"Sometimes, silence isn't peace.

It's everything we couldn't say,

trapped between the pauses."

It was raining.

Not the soft kind that kisses the windows and hums you to sleep - this was wild, angry rain. The kind that makes the night feel heavier. And that night, it wasn't the storm outside that made my chest ache.

It was the one inside.

I had planned to stay in. Headphones on. World off.

But fate - cruel, sarcastic fate - had other ideas.

Reyan had borrowed my umbrella, and by the time I realized it, the skies had already cracked open. I ran to the nearest cover, ducking beneath the old bus stop near the eastern wing of the campus.

And there she was.

Sia.

Standing alone, her bag clutched to her chest, rain dripping from the ends of her hair. She wasn't even surprised to see me. Just looked. Then turned away.

I hesitated.

But then, without a word, I walked over and stood beside her. Not too close. Just close enough to remember the smell of jasmine and paperbacks.

Minutes passed.

Neither of us spoke.

She stared into the streetlights. I stared into the storm.

"Did you draw anything lately?" she asked suddenly, voice soft.

My throat tightened. "Yeah. Just... lines that don't connect."

She smiled faintly. "Still dramatic, I see."

"I call it emotional clarity," I said with a dry chuckle.

She didn't laugh. Just stared ahead again.

"I saw your painting once," she said, quieter. "The one you posted last winter. It was... sad."

"It was you."

She blinked. "What?"

I looked at her. Really looked. "You, in color. And in grayscale. Both versions... always aching."

There was a long pause.

"Don't do that," she whispered.

"What?"

"Make it sound beautiful when it hurt."

The silence stretched again.

I could feel it rising - all the things I hadn't said, all the nights I'd wanted to scream into my pillow and ask her why she kept walking away when I never stopped staying.

"Meera thinks I'm obsessed," I said finally. "You think so too?"

She didn't reply.

I nodded. "Right."

Then came her voice, soft but clear.

"No. I think... you loved me too loudly. And I loved too quietly. If I ever loved at all."

That sentence cut deeper than rejection ever could.

Because it was honest.

The rain slowed.

We stood there like statues soaked in history.

I turned to her. "I waited for years, Sia."

"I know."

"I thought if I stayed kind, stayed patient, one day you'd turn around."

She met my eyes. Her own were red - not from crying now, but maybe from holding back tears for too long.

"I was never running away from you, Aarin," she said. "I was running from who I became when I was with you. The guilt. The pressure. The weight of being someone's everything."

I stepped back slightly, as if her words had pushed me.

"So I was too much?"

"No," she said quickly. "You were too real. And I wasn't ready for real."

A car honked nearby. The world reminded us it was still moving.

I glanced at the sky. The clouds were finally breaking.

"I guess this is what almost closure feels like," I said with a smile that didn't reach my eyes.

She looked down. "I didn't hate you. I never did."

"I know."

A pause. Then -

"Do you still write?" she asked.

"I still bleed," I replied.

She nodded. "You always will."

And with that, she turned and walked into the night. Not hurried. Not afraid.

Just... final.

I didn't stop her this time.

I just stood there until the rain ended.

Later that night, I scribbled one line in my notebook:

"She almost said she missed me.

And I almost believed it."