We talked endlessly that day, the kind of conversation that stretches time without notice. We met at the library first. I arrived around 2:45, but by the time I stepped inside, it was already three. We stayed there briefly, only ten minutes or so, before moving to a quieter corner, and then the hours unraveled.
"You're a good person. You have qualities I admire," he said, as casually as if he were commenting on the weather. His words landed differently, deliberate, thoughtful, resonating in a way that made me pause.
Then he admitted something unexpected. "The only reason I said yes to the camp was because I saw your name on the list. I asked only for that list that time. If you weren't coming, I wouldn't have joined that day."
I felt a small flutter in my chest. My friends had teased me endlessly about going after him, but here he was, confessing that my presence had influenced him too.
I loved him — not for appearances, not for fleeting gestures, but for his soul. For the honesty and warmth that made him so rare, so impossible to forget.
Later, he asked me what my ideal type was. I struggled to answer. I stuttered, faltered, laughed nervously, and finally said nothing. He smiled knowingly. "I like a lot of things about you," he said, "but out of everything, I like how curious you are. You're going to learn so much as you go because of that."
I nodded, but inside, I was overwhelmed by the weight of his words.
"The only reason I'm able to express this much," he continued, "is because you give me the space to. It's only because of you being a good friend."
I smiled quietly, realizing how safe our friendship had become, how our conversations had grown into a sanctuary for both of us. "Talking to you is like meditation for me," he added. "Your questions help me make sense of things. They make me reconnect with ideas I had forgotten. Sometimes even old beliefs break because of the way you make me think."
I laughed softly. "I sometimes offend you too, don't I?" I asked.He nodded. "I notice it when it happens.""You have ego," he said smiling."No," I replied, laughing."Yes," he teased, "sometimes I break it, but then I glue it back gently too."
Then he got silent, studied me for a moment, and said, "You have ego, yes. But not with me. I notice it. You let it go when you're with me. I think it's because you know I won't hurt you."
I couldn't say anything, and yet my silence spoke more than words could.
When he told me to explore life, I asked lightly, "If you had a sister, would you tell her the same thing?""Yes," he said immediately. "I only give advice when I truly believe in it."
We even planned our NGO that day, sitting side by side with papers and pens scattered around, sketching out ideas, imagining possibilities, dreaming quietly of doing something meaningful together. The sunlight slanted through the library windows, dust motes drifting lazily in the air, and I realized something new about myself — how much it unsettled me when someone I cared about seemed absorbed in their phone, detached from the moment. That day, he kept checking his device repeatedly. I tolerated it at first, flipping pages in my book, trying to concentrate, but eventually, it felt wrong. My gaze would flicker up again and again, drawn to him, the rhythm of his movements, the way he shifted in his chair. That moment, the end of our meeting, now lingers in my memory tinged with a slight bitterness, a reminder that even the best days have edges of disappointment.
Even so, he remained the first thought that greeted me the next morning. I woke up and reached for my phone instinctively, wondering whether he had messaged, wondering when we might see each other again. There was a quiet excitement in the waiting, a pull in my chest I didn't quite want to analyze — I only wanted to feel it.
The next morning, he sent me a video of himself making silly faces, playful and unguarded, his eyes twinkling even through the tiny lens of the camera. He was leaving for Multan on a family trip, yet he thought of me enough to share that laughter across the distance. I laughed along, alone in my room, imagining the corners of his smile and the tilt of his head, feeling that strange warmth that always seemed to accompany him.
The following day, we had a three-hour call, from 5:15 to 8:14 pm. We debated religion, morality, philosophy, and everything in between. The air in my room seemed to shrink and expand with our words, the clock moving unnoticed. Every question he asked, every subtle challenge he posed, felt like a thread unraveling something inside me, making me think, reconsider, connect dots I hadn't even noticed before. It was fun, intellectually thrilling, and yes, I might have won one of the arguments, though he would never admit it, but the thought alone made me grin uncontrollably.
Monday was quieter, but our connection remained. We texted from 7 pm to almost 10, messages drifting in long pauses, bursts of insight, questions, jokes. It was a digital echo of our in-person conversations, a rhythm I had begun to rely on, a space where I could pour out thoughts freely and he would respond not just with words, but with understanding.
Tuesday brought a small, unexpected delight. He began sending me videos of Multan — the streets he walked, the clouds skimming the horizon, small shops, even pigeons pecking on the ground. He isn't someone who likes taking pictures or videos, yet he made the effort for me. I found it unbearably sweet, a gesture of care that spoke more than any words could. Watching those videos, seeing the city through his eyes, I felt a quiet joy. It wasn't just the scenes themselves, but the fact that he was letting me into his world, even for a moment, that filled me with warmth. That is how I knew our friendship had truly grown — slowly, tenderly, undeniably.
Later, we prank-texted him, a harmless joke set in motion by a friend pretending to be me. I wasn't expecting anything meaningful, especially from him, the composed, careful one who never admitted anything emotional outright. And yet, his response stopped me mid-breath. Thinking he was speaking to me, he typed something so unexpectedly soft and unguarded that my heart thudded violently. He said he missed me, far more than he had realized. Simple words, yet they landed with the weight of a confession, a quiet admission he likely never intended to make. I stared at the screen, stunned, my chest tight. It felt like a truth that had been waiting quietly to be acknowledged, a small opening in the carefully constructed wall he always kept around himself.
It was surreal, stepping into that fragment of his reality, into a version of him that existed just for me. The warmth of it lingered, not like a flash of infatuation, but like sunlight settling into the corners of a room, soft and steady. I felt seen, noticed, important in a way I had never allowed myself to admit I wanted.
All of it — the NGO planning, the debates, the videos from Multan, the prank message — was stitched together by something fragile, yet strong. A friendship that had become a meditation, a quiet reflection, a rhythm that threaded through my days. The first thought I carried each morning, the echo I held in my chest when the world felt heavy or mundane. He had become a constant presence, not in person, not always visibly, but in that subtle way that makes someone feel indispensable to your inner life.
And even in the smallest moments, I realized the magnitude of what I had found — not romance, not drama, not performance, but something rarer: a connection that made the ordinary extraordinary, that made the silence between words feel meaningful, that made each shared laugh, each serious thought, and each careless gesture feel like proof that the world had room for something true and gentle, something I had thought I would never find.