have been and a heart heavy with the weight of unsaid words.

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