"That One Real Smile" is a Romance, Teen Fiction Novel. This story explores love, hope, dreams, friendship, and the bittersweet nature of life. Nox doesn’t let people in. Attachments fade, dreams shatter, and time never stops slipping away. He learned that the hard way. His father’s actions led to an accident that left him physically and emotionally scarred. But from that darkness, he found someone—Athena. She was his light, his safe place. But she wasn’t real.The Athena he met after the accident was a creation of his mind, a way to cope with the trauma. She felt real—comforting, familiar—but deep down, he knew she was nothing more than a fragment of his brokenness. Still, she made the loneliness bearable.Then, he met her again. The real Athena. She was persistent, bright, and strangely familiar. She reminded him of someone, someone he once cherished. And then the truth hit him—she was his childhood best friend, the girl who had once been inseparable from him. The one who had always saved him, even when he didn’t realize it. Even after they had been torn apart, she found her way back to him.But Nox had been hiding something all along. He was sick. He had known from the very beginning. It was why he built walls, why he kept everyone at a distance. Yet Athena, just like before, managed to slip through the cracks. She brought him out of his loneliness, introduced him to people, made him laugh, made him forget—if only for a while.For the first time in years, Nox allowed himself to live. To hope. To dream of a future. And in that dream, there was only her.So he confessed.And she rejected him.It broke him. He shut the world out again, disappearing without a word.Then they found him. In the hospital. His condition had worsened.Despite everything, Athena stayed. She spent months by his side, refusing to let him face the end alone. She laughed with him, held his hand, clung to every fleeting moment they had left.Then, under their favorite tree, in her embrace—he slipped away.No walls. No hesitation. Just her warmth, her presence—his real Athena. The one who had saved him, over and over again.