She Is in Love with Me

It started with glances. Not the kind that scream across a room or beg for attention, but quiet ones. The kind that hover just long enough to stir a thought, a pause, maybe even a question.

Mariam was two rows behind me when the semester began. She always sat with her head bent slightly forward, scribbling into her notebook like every word held the key to something bigger. Neon yellow highlighter in one hand, her favorite navy-blue pen in the other. I noticed her on the third day of class, and for some reason, I couldn’t stop noticing.

She wasn’t loud or flashy. She didn’t wear bright lipstick or raise her hand to debate. She was the kind of quiet that demanded attention by not demanding it at all. Her calm was captivating. Steady. Gentle.

I wasn’t looking for love, but something about her made me stop and look again.

It wasn’t until I walked into class late one day and had no seat left but the one beside her that the universe finally pushed us into the same frame.

She glanced up as I approached, and without saying a word, slid her bag off the chair.

“Thanks,” I said, a little awkward.

She nodded, eyes already back on the screen, but a small smile tugged at the corner of her lips. I noticed it. I stored it.

That day, we didn’t speak much, but I left class with her name echoing in my head.

From then on, things changed. I started arriving early, hoping that seat would stay open. Most days, it did. Eventually, we began talking—about assignments, class presentations, professors’ quirks.

Then came the day she asked if I liked coffee.

“Depends,” I said.

“On what?”

“On who I’m drinking it with.”

She smiled. “Good answer.”

We had our first cup together at a small café across campus. She ordered cinnamon tea. I went with black coffee. We sat for hours, talking about everything from books to broken friendships to how weird cafeteria food could be.

She told me about her love for fiction, how she once dreamed of becoming a novelist, but her parents wanted her to study business. I listened. She had a voice that could make you forget about time.

From then on, we became routine. Shared walks, occasional study sessions, lunch breaks. It wasn’t an official “thing.” Not yet. But everyone could tell.

What made it undeniable wasn’t anything she said.

It was how she looked at me when she thought I wasn’t watching.

She looked at me like I was important. Like she was memorizing my face for a story she hadn’t written yet.

My friends noticed too.

“She’s totally in love with you,” Saad teased one afternoon. “You’re just too dense to admit it.”

But I wasn’t dense. I was cautious. Terrified, even.

What if I was wrong? What if I read too much into things and ruined the best friendship I’d ever had?

Then came the day that changed everything.

It was raining. Classes were canceled. I found her in the library, sitting near the window, sketching something into the margins of her notebook.

“Did you know you hum when you read?” I asked, sliding into the chair across from her.

She looked up, surprised. “You noticed?”

“I notice everything.”

That caught her off guard. She closed the notebook slowly.

“You always say things like that,” she said. “Like you mean them.”

“Because I do.”

She hesitated, then whispered, “Then why haven’t you asked me what I’m feeling?”

My heart skipped.

“Mariam…”

She smiled sadly. “I’m in love with you.”

There. No pretense. No safety net.

“I’ve been in love with you for a while,” she added. “And I’m tired of waiting for you to say it first.”

I reached across the table, took her hand in mine. “I knew. I just didn’t want to lose you if I was wrong.”

“You weren’t,” she said simply.

And just like that, the space between us disappeared.

From that day on, everything deepened. Our talks became more personal. Our silences more intimate. She met my sister. I met her mother. She sent me voice notes late at night about poems that reminded her of us. I left sticky notes in her journal with cheesy puns and tiny doodles of stars.

Her love wasn’t loud. It didn’t come with grand declarations or fireworks.

It came with soft glances. With messages asking if I’d eaten. With warmth when I didn’t even realize I was cold.

When I got sick for two days, she brought soup and sat on the floor of my dorm room, reading to me from her favorite novel.

“I don’t need anything fancy,” she said once. “Just someone who chooses me, even on the hard days.”

And I did. Over and over again.

One night, as we sat on the campus rooftop watching the stars, I turned to her and said, “You knew before I did.”

She leaned into me. “Maybe. But I needed you to say it too.”

“I love you,” I said, for the first time aloud.

She smiled. “I know.”

It was the most Mariam thing to say.

We graduated hand in hand, walking across the stage not just as students, but as something much more.

Today, years later, when I watch her walk into a room, her hair tied up in the same messy bun she wore on that first rainy day, I still see the same look in her eyes.

That look that said she loved me long before I was ready to hear it.

And now, every day, I say it back—without fear.

Because the truth is, I was in love with her from the start too.

I just needed time to catch up to what her heart had already decided.


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Have you ever realized someone was in love with you before they confessed it? Or maybe you were the one in love first, waiting for them to see it? Share your love story—because sometimes, the quietest hearts love the loudest.

Note:
This story was created with the assistance of AI (ChatGPT), then manually edited for originality, accuracy, and alignment with Vocal Media’s guidelines.