The Silence Between Our Words

I. The First Meeting

I met her on a day that should have been ordinary. The university courtyard was buzzing with footsteps, hurried laughter, and the weight of a hundred ambitions colliding into one another. Yet, when she appeared, it was as though the noise folded into the background, like a chorus stepping aside for a solo.

Her name was **Arwa**.

She carried no extravagant presence—no loud colors or commanding gestures. Instead, she had a stillness, a kind of unbothered serenity that made you pause. She wasn’t trying to catch attention; that was precisely why she had mine.

I don’t even remember the first words we exchanged. Perhaps it was about the class schedule or a book we had both borrowed from the library. But what I do remember—what I could never forget—was the way she *listened*. She didn’t rush to fill silence. She didn’t interrupt to prove her wit. She allowed words to breathe.

Later that night, lying awake in my small hostel room, I thought: *Perhaps love is not born in conversations. Perhaps it is born in the silence between them.*

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II. The Philosophy of Nearness

Over the next few months, we became companions of thought before we became companions of love.

Arwa loved philosophy—not the textbook kind, but the kind that leaks into everyday life. She often quoted Rumi, Kierkegaard, or Gibran with the reverence of someone tasting poetry rather than repeating it.

One evening, as we sat on the grass under a sinking sun, she turned to me and asked:

“Do you think love is a choice, or is it fate?”

I paused. The question carried weight.

“Both,” I replied. “Fate might put two souls on the same road, but choice is what makes them walk it together.”

She tilted her head and smiled, her eyes carrying a challenge.

“You sound like someone who wants to believe in destiny, but is afraid of sounding naive.”

I laughed nervously. “Maybe. Or maybe I just believe life is too vast to belong to only one explanation.”

She leaned back on the grass, staring at the clouds. “Or maybe you just don’t want to admit that some things are written before we arrive to them.”

Her words lingered like perfume in the air. That was Arwa’s way—she didn’t just speak, she *left traces*.

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III. The Confession in the Rain

Confessions are rarely neat. They arrive clumsy, rushed, trembling with the risk of rejection.

It happened on a rainy night. We had been studying in the library, our books more like excuses than real companions. When we finally stepped outside, the storm caught us without mercy.

We ran for shelter, laughing, water soaking our clothes until laughter faded into silence. My heart beat so violently that I could no longer contain it.

“Arwa,” I blurted, “I think I’m falling for you.”

The words hung like wet clothes between us, heavy and raw.

She didn’t respond immediately. Instead, she studied me through the rain, her hair plastered against her cheeks, her eyes unreadable.

Finally, she whispered:

“Do you know what falling means?”

I frowned. “Tell me.”

“Falling means surrender,” she said softly. “It means giving someone else the power to wound you. Falling means carrying your heart to the edge of a cliff and hoping the other person catches it before it breaks.”

Her words weren’t rejection. They were a warning.

“Yes,” I said, my voice shaking. “I know. And I’m still falling.”

She stepped closer. She didn’t kiss me, nor did she promise forever. Instead, she simply took my hand in hers. That was her answer, and it was enough.

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IV. Dialogues of Love and Doubt

Love, I discovered, doesn’t grow in grand gestures. It grows in small rituals.

Ours was built on evening walks, coffee cups, and conversations that stretched beyond midnight.

She: “Do you think love is selfish?”

Me: “Why would you ask that?”

She: “Because when I love you, I want to keep you close. Isn’t that possession disguised as affection?”

Me: “Maybe. But isn’t it also human to want to protect what matters?”

She: “Or maybe it’s fear. Fear of losing. Fear of emptiness.”

I would fall silent, defeated, until she would smile and say:

“Don’t worry. Fear doesn’t make love smaller. Sometimes it makes it more real.”

There were days when I feared her silences. She would drift into her thoughts, and I would mistake it for withdrawal.

“Why are you so quiet today?” I once asked, my chest tight with insecurity.

She turned to me, her voice steady.

“My silences are not absence. They are depth. Words sometimes reduce love. Silence lets it breathe.”

And I—stubborn, restless—learned to trust her silences.

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V. Shadows Before the Distance

Every love story has its trial. Ours arrived in the form of a letter of acceptance.

Arwa had earned a scholarship abroad, one she had dreamed of for years. Her joy was sincere, but it collided with my quiet dread.

The night before her departure, we sat under the old tree on campus—the one that had witnessed our debates, confessions, and silences.

“Will we survive this distance?” she asked, her voice trembling.

I held her hand, feeling the weight of inevitability.

“Love is not about survival,” I said slowly. “It’s about truth. If our truth is strong, distance cannot undo it.”

She smiled through tears. “You always answer like a philosopher.”

“And you always hear me like a poet.”

That night, I watched her board the plane, and for the first time, I understood what it meant to love someone enough to let them go.

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VI. Letters Across Oceans

Distance is cruel in ways presence could never be.

We learned a new language—the language of letters, calls, and time zone battles.

Her letters often read like poems:

*I am learning to love you in your absence, the way one loves the moon knowing it belongs to another sky.*

Mine, by contrast, were raw, desperate:

*Every room feels too large without your silence in it. Come back soon.*

Sometimes weeks passed with no reply, and doubt crept in like a thief. Did her silences still mean depth? Or did they mean disinterest now?

One night, overwhelmed, I called her.

“Do you still love me?” I asked, unable to hide the tremor in my voice.

Her reply came like a knife and a balm at once.

“I don’t love you less because I’m far. I love you differently. I love you in patience, in absence, in faith.”

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VII. The Philosophy of Waiting

Years passed in this rhythm—love stretched across continents, stitched together by faith.

I learned that waiting is its own philosophy. It teaches you that love is not measured in hours together but in the courage to believe in what you cannot touch.

Arwa once wrote to me:

“Waiting is not emptiness. It’s a kind of prayer. Every day I wait for you, I am reminding the universe that love is worth endurance.”

And I—reading her words under dim hostel lights—knew that endurance was its own form of intimacy.

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VIII. The Reunion

When she finally returned years later, it wasn’t fireworks or violins.

We met at the same courtyard where it had all begun. She walked toward me, older, wiser, carrying the weight of her own journeys.

Neither of us rushed into an embrace. We simply stood there, studying each other like two books reopened after years.

Then she smiled—the same quiet smile from our very first conversation.

And in that moment, I realized something: we had not *fallen* in love. We had *risen* with it.

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IX. The Conclusion

Philosophers have argued for centuries about what love is—desire, friendship, union, illusion. But living it with Arwa taught me something no book had offered:

Love is not possession.

Love is not survival.

Love is not constant reassurance.

Love is the silence between words.

It is the courage to wait, the faith to endure, and the freedom to let someone be fully themselves—even if it means letting them fly far from you.

And when they return, you don’t need promises. You don’t need declarations. You just need that one knowing smile—the one that says, we survived time, distance, and silence, and love is still here.