The Moon Was Our Witness

When people talk about love, they usually mean the kind that's allowed.

The kind you post about. The kind that gets applause at weddings and anniversary dinners. The kind that doesn't make your heart race in fear every time your phone lights up. The kind that isn't whispered in dark alleys or hidden behind half-closed doors.

But our love was not that kind.

Our love was a crime.

And yet, it was the most honest thing I’ve ever felt.

I was seventeen when I met him. Or maybe I should say—I noticed him. Because he’d always been there, drifting through the edges of my world, soft-spoken and invisible to everyone else.

He was quiet, the kind of quiet that made people underestimate him. But I saw it—the fire. The way his eyes lingered too long on the stars. The way he bit her lip when someone brushed too close. The way she watched the world like he didn’t quite belong to it.

Neither did I.

It started with stolen glances in the school corridor. Not much. Just a glance held a little too long. A breath taken a little too sharp. And then it happened—one evening, after choir practice, when everyone had gone home but us.

He asked if I wanted to walk.

The air was cold, and his shoulder brushed mine on the way home. We didn’t speak much. But when he turned to me under the yellow streetlamp, I saw his lips tremble. And something in me broke.

“Tell me, how is it possible that a love could be a sin?”

Tell me, how can love be a sin?

He whispered that. In real life. Like he was singing the lyrics of our hearts. And then he kissed me. His lips were warm. Nervous. Shaking with all the things we were too scared to say out loud.

I kissed him back.

We were careful at first. Notes passed in books. Meeting in the abandoned theater room. Hands barely touching under the table during art class. But the fire... the fire didn’t care about rules. About laws. About age. About gender. About any of it.

We fell fast, and we fell hard.

Every time I held him, it felt like we were rewriting the world. A secret rebellion with every heartbeat. But secrets get heavy. And small towns have sharp eyes.

The rumors started slowly. One teacher pulled me aside and asked if I was “confused.” My mother found a note under my pillow and didn’t speak to me for two days. His father slapped him so hard he didn’t come to school for a week.

And still—we kept going.

Even when we knew better.

Even when we knew it couldn’t last.

The night we planned to run away, it rained. Of course it did.

We had two train tickets. A fake name written in pen. And a promise: we’d go where nobody knew us. Where two teenagers holding hands wouldn’t be something to laugh at or fear. Where we didn’t have to whisper “forbidden love” like it was a dirty word.

But the universe had other plans.

He never showed up.

I waited until the last train left.

And then I walked home in the rain, soaked to the bone, clutching the necklace he gave me on my birthday. One half of a silver moon. He wore the other half.

The next morning, I found out why.

His father had taken his phone. Driven him to the countryside. Locked him in a house with his grandmother who didn’t even have Wi-Fi.

We never said goodbye.

It’s been ten years.

I moved to the city. I told myself I’d forget. That it was just a phase. A forbidden phase.

But I lied. I still see him in dreams. Still hear his laugh in songs. Still feel his hand in mine when I’m walking alone at night.

Last week, I saw him.

On a train. He didn’t see me. He had a child. A little boy who looked like him—same fire in the eyes. There was a woman, too. Holding his bag. Smiling.

I didn’t cry.

I just smiled. Because we had something once. Something rare.

Something real.

Even if it wasn’t allowed.

And for a few days… the moon was our witness.

Some love stories never make it to the finish line. They burn bright, crash hard, and leave you breathless. But they matter.

Because they teach you what it means to feel.

To fight.

To live.