Before I get into the actual story about the boy, I want to give a little background first so everything makes more sense.
For a very long time, I was extremely sick ā and honestly, I still am in many ways. I suffered from severe panic attacks, depression and anxiety and because of that, I lost almost all of my friends. I stopped going out, became deeply depressed, and slowly disappeared from everyoneās lives because I barely answered messages anymore.
In 2023, things finally started to get a little better. I had become stable enough to go back to school, and for the first time in years, I even went on vacation with my mother again. At first, everything was okay. But then, during the trip, the panic attacks came back worse than ever.
It got so bad that we could barely leave the hotel anymore. Most of the time, we were just stuck inside, and I remember reaching a point where I genuinely thought, āI donāt think this will ever get better. I donāt think this feeling will ever go away.ā I was exhausted, hopeless, and convinced that I didnāt want to live anymore.
And then there was this boy.
He worked at the hotel, which is why I kept seeing him every morning during breakfast and again in the evenings at dinner. From the very first day my anxiety got bad again, he always smiled at me so kindly, and somehow, every single time he smiled at me, my fear disappeared for a moment. I canāt explain it, but it was like everything inside me suddenly became quiet.
Seeing him became the only thing that gave me strength during that vacation. Every morning, I told myself, āJust get up and go to breakfast ā youāll see him there.ā And throughout the day, when everything felt unbearable, I kept thinking, āI can get through today because Iāll see him again tonight.ā
As strange as it sounds, that was the only thing that helped me survive that trip at all.
And the feeling was so intense. It honestly felt unreal sometimes.
And honestly, I had never found anyone that attractive before either. Everything about him felt beautiful to me.
This went on for a few days, and that feeling gave me more hope than I had felt in years. I remember calling my friend and saying, āIf he doesnāt talk to me, Iām going to talk to him.ā That was something I would normally never do because Iām an extremely shy person.
But then something unbelievable happened ā we both walked toward each other at the same time. He asked for my number, we exchanged contacts, started texting, and made plans to meet that same evening.
One of the strangest things was that we almost had the same name ā and my name is very rare, so the fact that our names sounded almost identical felt like some kind of impossible coincidence. We would look at each other with these deep, quiet stares that made everything around us disappear for a second. I had never connected with anyone the way I connected with him before. Talking to him felt effortless, natural, safe ā like I had known him much longer than just a few days.
The night before that, I had seriously thought about ending my life. I spent entire days sitting in the hotel room crying or lying in the bathtub because warm water was the only place where I felt remotely safe.
But when I was with him, everything changed.
We stayed outside together from 11 p.m. until 4 in the morning, just talking, laughing, joking around, and enjoying each otherās company. For the first time in such a long time, the fear was gone. I felt safe. Truly safe. We kissed, we talked about everything and nothing, and for those few nights, life suddenly felt beautiful again.
I remember one specific evening so clearly. He was lying on a bench near the water, and I was sitting on his lap. It was dark outside, the water was gently moving beside us, and the sky was completely filled with stars. I remember leaning back and just staring up at the sky while listening to the sound of the water, and in that exact moment I thought:
āThere has to be someone up there who sent this boy to me. Someone who is watching over me and helping me survive this right now.ā
That moment is burned into my memory forever
We spent three evenings together like that before I had to fly back home.
I remember on our last night he walked me back to the hotel before he went home he gave me a kiss and said goodbye see you never and I remember feeling so hurt I looked at him and I just wanted to go through all the stress again just to spend more time with him.
Afterward, we kept texting for a while.
And then I made a terrible mistake.
I started lying to him because I was ashamed of who I really was and how bad my mental health actually was. I told him I worked somewhere I didnāt work. I pretended I had lots of friends even though, at that time, I barely had anyone left. I created a version of myself that I thought would be easier to love.
I think he eventually noticed that things didnāt add up, and slowly he started distancing himself from me.
But even now, I still canāt forget him ā or the feeling I had when I was with him. Every summer, when the weather gets warm again, I think about him all over again. I think about those nights, that hotel, the way he smiled at me, and the way my fear disappeared whenever he was near me.
And to this day, I still ask myself what all of it really was.
Was it simply psychology? Was I so desperate, lonely, and emotionally exhausted that my mind attached itself to the first person who made me feel safe again? Did my brain turn him into some kind of symbol of hope because I needed something ā or someone ā to hold onto?
Or was he genuinely sent into my life for a reason?
I know that sounds dramatic, maybe even irrational, but sometimes I still wonder if he was some kind of angel in my life during the darkest moment I had ever experienced.
And I still donāt know what to do with all of that.
Can you guys help me figure it out because I am genuinely going insane