I've been called many things—loud, bossy, annoying, dangerous, dictator, Hitler.
But no one ever called me what I truly was:
The girl who refused to quit the boy who never even started.
Even after the rose.
Even after he forgot my name.
Even after the empty seat at my first race.
I still… liked him.
Not in the fluffy, dreamy, filmy way. But in the stubborn, bone-deep, I-see-his-soul-even-if-he-can't-see-me kind of way.
I knew he didn't care.
I knew he was too focused on his future, too far ahead in a world of scalpels and surgeries and perfect, composed ambition.
But I cared.
So I kept finding excuses to stay close.
Passed by his new college sometimes after school. Followed his journey through whispers in the hallways, photos in the annual report, rare appearances on campus.
He was becoming someone.
Someone important. Someone brilliant.
And I… I was still the same wild, fierce, loud Vashti.
Still racing. Still dreaming. Still hoping.
One day, my friend asked, "Why him, Vashti? There are other boys who like you. You could melt steel with one look, and you're wasting time on a guy who doesn't even blink your way?"
I smiled bitterly and said,
"Because none of them make silence feel like thunder."
That night, I opened my scrapbook and glued a photo from a racing magazine—an F1 driver lifting a trophy, face blurry behind a helmet.
Underneath it, I wrote:
"I'll make it. Even if he never looks back. I'll make it because he made me feel like I had something to prove."
Even if I'd already lost the race of love…
I wasn't quitting.
Not on him.
Not on myself.
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