Before You

Before her, the world was quiet—not peaceful quiet, just... hollow.

Mornings came like routines dressed up as purpose. The same alarm tone. The same walk to the bathroom. Brushing teeth while staring blankly into the mirror, as if waiting for the reflection to flinch first. Evenings were worse. They didn’t end; they just faded out. No one texted goodnight. No one waited on the other side of silence.

I wouldn’t say I was broken. Just misplaced. Like a book in the wrong section. Intact, but unread.

Then, one afternoon that smelled like rain and chai, I met her.

Not in some cinematic way. She didn’t walk in slow motion, and violins didn’t start playing. She was sitting on the last bench in the library—knees drawn up, sleeves rolled past her elbows, completely immersed in a book I had never even heard of. Her hair was tied in a way that didn’t care what anyone thought, and she smiled at the pages like she was in on a joke the world had missed.

I don't know what changed in me in that moment. Maybe nothing did. Maybe everything did.

We didn’t talk that day. Just a glance. That kind where the world doesn't stop, but your heart does—just for a second. Long enough to know you’ll remember it.

Days after that, it was all her.

She became the one my thoughts leaned towards. The reason I reached for better music. The reason tea tasted less bitter. The reason I didn’t avoid mirrors anymore.

She didn’t fix me—she just made me forget I was ever broken.

She listened, not like people do when they're waiting to reply, but like she was memorising every word. She had this way of making you feel seen, like your pain wasn’t something to hide but something worth holding.

Once, I told her I hated my birthday. Too many years of it being just another day. That year, she found me outside my flat with balloons tied to a packet of chips and a scribbled note that read, “Happy You Day.”

It wasn’t the celebration. It was her presence. The way she remembered what the world forgot.

Nights became bearable. Then beautiful.

We’d sit on the terrace sometimes, not talking, just letting silence stretch comfortably between us. She’d point out stars and name them after things she loved—one of them she named after me.

“Why that one?” I asked.

“Because it doesn’t shine the brightest, but I keep finding it anyway.”

She never knew how much that line stayed with me.

I started laughing more. Smiling in photographs. Even writing again.

She never asked me to change.

But somehow, because of her, I began wanting to be more than what I was.

And for the first time, life didn’t feel like something to survive.

It felt like something to live.

Sometimes, I look back at the version of me before her and feel sorry for him.

Not because he was weak, but because he didn’t know what love could feel like.

She didn’t arrive with fireworks.

She was the lamp in a dark room—soft, constant, and enough.

I never told her everything she saved me from.

But maybe that’s the point.

Some people don’t need to know the weight they carry for you.

They just need to know they made you lighter.

And she did.

Every single day.