When Hearts Remember

When Hearts Remember

It started in a small college town located in Lahore, where the scent of old books mixed with the fragrance of blooming jasmine in the spring. Areeba was the quiet type—reserved, thoughtful, always carrying a novel and a thermos of chai to class. She was the kind of girl who wrote poetry in the margins of her notebooks and found comfort in the silence between words.

Hassan, on the other hand, was laughter wrapped in human form. He played guitar, cracked lame jokes, and could bring life into the dullest classroom with a single line. Everyone knew him—but Areeba noticed something the others didn’t. Behind his bright eyes was a loneliness he never spoke about.

They met during a college debate competition. She was a participant, he was a volunteer helping with the tech setup. When her mic stopped working mid-sentence, panic surged through her. Hassan, without saying a word, stepped in, fixed the mic, and whispered, “You’re doing great.”

That single sentence was enough.

From that day, he started walking with her after class. Sometimes they’d talk about books, sometimes about their families, but mostly they just… walked. No pressure, no promises. Just a comfortable silence, the kind only two people who understand each other can share.

They were never officially together—no one ever saw them holding hands or taking selfies—but their connection was something sacred, something only they truly knew.

One rainy evening, they sat under the old banyan tree near the campus library. She was shivering from the cold. He took off his hoodie and handed it to her.

“You’ll get sick,” she protested.

“I’ll survive,” he smiled.

She looked at him, eyes glistening. “Why do you always take care of me?”

He shrugged. “Because I can’t imagine not doing it.”

And just like that, their hearts said what their mouths never dared to.

But life doesn’t wait for love stories to finish.

Hassan got a job offer abroad—a fully funded scholarship in Germany. It was the kind of opportunity most people could only dream of. The night before he was supposed to leave, they sat on the rooftop of Areeba’s house, watching stars blink through the Karachi smog.

“Will you ever come back?” she asked softly.

“I don’t know,” he whispered, honest for once.

She nodded. “Then go. Chase your dreams.”

“But what about us?” he asked, finally breaking the silence they had always hidden behind.

“There is no ‘us’,” she smiled, tears slipping down her cheek. “There never was. And that’s what made it beautiful.”

Years passed. Areeba became a literature teacher. She still wrote poetry, but now it was published in journals. Hassan became a software engineer in Berlin. He still played guitar, but only in the solitude of his flat.

Neither of them married.

Every Eid, Areeba would get an anonymous parcel—a book of poetry, always with a note: “Somewhere, I still remember the jasmine.”

And every time, she smiled and whispered to the sky, “I remember too.”

Ten years later, they met again. Not planned. Not expected.

It was in a bookstore in Lahore. She was looking at Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s latest reprint. He was behind her, holding a copy of the same book.

They froze. No words. Just eyes.

“I heard you never stopped writing,” he said.

“I heard you never stopped loving me,” she replied, almost too softly.

He smiled. “You were always the brave one.”

She looked at him, heart pounding. “So what now?”

He held out his hand. “Now, we stop pretending life made us forget.”

She took it. For once, they didn’t need silence.