I first noticed her at a bus stop that most people ignored.
It wasn't special—just a narrow road, a cracked bench, and a faded signboard that had lost half its letters. People came and went without looking at each other.
Everyone was always in a hurry.
She wasn't.
She sat at the far end of the bench, holding a small blue notebook close to her chest, as if it were something fragile. She never used her phone. Never wore earphones. She just watched the road in silence, like she was waiting for something that wasn't a bus.
For three days, I only observed her from a distance.
On the fourth day, she looked at me.
It wasn't a long look. Just a brief glance. But it stayed with me longer than it should have.
The next morning, I found myself sitting on the same bench—closer this time. She was already there. Same notebook. Same quiet presence.
"Does the bus always come late here?" I asked, not expecting an answer.
She nodded.
That was it. No smile. No words.
But somehow, that small nod felt like permission.
From that day on, the bus stop became a routine we shared without planning. Some days we spoke. Some days we didn't. And strangely, the silence never felt uncomfortable.
Her name was Anaya.
She told me that on a rainy evening when the sky looked heavier than usual. She said it softly, like she wasn't sure whether names were meant to be spoken out loud.
She loved old songs—the kind people stopped listening to because they reminded them of things they didn't want to remember. She hated loud places. She believed that some feelings lost their meaning once you tried too hard to explain them.
"I think words can be careless," she once said, staring at the road. "They break things without realizing it."
I didn't ask what she meant.
I fell for her quietly.
There were no confessions. No promises. Just long conversations that ended too soon, shared silences that said more than words ever could, and smiles that stayed in my mind long after she left.
But there was one thing she never talked about.
The blue notebook.
No matter how close we became, she never opened it in front of me. And I never asked. Some boundaries felt important, even if you didn't understand them.
Then one evening, she didn't come.
I waited longer than usual. The bus arrived. Left. The streetlights turned on one by one.
She never showed up.
The next day, she didn't come either.
By the third day, I told myself to stop expecting her. People leave all the time, I thought. They disappear without explanations.
That was when I saw it.
The blue notebook.
It was lying on the bench, soaked from the rain, its pages bent and torn at the edges. Abandoned.
My hands trembled as I picked it up. It felt heavier than it should have.
I hesitated before opening it.
The first page had only one line, written carefully, as if the writer had taken a long time to decide every word.
"If you're reading this, it means I loved you…
but I was never brave enough to stay."
The world around me went silent.
And for the first time since I met her—
I forgot how to breathe.