I Loved Her in Silence

I Loved Her in Silence

She never knew I loved her.

Not in the way people expect love to be declared—with roses, fireworks, and grand confessions under starlit skies.

I loved her in silence.

In soft glances and unsent messages.

In poems that never bore her name, but always her shadow.

We met in October, the kind of month that teaches you how to let go gently.

She walked into my life like a line I’d forgotten how to write—

bright, effortless, and entirely herself.

I noticed the way she tucked her hair behind her ear when she was nervous.

The way she tilted her head when something moved her.

The way she could fill a room without speaking.

We became friends quickly—too quickly.

The kind of bond that feels like a secret handshake with fate.

We traded favorite songs like confessions.

Shared stories of childhood, heartbreak, and the dreams we dared not say aloud.

Late night calls became rituals.

Sometimes we talked about everything.

Sometimes we talked about nothing.

But I never told her the one thing that burned in my chest every time she said my name.

Instead, I loved her quietly.

I learned the language of her silences.

I noticed when her texts got shorter, when her voice got tired.

I listened when she needed to vent, even if part of me ached when she spoke about other people.

I memorized her favorite quotes and sent her books that reminded me of her—always under the pretense of “you might like this.”

I wrote poems. Pages and pages of her disguised as metaphors.

“She is the kind of light that doesn’t ask to be seen.”

“She is thunder wrapped in the voice of calm.”

“She is every reason I stayed, and every reason I stayed quiet.”

But I never shared them.

Then came the night she told me she was falling for someone.

Her eyes lit up when she said his name.

She was glowing.

And I—

I smiled. Nodded. Said I was happy for her.

Then I went home and sat in the dark.

Not crying. Just... quiet.

It felt like losing something I never had the right to hold.

People say if you love someone, you should tell them.

But I don't know if that’s always true.

Sometimes love is quiet because it has to be.

Because saying it out loud might ruin something already beautiful.

Because you’d rather be close in silence than distant in regret.

Still, a part of me hoped—hoped she'd see it.

Hoped she'd read between the lines.

Hoped one of those poems might slip from my bag, and she’d pick it up and just… know.

But life isn’t a movie. And I was never the main character.

She moved to another city months later.

A better job, a better apartment, a better version of everything.

We still talked, though less often.

The distance grew like ivy between us—slow, steady, and silently suffocating.

Last week, she called unexpectedly.

“I found a poem in that old notebook you gave me,” she said. “It was… beautiful.”

My throat tightened.

“What did it say?” I asked, though I already knew.

“It didn’t have your name, but it felt like you. Or maybe… it felt like me.”

She laughed softly. “Isn’t that strange?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Strange.”

She never asked if it was about her.

And I didn’t tell her.

Some truths are best left unsaid—not because they aren’t true,

but because they deserve the dignity of silence.

I loved her in silence.

I still do, in the quiet corners of memory.

In songs I skip on purpose.

In coffee shops where I sit alone, ordering what she used to love.

In the poems I still write—unfinished, untitled, unread.

Not all love stories are meant to be lived out loud.

Some are whispered across years,

traced in glances,

and sealed in the kind of silence

that only love can understand.