She Was My Juliet—and the City Was Our Verona

I wasn’t supposed to fall for her.

She was from Gulberg. I was from Lyari.

Her father wore gold on his wrists.

Mine wore calluses on his hands.

Our last names didn’t belong in the same sentence—let alone the same love story.

But then she smiled.

And I knew.

I was Romeo. She was Juliet.

And the city was our Verona.

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📍 Karachi, Pakistan — 2022

We met at a university debate.

She spoke like fire.

I listened like a forest.

She wore a navy blue kurta, and I couldn’t stop staring at the way her words sliced through the silence of that dusty auditorium.

Her confidence made the whole hall lean forward.

Her eyes were storms wrapped in mascara.

She wasn’t just arguing—she was rewriting gravity.

During the break, I walked up to her, heart thudding like a tabla.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

She smiled, sharp and soft at once.

“Aaliyah Malik.”

I grinned.

“You just killed my argument.”

She laughed.

And I fell.

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🔥 Love in Silence

We started messaging. Then calling. Then meeting.

On rooftops.

In old bookstores.

In cafés too far from our homes to be recognized.

We read poetry like secrets.

We shared chai like confessions.

I memorized the sound of her sighs.

But love in a divided world grows like a flame under glass—beautiful, but fragile.

Her father once said at a dinner where she was forced to smile,

> “No Malik girl ever marries a nobody.”

I wasn’t supposed to hear it.

But I did.

And the words scorched.

What burned more was her silence.

She didn’t defend me.

Didn’t fight back.

But that night, her voice cracked through the phone as she whispered,

> “They don’t know you, Romeo. But I do.”

And I believed her.

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🌒 The Midnight Plan

One night, under a sky bruised with stars, she whispered:

> “Let’s run away.”

I blinked.

“Are you serious?”

She nodded slowly.

“I’m tired of pretending. Of hiding. Of being someone else’s obedient daughter. I want to be yours.”

She wanted to leave everything—money, comfort, family—

For a boy with second-hand dreams and hand-me-down clothes.

I hesitated.

Not because I didn’t love her.

But because I knew how stories like ours end.

Still, we made the plan.

Friday night.

Railway Station.

One bag each.

New city.

New names.

New life.

And maybe, just maybe—new hope.

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🕛 The Night Everything Changed

I waited on the platform,

heart galloping with every train horn that echoed through the night.

The lights flickered.

Couples passed.

A chaiwala called out into the cold.

But she never came.

I called.

No answer.

I texted.

Nothing.

I waited until the last train left, until the platform was empty, until I was just a boy with a broken plan and a suitcase full of maybe.

Then morning came.

So did the photo.

A WhatsApp status.

Sent to everyone.

Aaliyah Malik.

Dressed in red.

Henna on her hands.

A stranger by her side.

Her smile didn’t reach her eyes.

But it was enough to end me.

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🧩 Aftermath

I didn’t eat for days.

Didn’t speak for weeks.

I walked the streets of Lyari like a ghost,

passing rooftops where we once watched stars,

bookstores that still smelled like her perfume,

and cafés where her laughter once echoed in the walls.

And just like Shakespeare said...

> “These violent delights have violent ends.”

We weren’t poisoned like the real Romeo and Juliet.

But we died anyway.

Not all deaths are loud.

Some are quiet, slow—

One memory at a time.

The rooftop where she kissed me.

The bookstore where we hid between poetry shelves.

The train platform where I waited for her shadow.

She left me with a thousand goodbyes she never said.

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🕊️ If I Could Write Our Ending…

I’d rewrite fate.

I’d let her walk toward me that night with a suitcase in one hand

and defiance in her eyes.

I’d let us board that train.

Share a bench seat and a future.

I’d let the world whisper behind our backs

while we built a life in a town that didn’t care for bloodlines or bank balances.

I’d let her love win.

But this isn’t a fairytale.

This is Karachi.

This is real.

And in our city,

Romeos from Lyari don’t get their Juliets from Gulberg.

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💬 To the reader…

If you’ve ever loved someone the world said you shouldn’t—

If you’ve ever stood on a platform waiting for a forever that never came—

Then this story was written for you.

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