The Girl Who Was Allergic to Love

By [Hubrexx]

In a small, rain-drenched town where time moved slowly and hearts beat in silence, there lived a girl named Elara with a peculiar condition—she was allergic to love.

It wasn’t a metaphor, nor the exaggeration of a poetic soul. Elara had an actual medical diagnosis. Every time she felt romantic affection, her body reacted violently. Her skin would break out in hives, her eyes would swell, and her throat would tighten until breathing became a desperate struggle. Doctors were baffled. Psychologists called it psychosomatic, immunologists called it unprecedented, but Elara just called it cruel.

While other teenagers giggled about first kisses and crushes, Elara sat quietly, watching from the sidelines. She envied the way love made people brave and reckless. She dreamed of the fluttering sensation others described—of butterflies and skipped heartbeats. But her own heart betrayed her. Even a simple hug from someone she cared about could send her spiraling into anaphylaxis.

Elara wore gloves everywhere. Not because she needed to—but because it reminded people to keep their distance. Love letters, glances, flirtations—they were all dangerous for her. So, she built walls. High ones. With sarcasm, with distance, and most effectively—with silence.

But life has a strange way of finding cracks in even the most fortified barriers.

It began one autumn afternoon in the library. The scent of old paper hung heavy in the air. Elara was in her usual corner, nose buried in a book, when she heard a cough.

“Is this seat taken?” a voice asked.

She looked up to see a boy with messy hair and nervous eyes. He wore a jacket too thin for the weather and carried a sketchbook under his arm.

Elara hesitated. “Yes,” she lied.

The boy didn’t budge. “Then I’ll sit on the floor.”

That was her first warning.

His name was Theo, and he was reckless in a quiet way. He didn’t try to impress her. He didn’t flirt. He just sat nearby and sketched—books, windows, leaves, and once, unknowingly, her.

They shared silence like some people share secrets. Over time, he started talking. Stories about his childhood, about dreams he barely understood. And though she never said much back, she listened. And listening turned into caring.

And that was her second warning.

One day, as the first snow fell, Theo handed her a folded paper. Not a love letter, not exactly. Just a drawing—of her, sitting in the library, lost in thought. At the bottom, he’d written:

"You look like someone who wants to believe in something impossible."

Elara smiled. Her cheeks turned red. And suddenly, she couldn’t breathe.

Her throat closed. Hives erupted on her arms. Panic bloomed faster than any emotion ever had. Theo rushed her to the hospital, confused and terrified.

Later, when she could speak again, she told him the truth.

“I’m allergic to love,” she said. “Not in the way people joke. Literally. My body attacks itself when I feel it.”

Theo was silent for a long time.

“So what now?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she whispered.

But the thing about love—the real kind—is that it doesn’t demand to be felt all at once. It grows in the quiet, in the careful. Theo never stopped sketching. Never stopped sitting beside her in silence. And over time, her body learned the rhythm of his presence. Slowly, cautiously, her reactions dulled.

They never kissed. They barely touched. But love found a way—through laughter, through shared pages, through every moment she didn’t get sick when he smiled at her.

Maybe she wasn't allergic to love.

Maybe she was just waiting for the kind that wouldn’t hurt.