nice guy (4)

Back in college,  There was this pretty girl, she was popular in
college. Everyone in our class adored her, and many guys tried to get close to
her. I liked her too, but unlike others, I never hid my feelings. I never made
excuses. I was honest.

I told her I liked her, but she said
there was no future between us. Still, I stayed, hoping that maybe one day she
would see me differently. By the end of graduation, I gathered all my courage
and proposed. She rejected me again .
I
tried to move on, but a part of me always cared.

A year later, I heard she had agreed
to an arranged marriage. I was devasted  but told myself that she deserved happiness,
even if it wasn’t with me.

At first, her life looked
perfect—honeymoon trips, photos, smiles. But behind the pictures, the reality
was different. Her husband started asking her to quit her job, came home drunk,
picked fights, and even hit her. She became a shadow of the girl I once knew.
When she thought of leaving, her family shut her down, saying divorce would
bring shame.

People keep saying arranged
marriages are the best because divorce rates are low. They never talk about the
pressure, the fear, and the sacrifices that keep those rates low.

Through it all, she still reached
out to me. Late-night calls. Quiet messages. Little updates about her baby, her
day, her struggles. I listened. I comforted. I stayed.

But every time we met, I saw it—the
pain behind her eyes with  carefully
practiced smile. She’d laugh, but her eyes told the truth: she was breaking.

And I couldn’t do a thing.

Because in the end, I’m just the
safe place she runs to when she’s tired of crying alone. I’m the guy who would
have treated her like a queen, but she chose a man who turned her world into a
cage.

That’s the cruel truth about being
the “nice guy”:

You’re the shoulder she cries on, not the reason she’s smiling.

I’m still here, picking up the
pieces of a heart that was never mine—watching the girl I once loved live a
life she never deserved… with the man she chose.

.