Love in Parentheses

It didn’t begin with fireworks or declarations. It started in parentheses—soft, subtle, quiet.

You sat across from me in meetings, your words sharp, your tone direct. I admired you from a distance, tucked my feelings away behind polite nods and shared glances. We were professionals. Colleagues. Nothing more, and yet, everything more. Our connection didn’t live in the sentences we spoke. It breathed in the pauses, the side comments, the parentheses we placed around things we were afraid to say.

Like that day in the elevator. You said, “Rough week, huh?” and then added, (I hope you’re holding up okay.)

Or the coffee you brought me during the 8 a.m. crunch: “You looked like you needed this.” (I noticed you. I care.)

The truth is, we were always writing a hidden script underneath the real one. A quiet story that lived between deadlines, beneath shared articles, inside late-night texts that were “just about work.”

Some love stories shout. Ours whispered.

I’ve always believed there are two types of relationships: the ones that are loud and obvious, and the ones that are careful and coded. Ours was the latter—written in half-smiles and lowercase confessions. We never kissed. We never touched. But something existed, and we both knew it.

Do you remember the conference in Seattle?

We both stayed late after the panel, sitting at a dim-lit bar where the hum of strangers gave us rare privacy. I talked about my fear of failure. You talked about your father. Vulnerabilities emerged like ink in water, slowly expanding. You placed your hand next to mine on the table, close enough to feel warm. Not quite touching.

I said, “This job gets lonely sometimes.”

You nodded. “Yeah.” Then added, (But not when I’m around you.)

There it was again—emotion tucked into an invisible clause. We never dared to step outside those soft, protective boundaries. The parentheses kept things safe. Safe from consequences, from heartbreak, from changing what we had. But also safe from becoming something real.

I think about that often now, how we were so good at editing ourselves. Love existed in the margins, never in bold. We convinced ourselves that unspoken feelings were less risky than spoken ones, that restraint was noble. But love, even whispered, demands a voice.

Eventually, life moved forward as it always does. You got an offer in another city, and I gave a quiet congratulations. You hugged me goodbye—a little too long for a casual farewell—and said, “Keep in touch.” I smiled and nodded.

(I love you.)

I never said it, of course. Neither did you.

In the years since, I’ve had other relationships. Some loud, some tender. But I’ve never forgotten the quiet ache of us. The story that never quite began, yet never quite ended.

People often talk about the ones that got away. You weren’t just someone who got away—you were someone who stayed inside my sentences long after they were written. Someone who taught me how much emotion can live in restraint, and how sometimes, silence says the most.

If I were to write you a letter now, I’d keep it simple:

Dear You,

I remember everything—the parentheses, the pauses, the weight of what we didn’t say. And even though we never named it, I loved you.

(I still might.)

Love doesn’t always need to be loud. But it does need room to grow. And maybe, just maybe, if we’d stepped outside the parentheses—just once—we’d have found out what kind of story we could really write.

But we didn’t.

And so we remain an ellipsis.

A note in the margin.

A love in parentheses