You Left Me

The first time I saw you, you were laughing under the apricot tree in my uncle’s orchard. You had a scarf wrapped loosely around your hair, and sunlight filtered through the branches, dancing across your face. You looked like something from a dream I hadn’t dreamed yet.

I was only nineteen. A shy boy from the hills, newly returned from working in the city, still smelling of diesel and dust. But your eyes met mine like they had always known me.

We didn't speak much that first day. Just a few stolen glances, your shy smile, my awkward grin. But something shifted in the air. I remember walking home that evening with my heart beating faster than my footsteps.

Over the weeks, we found our own language—passing notes through your cousin, meeting secretly near the river, exchanging stories and laughter like children trading marbles. You told me your dreams: to see the ocean, to ride a horse at sunrise, to plant a tree that would outlive us both.

I didn’t have grand dreams. Mine were simple. I just wanted to build a home with you. Walls made of mud, maybe, but filled with warmth. I wanted our mornings to start with your voice and our nights to end with your prayers.

And for a while, it seemed possible.

Your parents agreed, reluctantly. My mother cried when I told her. Happy tears. She said I had finally found my “light.” We were married in the spring, under the same apricot tree.

But seasons are not always kind.

The first year was gentle. We worked the land together. You laughed when I tried to cook, and I listened when you sang to the goats. But then the drought came. The crops withered. The debts grew. I left for work in Karachi, promising it would only be for a few months.

You stood at the bus stop, holding our son in your arms. He had your eyes. You waved as the bus pulled away, but I saw the tears you tried to hide.

I came back two years later.

You were gone.

At first, I didn’t understand. The house was clean. Your clothes were gone. Our son was with your sister. The neighbors said you left quietly one morning. No letter. No message. Just… absence.

They whispered many things—another man, maybe. Or maybe life had crushed you under the weight of waiting. Maybe silence had stretched too far between us, and something inside you snapped.

I didn’t believe them.

I couldn’t.

I searched. I wrote letters to every city I could think of. I even went back to Karachi, asking strangers if they had seen a woman with storm-colored eyes and a soft voice. But you were nowhere.

Years passed. Our son grew. I raised him with stories of you—not as the woman who left, but the woman who once filled our home with light. He still asks about you sometimes. I don’t know what to say. I just tell him the truth: "She was beautiful, and I loved her. And then, one day, she was gone."

Last week, a letter arrived.

There was no return address. Just a line written in your handwriting:

“Forgive me. I broke under the silence. I thought you'd forgotten me. I never stopped loving you.”

I read that letter every night.

And every night, I sit under the apricot tree, waiting.

Maybe one day, you’ll come back.

Maybe you won’t.

But either way, I still leave a lantern by the door… just in case you find your way home.