"Hello"

He said "Hello". 

She responded with "Hi".

It was simple. It was innocent. It was supposed to be nothing more than a simple conversation started by simple words. It was supposed to be nothing more than an exchange of simple words that was meant to be nothing.

Yet as she spoke, she felt pieces of herself slowly crumbling down and creeping towards him. 

Yet as he spoke, he felt strings of his soul slowly reaching to touch hers and entangle with hers.

She talked about rainbows and dragons. He listened intently. He laughed at the right moments. He was sad when she told him how her pet bunny died. He told her to get a new one and he personally named it. 

He talked of how life had been too cruel on him. He talked of how he had to slay his own dragons an demons too. And she listened. Very intently, she listened. She made it her mission to keep him happy. Most of all, she wanted him to see the lessons from the things that he went through. 

It's funny how things have changed from being strangers who exchanged a simple hello to best friends who tell each other everything. She was his confidante, he was her muse. When she couldn't write anything at all, she turns to him for inspiration. She was his world, and he was hers.

"Hello's" have slowly turned to "I love you's". It wasn't supposed to mean something. She didn't mean to fall in love, and so did he. 

It was a bittersweet love story. She was risking everything and he was giving her everything he could. But time and distance were cruel mistresses.

For years, they tried to keep up with each other. They worked around their schedules, developed new sleeping patterns, and tried to beat the thousands of miles between them.

But it wore them down eventually. The "I love you's" have slowly turned to "I don't care." The "I don't care" dwindled down to silence until there were no words left to be said.

Time and distance were cruel mistresses. Love did not disappear, but time and distance were too much for their fragile love to handle. He was her true love, she was the love of his life. They were meant to be but they aren't. 

We don't always end up with the ones we love the most but in the end, we can only be as happy as we choose to be. She ended up with the other prince, not the one she was supposed to be with, and she's trying to be happy. He ended up surfing through life without her but he's trying to make things work on his end. 

He said, "Hello."

And she did her best not to text back with, "hi".