Maybe In Another Life

**Maybe in Another Life**

Siam had always been quiet. The kind of boy who observed more than he spoke, who noticed the way light filtered through windows, or how people’s faces changed when they were truly laughing.

When they were both adolescents, he ran into Sohani at the wedding of a cousin. She wore a mustard yellow salwar kameez, her laughter ringing louder than the wedding music. Siam was in love. Not in the dramatic, movie-scene way—but in the quiet, terrifying way where your heartbeat changes without permission.

They were distant cousins, from different cities. Sohani lived in Dhaka, Siam in Sylhet. Their families crossed paths a couple of times a year. She treated him like a friend each time they met. Kind, warm, always smiling. She called him "Siam bhaiya" like all the younger cousins did. It ought to have been sufficient to point out the line. But feelings don’t follow rules.

Over the years, they kept in touch through the usual channels—family group chats, Instagram stories, a random birthday call. To Sohani, it was just family. But for Siam, every message from her felt like a glimpse of a world he longed for but could never touch.

He memorized her laugh. The way she tucked her hair behind her ears. The songs she added to her playlist. He would watch her photos, her updates, her life—unfolding like a story he wasn’t a part of.

He never told her how he felt.

How do you confess something so heavy to someone who sees you as a cousin? A friend? A brother?

Instead, he held it in.

Until one winter afternoon, she called. He was in a rickshaw on the way to his university campus when her name lit up his phone.

“Siam bhaiya,” she said, breathless with excitement, “I have news!”

He already knew. He had seen the pictures on her mother's Facebook profile that morning. He just hadn’t opened them.

“I’m getting married,” she said.

Time stopped.

“Oh,” he replied, keeping his voice calm, even cheerful. "Who is the fortunate man?" Rafi is his name. Lives in Toronto. He’s nice. Really nice. His family is known to my parents. He wanted to ask: *Do you love him? * But what right did he have?

“I’m happy for you,” he said, meaning every lie.

He didn’t attend the wedding. He told his family he had semester finals, but really, he couldn’t bear to watch her walk into someone else’s life. Not while he still carried her in every corner of his own.

After the wedding, she slowly faded into silence. A few occasional texts. Eid greetings. Photos on social media—first of her in Canada, then her honeymoon, later her with a baby in her arms. She looked happy. He told himself that should be enough.

He had a few girlfriends. Nothing major. Nothing stuck. His friends joked that he was too picky, too romantic for his own good. Maybe they were right.

But none of them were Sohani.

Years passed.

Siam built a good life. Steady job, good friends, even his own apartment. But every now and then, when it rained, or when an old song came on the radio, his chest would ache like it used to when he was nineteen.

One day, he heard from a cousin that Sohani was visiting Bangladesh with her husband and son. Dinner would be shared by all of them at an aunt's house. He didn’t go.

Instead, he walked alone to the lake behind his apartment complex, sat on a cold bench, and watched the sunset melt into the water. Just like that night on the rooftop all those years ago, when he almost told her.

He took out his phone, opened her old messages, and stared.

No new ones.

He typed:

**“I hope you’re happy.” **

It was then deleted. She didn't have to be aware. She never had.

Love stories don't always work. They’re silences. They’re the ache you carry without expecting anything in return.

Siam would never be part of her world.

He would always be the boy who loved her quietly.

In another life, maybe she looked back.

In another life, maybe she loved him too.

But not in this one.

**And in this one, he let her go. Alone. Unseen. Unloved. **