The Silence Between Chapters

"The Silence Between Chapters"


The first time she noticed him, he was sitting in the corner of the university library, hunched over a thick book, his glasses slipping down his nose. A soft beam of sunlight fell across his cheek, dust floating around him like a constellation. His lips moved ever so slightly as he read, completely unaware of the world.

She tilted her head, curious.

Who still reads like that?

Her stilettos clicked softly against the marble floor. She was wearing a pink blazer over a black crop top, her nails freshly done, her notebook tucked into a Prada bag. She wasn’t supposed to be here—fashion design students rarely wandered into the silent world of books—but something had pulled her in that day.

Something, or someone.

His name was Arman, and he rarely looked up unless it was to find another book. A final-year literature student, he found solace in words—old ones, melancholic ones. Fyodor Dostoevsky was his god, Khalil Gibran his prophet. He loved the smell of old pages and the way stories held sorrow so gently.

He first noticed her when she dropped her pen beside his desk.

“Uh—sorry,” she said, crouching to pick it up, her perfume a soft citrus. “Didn’t mean to disturb your universe.”

Arman looked up, blinking. “You didn’t,” he said, his voice low and polite. “It’s just a book.”

She smiled. “You talk like the pages are your friends.”

“They are,” he replied simply.

She didn’t laugh. Instead, she sat across from him. And just like that, the first chapter began.

She was Nayra—vibrant, confident, full of questions. She knew how to walk into a room and own it. Fashion wasn’t just an interest; it was how she spoke when she didn’t want to use words.

But with Arman, she didn’t mind words. She wanted to listen to them.

“Why do you like reading so much?” she asked one day.

“Because books don’t leave,” he said, eyes still on the paragraph. “And if they do, they always come back when you reopen them.”

Something tightened in her chest. He didn’t know it, but she had spent most of her life wishing someone would say that about her.

Slowly, she began to need him.

Not in the romantic, cliché way—at least not at first. She needed his presence, his quiet faith in the world, his stubborn devotion to becoming something better than the circumstances he came from. He was discipline in human form.

When she struggled with her theory classes, Arman would help.

“Colors speak in emotion,” she said once, showing him her sketchpad. “But why do they expect me to write essays about them?”

He chuckled. “Because words are also colors. You just need the right brush.”

She stared at him like he was magic.

Months passed. They shared silent coffees, laughed softly in the corners of the library, and traded stories in whispers like secrets. Nayra began noticing the little things—how he folded page corners only on books he adored, how he hummed under his breath when he was deep in thought, how his eyes darkened when he talked about home.

She never asked, but she knew his past was stitched with sacrifice.

One rainy evening, she left a book beside his backpack: White Nights by Dostoevsky.

Inside it, a note:

“To the boy who reads to breathe. Maybe we both dream in silence.” — N.

He never said thank you. But he read it twice.

By the final semester, they were inseparable.

“Do you believe in forever?” she asked him under the banyan tree near the auditorium.

He looked at her with eyes like dusk. “No,” he said. “But I believe in moments that last longer than time.”

“You’re such a romantic,” she teased.

“I’m not. I’m just afraid,” he admitted.

“Of what?”

“Of promising something I can’t keep.”

She wanted more. She wanted him in all the hours she hadn’t lived yet. She didn’t care that he came from a small town, or that his father worked three jobs, or that he often went without things she took for granted.

To her, Arman was wealth—real, grounded, golden-hearted.

But when she said, “Stay,” he hesitated.

He looked down, then away.

“I can’t be what you deserve. I can’t give you the life you’re meant to live. My story isn’t written for a girl like you.”

“You’re wrong,” she whispered. “You are the story I want to live.”

Tears welled in her eyes, but he didn’t hold her. He didn’t kiss her. He only looked at her like she was the most beautiful sentence he had ever read—one he could never say aloud.

Graduation came like winter—cold, inevitable.

They hugged in front of the library, the place it all began. She gifted him The Broken Wings by Khalil Gibran.

Inside, another note:

“If ever your silence turns into longing, find me in our pages.” — N.

He didn’t reply. Not then.

Years later, Nayra opened a boutique named “Chapter One.” In a frame behind her desk sat a photo of the university library—and two worn books on the shelf: White Nights and The Broken Wings.

As for Arman, he published a novel. The dedication read:

To the girl who saw colors in my shadows. Some stories don’t end. They echo.

Some loves aren’t written to be complete.

But they are no less beautiful.

They live on—in the silence between chapters.