Loving Her from Afar: A Story of Shyness and Unspoken Love

A shy man repeatedly hid beside a creek to watch Charlene bathe, telling himself that love and artistic wonder justified his silence. When she sensed someone among the trees, he had one chance to reveal himself, apologise and confess.

He remained hidden.

Only later did he admit that silence had protected him—not her—and turned unspoken love into something selfish.

Read SEETHINGS to see where adoration crosses the line.

Every day, I found a reason to walk to the creek. I told myself it was the coolness beneath the trees, the restless water or the late sun reaching through the canopy.

The truth was simpler.

I went there hoping to see Charlene visit the creek.

She came alone in the afternoon, following the narrow path until it opened beside the water. Long before she appeared, I listened for her footsteps. A branch snapping could lift my heart. A bird disturbing the undergrowth could make it race. Then she would arrive, and the whole place seemed to become quieter around her.

I loved her. I had loved her for so long that I could no longer remember when affection became adoration. Perhaps it happened gradually: one smile, one conversation and one lingering glance at a time.

Charlene knew nothing of it. That was the cruelty of love missing its opportunity. It could feel enormous to one person and remain invisible to the other.

She would leave her clothes on a sun-warmed rock and step into the creek. The cold water always made her draw a sharp breath. Then she would laugh at herself, wade deeper and let the current fold around her.

I watched from the shelter of the trees.

There was wonder in seeing her there, but fear lived beside it. I knew this was her private moment. She had not invited me into it, and the secrecy that allowed me to stay also filled me with shame. Every afternoon, I promised myself I would turn away.

Every afternoon, the sight of her held me.

Her nakedness was not the thing that astonished me most. It was her freedom. Away from roads, houses and other people’s eyes, she seemed to become more herself. She lifted her face to the light. Her hair darkened in the water, spreading across her shoulders when she rose. Sunlight glanced from her skin, and the creek broke her reflection into silver fragments.

It reminded me of what I love about black-and-white nude photography. With colour and distraction removed, the body becomes line, texture, shadow and light. Charlene needed no camera or studio. The creek and the changing sun did it for her.

Sometimes she hummed. The tune mixed with water passing over stone until I could not tell where Charlene’s voice ended, and the creek began. When she laughed, the sound moved through the forest. I would close my eyes and hold it for a second, pretending she was laughing with me.

That pretence was safer than speaking.

Whenever we met elsewhere, I could talk comfortably until she looked directly at me. Then my thoughts scattered. Simple sentences broke apart before reaching my mouth. I would study the floor, my shoes—anything but her eyes—and she would smile, perhaps thinking I was merely quiet.

Shyness sounds harmless from a distance. It is not harmless when it locks the truth away. Mine became a prison built from imagined humiliations.

What if I told her and she laughed?

What if she stepped back?

What if honesty changed every easy conversation we had shared?

My greatest fear was not that she would say no. It was that I would lose the small place I already occupied in her life.

So I accepted longing in place of risk. I became an observer, although I knew there was a difference between an artist’s fascination with a willing young photography muse and watching someone who believed she was alone. Trust makes one a collaborator. Its absence makes the other far less innocent.

I understood that difference even then.

One afternoon, Charlene stood waist-deep in the creek and became unusually still. She turned towards the trees.

Towards me.

I stopped breathing.

For one impossible moment, I thought she could see me. Her expression was not frightened. It was curious, as though she had felt another presence and was waiting for it to reveal itself. My heart struck so violently against my ribs that I was sure she could hear it over the water.

All I had to do was step forward.

I imagined saying her name. I imagined apologising. I imagined confessing everything badly and at once: the love, the fear, the afternoons spent gathering courage that never came.

Perhaps she would cover herself and order me away. Perhaps she would understand. Perhaps wonder would become anger.

Perhaps love would finally have to meet the truth.

But I did nothing.

Charlene turned back to the creek. The moment closed. She dipped beneath the surface and came up laughing, pushing wet hair from her face. Relief passed through me, followed by something that felt very much like grief.

That is the tension a photograph can hold: the distance between what is visible and what remains hidden. In the quiet space between light and the skin, beauty is not simply a body before a lens. It is vulnerability, trust and the emotion carried by the person looking.

Charlene eventually left the water. She dried herself in the weakening sun, dressed and followed the path home. I remained among the trees until her footsteps disappeared.

I never told her I was there.

Perhaps that was cowardice. Perhaps it was the only decent choice left after I had already made an indecent one. I wanted to believe my silence protected her, but it mostly protected me. It allowed me to keep loving the Charlene I had created—the dreamlike woman who could never reject me because she had never been given the chance.

There can be tenderness in love and nature, but tenderness does not excuse everything done in love’s name. Adoration can be gentle. It can also become selfish when it takes something from another person without permission.

I returned to the creek many times, though never again while Charlene bathed. The water continued over the same stones. Light continued slipping through the trees. The place was still beautiful, but the wonder had altered.

I had feared that speaking might cost me, Charlene.

By remaining hidden, I ensured I never had her at all.

-M.