I did not fall in love loudly.
There was no moment I could point to and say, that was it. No dramatic collision of eyes across a room, no sudden understanding that rearranged my life. What happened instead was quieter, and because it was quiet, it went unnoticed for too long—by everyone except me.
I noticed him in silence.
Silence has a way of teaching you things you were never prepared to learn.
The first time I saw him, I didn't think of love. I thought of distance. He sat on the far end of the long wooden table in the library—a place that smelled of dust, old paper, and borrowed time. The kind of library that looked like it had been donated to people like me, not built for us. The kind where you entered carefully, as though your presence might be questioned if you stayed too long.
He belonged there in a way I never would.
His clothes were simple but unmistakably expensive. Not loud. Not arrogant. Just… assured. As though they had never known fear of being torn or faded or passed down to someone else. He held his book like it trusted him. Like it knew it would be returned.
I held mine like an apology.
I was there on a scholarship—one of those words adults use to make survival sound like luck. Everyone said I was fortunate. Nobody mentioned that fortune comes with conditions. I learned quickly to sit straight, speak softly, and never forget that I was allowed in, not welcomed.
He didn't look at me at first.
And then he did.
Not in the way boys usually look when they notice something they want. There was no hunger in his eyes, no curiosity sharpened by entitlement. It was slower than that. Almost hesitant. Like he wasn't sure he was allowed to look at me at all.
That was the first silence—the one that bloomed between us without either of us asking for it.
We didn't speak. We didn't smile. We didn't acknowledge the moment. But something fragile and dangerous settled into the space like dust you only notice when the light hits it just right.
I went home that day unsettled.
Not because I wanted him—but because I felt seen.
I grew up learning how to make myself small.
Small enough not to be a burden.
Small enough not to ask for too much.
Small enough not to expect love to look back at me.
At home, silence meant endurance. My mother prayed aloud because silence scared her. She believed God needed reminding—needed sound to know where suffering lived. She sang hymns while washing plates, whispered scripture when money ran out, and cried quietly into folded laundry so God wouldn't think she was ungrateful.
Love, in my world, was loud only when it hurt.
So when I walked into that library again the next day and found him sitting in the same place, the silence felt unfamiliar. Heavy, but not cruel. A silence that waited instead of demanded.
He glanced up when I sat down. Our eyes met for half a second too long. Then we both looked away, embarrassed by something we hadn't yet named.
It happened like that for days.
No words. Just presence.
He came early. I came early. We never admitted that we were adjusting our lives around each other, that something unspoken was already rearranging our time. When he stood to leave, I felt it in my chest before I saw him move. When I packed my bag, his shoulders stiffened like he had been bracing himself for it.
Still, nothing was said.
Silence, again.
The first words he ever spoke to me were not romantic.
"You underline when you read," he said quietly one afternoon.
I looked up, startled. "I didn't know anyone noticed."
"I notice," he replied, then immediately seemed to regret it.
I should have laughed it off. I should have returned to my book, closed the door before it opened too wide. But something about the way he said it—like a confession instead of an observation—made me pause.
"Bad habit," I said.
"No," he shook his head. "It means you're listening."
That was it.
That was the moment something shifted from silent to dangerous.
We began talking in fragments.
Never long conversations. Never anything that could be overheard and misinterpreted. Just sentences that hovered between us like they weren't sure they belonged to either of us.
"What are you reading?"
"Do you always sit here?"
"Is that your handwriting?"
We learned each other slowly, the way people do when they're afraid of what they might find. He told me about his classes, his plans, the expectations folded neatly into his future like pressed clothes. He spoke of his family with respect, with duty woven so tightly into his words it sounded like love.
I told him less.
Not because I didn't want to—but because I had learned early that revealing too much of myself made people uncomfortable. Poverty is tolerated best when it stays invisible.
Still, he listened.
Really listened.
When I spoke, he didn't interrupt. Didn't look away. Didn't rush me. His attention felt careful, almost reverent, like he was afraid of mishandling something fragile.
That scared me more than indifference ever could.
I noticed the small things.
The way his jaw tightened when his phone buzzed with messages he didn't answer. The way he closed his eyes briefly before praying, as if bracing himself. The way he never stayed past sunset, always leaving just before the call to prayer would echo from the mosque down the street.
Faith lived in him like a rulebook written into his bones.
Mine lived in me like a question.
We never talked about religion at first. It was there, always—hovering, waiting—but neither of us dared touch it. Like class, like difference, like the invisible line that kept us from sitting too close.
But it existed.
In the way he never shook my hand.
In the way I crossed myself quietly before exams.
In the way we both pretended not to notice these things.
I started looking for him without meaning to.
In crowded halls. In passing reflections. In the silence between my own thoughts.
That was when I knew something had gone wrong.
First love doesn't announce itself. It sneaks in while you're busy surviving. It disguises itself as comfort, as curiosity, as familiarity. By the time you recognize it, it has already learned your name.
I began to pray differently.
Not for success. Not for provision. But for distance.
I asked God to quiet whatever this was before it grew teeth. Before it became something I couldn't explain to my mother. Before it became something that could ruin him.
Because even then—before confessions, before longing—I knew this truth with terrifying clarity:
If this love demanded a sacrifice,
it would not be his life that would be asked for.
It would be mine.
The first time he walked me halfway home, neither of us acknowledged it.
We just stood up at the same time, gathered our things, and left together as though it had been decided long ago. Outside, the street split in two directions—his road brighter, wider, lined with security lights and clean pavements. Mine dimmer, uneven, carrying the weight of noise and survival.
We stopped where the light changed.
"This is me," I said.
"I know," he replied.
Neither of us moved.
The silence there was different—thicker, charged. The kind that presses against your ribs and asks dangerous questions. I could feel him wanting to say something. I could feel myself praying he wouldn't.
"Be safe," he finally said.
"You too."
That was all.
He turned away first.
I stood there long after he left, heart pounding like I had just survived something instead of lost it.
That night, I cried quietly into my pillow—not because I was sad, but because I was afraid.
Afraid of how much space he had already taken up inside me.
Afraid of how easily silence had become intimacy.
Afraid of what would happen if words followed.
Somewhere, a mosque called people to prayer.
Somewhere else, church bells rang.
And even then—before love was named, before sin was assigned—I felt it:
Our prayers were already moving in opposite directions.
They always would be.