Well I thought the similar when I fell in love. I was like 12 at the time so didn't really make sense what the hell is happening. I wasn't aware all I can think about is her and making nonsense crazy decisions just to be with her. For me love is insanity in a real sense.
Why I fell in love with her? She was like any other girls TBH, but there was a significant difference. Despite how sad her life is she knew how to be happy. It was hard for her to think about her father who is almost brain dead and can die any moment in hospital bed suffering from a coma. The fact that to not be homeless how her mother forced herself to marry with a man who loves to force her work and her daughter while he sits himself on his ass watching TV all day.
Learning about these just didn't make me sad, it made me angry, it made be confused, it made me question my own weakness. I had nothing to do. All I could do is trying to make her happy. I admired her mature and strong personality by the way she dealing with her life.
But I was naive to think she would love me. One day I wrote a love letter to her and gave her. She just read it and threw it onto floor and refused to talk to me for months. If we were in the same class things would be so awkward.
Then after her father died, her stepfather was like "well no reason to say here then, let's go back to my town". So that night, she found me outside somehow (I had usual places I liked to be around our street). She said she loved me too but she was scared of her stepfather. She wanted to say goodbye.
I didn't buy it. After rejection my love for her was already dead so I have realized she wasn't with me because she cared about me, I was just the only available person at night when she was intentionally refused to go inside her house while she waiting for her stepfather to crash onto floor drinking his liver out lol. While we were "friends", the way she rejected me with so angry face. If you had loved you wouldn't be that angry like an incent felt entitled to imply you would love him as if I didn't deserve her. But I wasn't rude, I just said goodbye and walked away.
But I was still naive. I questioned my own judgment to come up with an answer of if she really loved me or not. I had no idea where she went, but somehow I learned about the city she went to very later.
I was in high school then so I had no way to travel to a city that's far away. All I did was trying to gain information from kids who sometimes go to that city to visit their families there or something.
One day my investigation lead to a boy who fell in love with a girl who pretty much matches all the descriptions, even her name. But he didn't know her surname. I advised him to find her next time he was there. He asked around but she was left, there was no trace of it. But then me and him became best friends we still always talk despite it been many decades. Eventually I forgot about her and all, but there was always a wish to find her again remained. I didn't even know what I would say to her if I had found her.
Then thanks to internet being popular around, invention of Facebook worked in wonders. I was so complicated for few decades to just forget about her, but curiosity kills the cat lol:
So one day I searched her name. I didn't even expect to find her. I was barely sure I found her. Then what make it clear, among tons of pictures of her she uploaded on Facebook there was the picture of her in a state I always knew her. I didn't see her for decades. But seeing her old picture like that my memories was fired up. It was her. What's more, she even mentioned where she live. What an irony, she seemed to had a job around a place my house was actually very close. Sometimes as a reflex I looked at every girl and then women who was similar to her hoping to find her again but then finding her working in a place so close? What a BS.
I went to the place she was working in. I didn't wanna talk to her. In my own way I wanted to just conclude that chapter in my life. I wanted to see her alive and well for the last time. I waited for her to see her better until the evening. Then I saw a man and a little girl came via a car. The man wanted to pick her up from the place she was working. She said to the girl "my little princess" and hugged her and then she kissed the man. Naturally I understood she was married was happy. She always wanted to be a mother. I was glad for this conclusion for her life. She deserved a better life. Then with a smile on my face I just walked away to my home, never saw her again. Not that I would anyway.
Well I wasn't a person who even had care to be in romantical relationship. So her rejection or absence didn't hurt me at all. She was the first and last girl I cared to love. Well if I had the mind I have right now back then I wouldn't love her. I'm rather even glad that she and me was never a thing because she changed so much I know I couldn't love a person like that, I changed a lot. It somewhat felt like "oh god I dodged a bullet" instead of concluded as a sad love story lol. I just wish she hadn't said "I love you too but I was scared of my stepfather" so after she rejected me I would have had more peaceful decades.