The Love We Almost Had

We met at a time when neither of us was ready.

It was a rainy Thursday, the kind that makes the city feel quiet and close. I ducked into the corner bookstore just to escape the weather, not expecting anything more than dry air and maybe a used poetry book.

He was in the aisle beside me, flipping through a novel I had read twice already. I saw the cover, couldn’t help myself, and said, “You’re going to love the ending.”

He smiled, surprised. “You’ve read it?”

“More than once,” I said.

That was how it started.

We talked about books first. Then music. Then the way rainy days made us feel less alone. He told me his name was Kian. I told him mine. We stood there for nearly an hour, tucked between old paperbacks and the scent of rain-soaked jackets.

When we walked out, the storm had passed, but something lingered in the air—like something important had just begun.

And it had.We started meeting every week. Always by accident at first—running into each other at the café near the bookstore or catching the same train downtown. But then it became intentional. A message here, a planned coffee there. We didn’t call it dating. It wasn’t. Not officially.

Because the timing was wrong.

He was preparing to leave for a job overseas—something he had been working toward for years. I had just come out of a long, messy relationship that left me more guarded than I cared to admit.

We talked about everything except what we felt.

We danced around the obvious. The long stares. The comfort. The way his presence quieted my thoughts. The way I memorized his laugh without meaning to. We both knew it—but we didn’t name it.

Naming it would’ve made it real. And real would’ve made it hard.

Still, those moments we shared? They were real. Small, quiet things. Him waiting outside with an umbrella. Me leaving notes in his book when he wasn’t looking. Sharing playlists. Making each other laugh over things no one else would find funny.

We were never a couple.

But we were more than strangers.

Sometimes, people ask how you can miss someone who was never officially yours.

But I did.

I still do. A week before his flight, we went back to the bookstore. The same one where it started. We browsed in silence for a while. I knew he was waiting for me to say something. Maybe even hoping I’d ask him to stay.

But I didn’t.

I knew he wouldn’t ask me to wait either. We weren’t those kinds of people—selfish enough to hold each other back, but too honest to pretend we didn’t care.

At the counter, he bought a book. Inside was a note I had slipped in when he wasn’t watching.

“If we had met later, I think I would’ve loved you out loud.”

He didn’t say anything then. Just looked at me with eyes that said everything I didn’t have the strength to hear.

We hugged like people who knew it was both the beginning and the end.

And then he was gone.

No dramatic goodbye. No promises. Just a soft ending to a story that never had a proper beginning.

Sometimes I think about the “almost” of it all.

The coffee we never shared in the winter.

The arguments we never had.

The late-night drives.

The quiet mornings.

The love we could’ve had—if only we had met at a different time.

But here’s the thing:

Even unfinished stories can leave a mark.

Even the love that never bloomed can change you.He taught me that connection doesn’t need labels. That timing is a cruel but honest thing. That some people are meant to pass through your life to remind you what tenderness feels like—even if they don’t stay.

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Moral of the Story:

Not every love story is meant to last, and not every goodbye comes after a beginning. Some of the deepest connections are the ones that never become what they could have—yet still change who we are forever. Because sometimes, the love we almost had is the one that teaches us what real love might be.