💞 Some People Are Rare

💞 Some People Are Rare

The old library glowed in the dim evening light. Dust danced like tiny stars in the air, caught between golden streaks from the tall windows. The world outside moved fast — cars honked, people talked, life rushed — but inside, silence reigned like an ancient secret.

The air smelled of paper, ink, and forgotten stories. It was a sacred kind of quiet — the kind that allows thoughts to breathe.

Alia sat cross-legged on the floor, her hair tied loosely, a few strands falling on her face. She was surrounded by open books, as if she was building her own little universe of words. Across from her, Hazim leaned against a wooden pillar, reading a worn-out poetry book.

Every now and then, he looked up. Not at the ceiling, not at the shelves — at her.

Their connection had begun quietly, like a sentence that starts without a capital letter. A few shared smiles, a polite greeting, then short conversations about writers, ideas, and life. The more they talked, the more it felt as if they had known each other long before they met.

Alia loved stories — not just writing them, but living them in her head. Hazim loved reading — not just books, but people. And somewhere between pages and paragraphs, they began to fall in love without ever saying the word.

---

One chilly afternoon, when rain tapped softly against the library’s glass windows, Alia looked up from her notebook and asked,

“If life were a book, Hazim, which page would you be on?”

Hazim smiled, resting his chin on his hand. “The one where everything is about to change, but the story isn’t over yet. And you?”

Alia thought for a moment, then said, “Maybe the title page — the one you only understand when the story ends.”

Hazim laughed softly. “Then I must read you till the end, Alia.”

Her heart skipped a beat. She didn’t reply — just smiled faintly and looked back down at her notebook, though the words on it had started to blur.

---

Days turned into weeks, and weeks into months. They started meeting almost every evening in the same corner of the library — the farthest one from the door, where old books and soft silence lived.

Sometimes, they read in silence. Sometimes, they talked for hours about everything — books, dreams, fears, what love really meant.

Once, Hazim told her, “You know, love isn’t always loud or dramatic. Sometimes it’s just… sitting beside someone and feeling that you don’t need to speak.”

Alia nodded, quietly smiling. “And sometimes,” she replied, “love is the way someone remembers your favorite line from a book.”

They had both stopped looking for perfect stories in novels — because somehow, they had started writing their own.

---

Then came the night when everything changed.

Alia’s phone buzzed. Her mother was ill — seriously ill. She had to leave the city the very next morning.

She stood in the library that evening, watching Hazim read with his usual calm, and her heart felt heavy.

How could she tell him that she might not come back?

When he looked up and caught her gaze, he knew something was wrong.

“What is it?” he asked softly.

She shook her head, forcing a smile. “Nothing. Just… thinking about how some stories end before they should.”

He frowned. “This one won’t.”

She didn’t answer. She wanted to believe him, but sometimes belief isn’t enough.

That night, before she left, she wrote him a note and slipped it inside one of the books they used to read together:

> “Some people aren’t just special. They are rare souls — the kind you can never replace.

If destiny allows, our story will find its way back.”

And then, she was gone.

---

Time became a slow, cruel thing after that.

Hazim kept coming to the library every evening. He sat in the same spot, surrounded by the same books, pretending to read. But mostly, he waited.

Sometimes he’d open that same book where she had left her note, just to touch the words again, as if her handwriting could still speak to him.

The librarian began to notice. “She’s not coming back, is she?” he asked gently one day.

Hazim smiled faintly. “Maybe not today. But rare souls don’t just disappear. They return — when the time is right.”

The old man nodded. “Then may your story have patience.”

Seasons changed — the smell of rain replaced by summer dust, then winter frost. Yet, Hazim never stopped coming. The books became his only company, the pages his only conversations.

And still, he waited.

---

Three years passed.

It was another evening, almost like the one when they’d first met. The same orange light fell across the floor, the same smell of paper filled the air. Hazim sat where he always did, lost in a book, when he felt a presence nearby.

He looked up.

There she was.

Alia.

Her hair was shorter, her face a little older — but her eyes, those gentle eyes, were the same.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. The silence between them was full of everything they’d ever said — and everything they hadn’t.

Finally, she smiled. “You still sit here.”

He closed the book slowly. “You still return to the stories you left unfinished.”

Her eyes glistened. “I wanted to write to you so many times, but… every time I tried, I felt the ending wasn’t mine to write.”

Hazim took a slow breath. “Maybe it wasn’t an ending. Maybe it was just a pause.”

She nodded. “Maybe.”

They sat on the floor again, surrounded by the same books, some older now, some torn. The world outside had changed — but inside, time had been waiting for them.

After a while, Alia whispered, “I was afraid our story had ended.”

Hazim looked at her gently. “Stories never end — they just find a new cover.”

---

Rain began to fall outside — the same rhythmic sound that had once brought them together. The air smelled of wet earth and old paper.

Alia leaned her head on his shoulder. “Do you think we’re still the same people?”

Hazim smiled. “No. We’re new editions of ourselves. But the story… the story’s still ours.”

They both laughed softly. It felt like coming home.

The librarian, now older and slower, watched them from afar and smiled quietly. He turned the library sign to “Closed”, but didn’t disturb them. Some stories, he thought, deserve silence to bloom.

---

Years later, a visitor to the same library would notice a framed photograph on the wall — a man and a woman sitting on the floor, surrounded by open books, smiling at each other.

Below it, a small brass plaque read:

> “Some people are rare — they don’t live in words,

they live in feelings.” ❤️

And in that quiet library, filled with stories of all kinds, their love story became another — timeless, wordless, and eternal.