Title: "My Love Story

The first time Yaseen met Hira, she didn’t hear him. Not his voice, not the rustling of his jacket as he shifted on the park bench. What she did hear, though, was the quiet—an unusual stillness that seemed to hang in the air, as though the world itself had taken a deep breath and waited. She couldn’t explain it, but the silence between them felt more like a conversation than any words could ever manage.

It was a Tuesday afternoon, bathed in a golden glow that softened the edges of the bustling city. Hira had always been someone who found peace in the absence of noise. The sounds of the city—chattering voices, honking cars, the endless rhythm of footsteps—were all around her, but in that moment, sitting beside Yaseen, everything else faded into the background. There was only the soft rhythm of her breathing, and somehow, Yaseen's presence seemed to match it.

Yaseen was different. He didn’t need to fill the air with words to make her feel understood. It wasn’t like the usual conversations she had with others, where words rushed to fill the space between them. With Yaseen, it was as though silence itself spoke volumes. She felt drawn to him in a way she couldn’t explain, as if their souls had known each other long before they had ever met.

Weeks passed, and they found themselves meeting in the same park again and again. Sometimes, they sat in complete silence, sometimes sharing small moments of laughter, but always in a way that felt effortless, as if they were both comfortable with simply being together. They spoke of books, dreams, life, but it was never hurried, never forced. It was the kind of connection that didn’t need to rush, a love that felt more real in its quietness than in the loudest of words.

But then, one evening, the silence became something more.

It was raining—a soft, steady rain that soaked everything in its path. But neither of them seemed to mind. They stood together beneath the shelter of an old oak tree, their arms brushing ever so slightly, but neither of them acknowledged the closeness. Hira looked at Yaseen, her heart heavy with something she couldn’t name, and the silence between them stretched, longer than it ever had before.

“You’re leaving, aren’t you?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper, as though she was afraid to break the fragile stillness.

Yaseen didn’t need to speak. His eyes said everything. They were full of something deep and unspoken, a sadness that echoed the weight of a thousand words left unsaid.

“I don’t want to,” he replied, his voice soft, almost like a confession. “But it’s the only way I can stay true to who I am. I have to go, Hira.”

Her heart shattered in that moment. She had felt it coming—the inevitable goodbye—but hearing the words aloud still crushed her. Yaseen had been telling her in his own quiet way for months, but now, with the rain falling all around them, it felt real, painful, and final.

“I’ll always love you,” he said, brushing a strand of wet hair from her face. “But I can’t stay.”

Her chest tightened, but there were no more tears left to cry. She had loved him in a way that couldn’t be expressed with words, and now that love had to be released, just as quietly as it had been given.

“I know,” Hira whispered, her voice steady despite the ache in her heart. “I’ve always known.”

Yaseen kissed her forehead gently, his lips cold from the rain, but his touch warm with something deeper. They stood there in silence, the world fading away. Their lips never touched, but in that stillness, they shared a love that was more profound than anything words could have captured—a love that was stronger because it didn’t need to speak. It simply was.

When Yaseen left, Hira found herself once again in the quiet, but it wasn’t the same. The silence that had once felt like a tender gift now felt like a memory—bittersweet and eternal. Yet, even in the emptiness, she could still feel him there. His love lingered in the spaces between her thoughts, and in the echoes of their quiet moments together.

Time moved on, as it always does. Life continued, and yet, whenever Hira returned to that park, she could almost hear him there beside her. She knew now that love didn’t always need to be loud to be real. Sometimes the most powerful love was the one that didn’t need to be said aloud, the one that remained even after the last word had been spoken.

And though Yaseen was gone, his love never left her. It lived on in the silence between her heartbeats, in the spaces where words could never reach.