The Love I Never Said

I was twelve when I first felt it—that quiet flutter in my chest when he smiled. I didn’t know it was love back then, not really. But I knew it was something more than the joy I felt with other people. His name was Arman, and he was my cousin.

We were always close, born just six months apart. Our families were tightly knit; weekends were for gatherings, for laughter and homemade meals and games in the backyard. Arman was a light in those days—charming, kind, effortlessly funny. He had a way of making everything feel like magic.

We’d play hide and seek for hours. I always let him find me too easily, just to see the little victory grin that spread across his face. At night, when everyone sat around in the living room, I'd steal glances at him from behind a book or a cushion. Sometimes our eyes would meet, and he'd smile—not the smile that twisted my heart, but a simple one, warm and unaware.

I never told him. How could I?

I was afraid. Afraid of being laughed at. Afraid of ruining the easy, beautiful bond we had. Afraid of being wrong. Society has its rules, its boundaries. And though in some places love between cousins is accepted, where we lived, it was always spoken of in whispers—if at all. So I buried my feelings deep, like a precious stone hidden beneath layers of earth, only for me to know it existed.

Still, I loved him in small, silent ways.

I saved the last piece of cake for him when we shared dessert. I memorized his favorite songs, even the ones I didn’t like. I’d notice when he cut his hair, or wore a new shirt, and carry that image with me for days. I still remember one summer when he helped me ride a bike without training wheels. His hand steady on my back, his voice shouting, “You’ve got it, Julia! Keep going!”

And I did, more for him than for myself.

When we entered our teenage years, things started to shift. Arman became more distant—not in a cruel way, just in the way boys grow apart from the girls they used to see as playmates. He started hanging out more with his school friends, talking about girls he liked, girls who weren’t me. He never knew how I’d shrink a little inside each time.

I never envied those girls. I envied their freedom to love him out loud.

One night when I was sixteen, I cried myself to sleep after hearing him talk about a girl named Layla. I remember sitting on the porch with him, the stars above us, our legs barely touching. He told me she was beautiful, that she made him nervous and excited all at once. I smiled, nodded, asked him questions like a good cousin should. Inside, I was breaking.

I think that was the first time I truly understood heartbreak.

And yet, I never stopped loving him. I just got better at hiding it.

Time passed. We grew up. He went off to university in another city, and we saw each other less. Texts became shorter, conversations less frequent. But whenever he came back for holidays, my heart would still race just a little when I heard his voice at the door.

He once brought a girl home with him. I was twenty by then. She was sweet, and pretty, and everything I wasn’t. I was polite, of course. I smiled and helped serve dinner and pretended not to notice the way he looked at her.

Later that night, when I was alone in my room, I held my pillow tight and wept.

I often ask myself why I never told him. Maybe part of me hoped he would somehow feel it too, without needing the words. Maybe I was waiting for a sign. Or maybe I knew what the answer would be, and I couldn’t bear to hear it out loud.

Even now, years later, I still love him.

He’s married now. Two kids. We meet during family gatherings, and he still treats me with the same affection, the same warmth. He’ll ask me about my job, my life, and I’ll tell him everything except the truth I’ve kept all these years.

Sometimes, I watch him playing with his children, and the ache returns. It’s softer now, like an old scar, but it’s there. A gentle reminder of the love I carried for so long. The love I still carry, in some quiet corner of my heart.

I’ve tried to move on. I’ve dated, loved others, lost others. But it’s never quite the same. No one has ever made me feel the way Arman did—like the world was simpler, like I was safe.

There’s a strange beauty in loving someone who never knew. It’s a kind of pure, selfless love—one that doesn’t ask for anything in return. Just the chance to exist quietly beside them, to cherish them from a distance.

Sometimes, in the silence of my room, I imagine what it would have been like if I had told him. I picture us walking through the woods behind my childhood home, the leaves crunching beneath our feet. I would stop, turn to him, and say, “Arman, I’ve loved you for as long as I can remember.”

But I never did.

And maybe that’s okay.

Maybe some loves are meant to remain unspoken. Maybe they exist to teach us about longing, about patience, about the resilience of the human heart.

He’ll never know how deeply I loved him. How deeply I still do.

But I know.

And for now, that has to be enough.