A Love Written in Silence

He was alone on the far bench in the courtyard of the university library, sketching something in an old notebook, when Mira first saw him. His focussed eyes, slightly furrowed brow, and precise finger movement suggested that he was not only drawing but also recalling. She didn’t know his name. Honestly, no one did. He was quiet, always alone, always sketching. Rumors floated around — that he was mute, that he’d lost someone, that he was brilliant but broken. Mira didn’t care for rumors. She cared for a brief time. She also wanted to know him because of the way he looked at the world, as if it were both beautiful and unbearable. She started sitting near him. Neither next to him nor too close. Just close enough to make her visible to him. Even though most days she only drew or scribbled snippets of her thoughts, she would bring her own notebook and pretend to write poetry in it. He never glanced upward. Not once.

Until the day it rained.

The air smelled like memory and earth thanks to the gentle drizzle. Students scattered, rushing indoors. Mira remained. So did he. She observed as he cautiously cloaked his notebook in his jacket before giving her a genuine first glance. She grinned. He nodded but didn't respond with a smile. a minuscule, almost unnoticeable nod. It was enough.

Their ritual of silence went on for a few more weeks. She’d arrive first, he’d follow. He would draw on occasion and just sit. Mira began to pay attention to the little things, like the way he started by tapping his pencil three times, tilting his head to look at a tree or a bird, and how he seemed to breathe differently when she was near. She brought a book of poetry by Rumi and set it on the bench between them one afternoon. He stared at it for a long time before picking it up. He simply held it, as if weighing its significance, rather than opening it. After that, he reached into his notebook, ripped a page, and gave it to her. "Words are not my language," it read. But I hear you.”

Her heart skipped a beat. His name was Azaan. She learned it from the librarian, who whispered it like a secret. “He used to speak,” she said. “Prior to the incident. Prior to his brother..." Mira didn’t ask for more. She didn’t need to. She admired the fact that people could be silenced by pain. Instead, she began writing to him. Not letters, but rather brief notes. Observations. Questions. Thoughts. They would be returned the following day after she left them on the bench. Thoughtful, sometimes poetic, sometimes cryptic. “Do you believe in love?” read one note. "Only the kind that doesn't need to be spoken," was his response. They never touched. Never hugged. Never kissed. However, the ways in which they knew each other felt deeper than skin. Mira learned that Azaan liked the smell of old books, the color of the night, and the sound of rain. He learned that she feared abandonment, loved thunderstorms, and dreamed of writing a novel one day.

She penned, "If I wrote a story, would you be in it?" one day. A sketch of a girl sitting on a bench with her eyes closed, smiling, and her hair blowing in the wind was his response. A boy with a notebook stood beside her, staring at her as though she were the only thing that made sense. The cold came along with winter. A warm, deep blue wool scarf was presented to him by Mira. He hesitated before accepting it before nodding and wrapping it around his neck. She wanted to say something — anything — but the silence between them was sacred. She didn’t want to break it.

However, silence can be delicate. He vanished from sight one day. She sat still. Hours passed. Days. He was not visible. The bench felt colder. The courtyard is less full. She asked the librarian, but she only shook her head.

He received a letter from Mira. a genuine one. Pages and pages of everything she’d never said. She left it on the bench, with a stone supporting it. It was gone the next day.

She discovered a package in her dorm room weeks later. No name The letter she had written was written only in her own handwriting on the envelope. His diary was contained within. Every page filled with sketches of her. Her smile, her posture, her hands, her eyes. On the final page, a single line reads: "I loved you quietly. Every sound will bring me back to you. She cried.

The time passed. Mira published her first novel. It was called A Love Written in Silence. The dedication read: “To the boy who taught me that silence can speak louder than words.”

She never saw Azaan again. But sometimes, when it rained, she’d sit by a window, close her eyes, and feel him beside her — quiet, steady, present.

She also knew then that not all affections require words. Silence is used to write some stories. And some hearts never stop listening.

- A Brief Synopsis of "A Love Written in Silence"

Azaan, a mysterious, mute artist who spends his days sketching alone in the campus courtyard, quietly attracts Mira, a poetic and observant university student. They form a strong emotional bond based on unspoken understanding through silent companionship and note-taking. Their connection grows without the need for words as Mira discovers Azaan's past and his quiet grief. When Azaan suddenly disappears, Mira is left heartbroken but inspired. After she writes him a sincere letter, she gets a sketchbook from him with drawings of her in them and a final message: "I loved you in silence." Every sound will bring me back to you. Mira returns to the university years later as a published author. Azaan is honored in her debut novel, A Love Written in Silence. A quiet encounter with a student and a mysterious note hint that Azaan still watches from afar. At the end of the story, Mira accepts the ever-present presence of a love that never needed to be expressed—a love written in silence and remembered in every moment.