You Were My Silence

You Were My Silence

When love doesn't speak in words but whispers through silence, it leaves an eternal imprint on the soul.

The winter moon hung full in the sky, casting silver shadows across the city of Lahore. It was the kind of night where memories slip through the cracks of silence, and the heart aches without reason.

Aaliya stood on her balcony, wrapped in a shawl, sipping warm kahwa. The steam from her cup curled into the air like soft whispers — the kind of whispers she once shared with someone she never quite called her own.

And yet, he was hers. In a way no one else had ever been.

His name was Zayan.

They never confessed love. No “I love you”s, no promises, no long phone calls. Just stolen glances in university corridors, soft smiles across a library table, and a quiet presence beside each other during moments that words would have ruined.

Aaliya remembered the first time she noticed him — not because he stood out, but because he didn’t try to. He was silent in a loud room, calm in chaos, the kind of man who spoke through his stillness.

They became friends. Or at least, that’s what they told the world.
But in those moments between laughter and silence, something bloomed. A kind of connection that didn’t need labels.

Zayan understood her pauses, and she understood his unspoken thoughts. Where others saw silence, they found depth.

And yet, nothing ever moved beyond that. He never asked for more. Neither did she.

Until that one evening.

It was the last day of university. Aaliya was walking toward the main gate when Zayan called her name — softly, as if afraid that saying it too loud might break something fragile.

She turned, expecting nothing. He walked up to her, hands in pockets, nervous in a way she had never seen him before.

“I’m going abroad. Next week,” he said.

The words hit her like cold wind. “For how long?”

“Maybe forever.”

Silence.

He handed her a letter — plain, sealed. “Don’t read it now. Read it when… when you feel like forgetting me.”

And with that, he walked away.

She never opened the letter.

Years passed. Aaliya became a writer. Her books touched hearts, but none ever knew they were all born from one silent love story.

She got engaged once. A good man. Kind. Supportive. But her heart refused to let go of a memory that was never even complete.

One night, five years later, she found the letter.

It was still sealed.

Her hands trembled as she opened it, finally ready to forget — or remember.

The letter read:


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"Dear Aaliya,"
"If you're reading this, I hope you're happy. I hope you forgot me — the way I never could forget you."

"I wanted to tell you every day that I loved you. Not in the way people throw the word around. I loved your quiet, your fearlessness, your sadness, and your silence — because it matched mine."

"But I was afraid. Not of rejection, but of ruining what we had. So I left. Cowardly, maybe. But loving you silently felt purer than losing you to noise."

"If fate ever brings you to a place where you wonder what could’ve been — know this: I was yours, always. In silence, in distance, in time."

"— Zayan"


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Aaliya didn’t cry. She smiled.

It was strange how a letter could both break your heart and heal it at the same time.

She didn’t regret never saying anything. Neither did she regret not stopping him. Because what they had was something beyond time, beyond place — a love that didn’t need proof.

That night, she sat under the same full moon, writing a new story. It began with a line she had always felt but never written:

“You were my silence — the loudest love I never heard.”


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The End.