Whispers Beneath the Rain

Rihan was seventeen, a quiet boy who lived in a small village where the river whispered to the winds, and the rains came like lullabies. He was the kind of boy who found comfort in books and shadows, often sketching clouds or writing poems he never showed anyone.

Anaya was sixteen, with laughter in her eyes and courage in her heart. Though her family had recently moved to the village from the city after a tragedy—a car accident that left her walking with a slight limp—she tried hard not to let anyone see the pain she carried.

They met on a gray afternoon.

Rihan was sitting beneath the old banyan tree near the school, drawing the shape of a falling leaf. Anaya, seeking shelter from the rain, ran under the same tree. For a moment, silence stretched between them like a soft thread.

“You always sit alone?” she asked, trying to be casual, wiping raindrops from her hair.

Rihan nodded. “It’s peaceful here.”

That day, they didn’t talk much. But the next day, she came again. And the day after. Eventually, they began sharing stories—hers were full of city lights and lost dreams, his of simple joys and hidden scars.

Rihan noticed how Anaya winced when she climbed the steps and how she smiled even when her eyes were tired. He never asked about her leg. She never asked why he drew things that were always falling—leaves, feathers, even rain.

They understood without words.

One winter evening, Rihan gave her a small notebook. Inside were poems, some short, some unfinished. All of them were about her.

“You never showed anyone your poems,” she whispered, her fingers trembling.

“I wanted you to know,” he said. “That someone sees the way you hide your pain. And still, you shine.”

Anaya cried, quietly, not because she was sad, but because someone had finally seen her completely.

As months passed, their bond grew stronger—not loud or dramatic, but steady like the river that flowed through their village. They studied together, walked slowly in the rain, and sat for hours saying nothing. Their love wasn’t the kind that needed declarations. It was in the way he waited for her at every step, and the way she looked at him when he doubted himself.

One evening, under the same banyan tree, she placed a folded note in his hand.

“Promise me,” it read, “no matter where life takes us, you’ll never stop drawing. And I’ll never stop walking, even if it hurts.”

Years later, after she left for college in the city and he stayed back to care for his ailing mother, they still wrote letters. And every letter carried a part of their promise.

They weren’t together in the way most people imagine love stories. But they were in love—in the truest, most unspoken way.

The End