With the way I behaved around her, it was only a matter of time before someone noticed. That someone turned out to be Ryan. One afternoon, he cornered me with a suspicious look and asked, very directly:
"Do you like her or not?"
At first, I denied it. I laughed it off. I shrugged. I made excuses. I wasn't sure about my own feelings, so how could I admit it to someone else?
But Ryan didn't let it go. He kept insisting, and eventually, I had no choice but to accept the truth out loud. The moment I said it, he just nodded like he already knew.
"I figured it out from the beginning."
I hadn't told anyone because I myself wasn't ready to admit it. I didn't know what to call the feeling I had for her. I wasn't sure if it was love, attraction, comfort, or just the joy of being around someone who made life feel lighter.
There was, however, one more person who knew — Randy.
I had met Randy during our training, though he was in a different class. He had a similar personality to mine, so we became friends quickly. He had his own college group, and somehow I fit into their conversations. Since he worked in a different building after training, we didn't meet often, but we stayed in touch and shared things that most people wouldn't understand easily. While I never spoke about Ruth to anyone else, I had told Randy about my feelings for her.
One evening, as I was leaving the office, I happened to bump into him on the corridor.
"Why aren't you leaving?" I asked.
He said someone had told him to wait. Then he told me to wait with him. So I stayed.
After a few minutes, his friend arrived—and to my surprise, that friend happened to be Ruth's flatmate. Not a close friend, just someone she had met during training. They ended up sharing a flat because they were from the same college.
Naturally, I started talking to her. I thought maybe I could get to know more about Ruth, or at least understand her better through someone who lived with her. At some point, I told her that I liked Ruth.
She stared at me for a second and said, almost casually:
"Really? You like her?"
Before I could respond, Randy jumped in and said,
"Yes, he does."
She laughed, not mockingly, just surprised. After talking for a bit, she suddenly said something that caught me completely off guard:
"I think you should drop the feelings toward her. It won't be good for you."
That sentence hit me like a brick.
What the hell does that mean? Why should I stop?
I asked her directly,
"Why? What's the reason?"
She didn't answer. She just shook her head.
"I can't tell you the reason. But you should stop having those feelings."
I asked her again. And again. But she didn't dare reveal the reason. I even told Randy to ask her, thinking maybe he could get it out of her, but he didn't get any answer either.
After that, the three of us headed out to eat. But my mind wasn't there. I was distracted, replaying those words over and over again:
"Drop the feelings. ""It won't be good for you."
What could that possibly mean?
While we were eating, Ruth suddenly walked into the same place. We didn't talk. We just waved. She waved back. Maybe she was with her other flatmates. It should have been a normal moment, but all I could think about was that warning I had just been given.
After dinner, Randy and I headed home. On the way, I told him again to ask his friend later about the reason.
I don't know why that comment hit me so hard. I didn't know what the reason was. I didn't know why I should stop. And I didn't know why someone else got to decide whether my feelings were valid or not.
By the time I reached home, my mind was running at full speed. That night, I couldn't sleep. Whatever I did—lying down, walking around, listening to music—nothing could distract me.
The same question kept looping in my head:
Why? What is the reason?
Why should I stop?
What did she mean it won't be good for me?
It was strange how one sentence from someone I barely knew could shake me more than anything Ruth had ever said to me.
I stared at the ceiling for hours, trying to subdue thoughts that refused to quiet down. There was no conclusion, no clarity, just a tight discomfort sitting in my chest and a curiosity that felt a lot like fear.
But one thing became clear that night:
Have I reached that stage where I am getting this affected?
And that realization scared me more than the warning itself.
Because if a feeling can be shaken so easily, maybe it wasn't a small feeling anymore.
Maybe it was already something bigger.
And as I finally closed my eyes sometime near dawn, one last thought whispered in my mind—
If loving someone is already this complicated before it begins… what would happen if it ever truly started?
I didn't know the answer then.
But I was about to find out.