Today I went casually. No plan, nothing. I had energy, and I had to deliver some books, so I thought to myself, why not just get this over with?
I dropped the books off, expecting to just run away, but he came out and invited me inside. I met his colleagues and was planning to leave, but somehow ended up sitting and talking. I joked that I had found the perfect girl for him. He told me I looked like an actress he liked. I said this was the first time anyone had ever said that. He laughed and said everyone else was blind. He also told me he vaped yesterday. I told him I tried too, and he thankfully cut me off before I could embarrass myself further.
We were still talking when a girl opened the door. She looked really young and energetic. She came in and apologised for interrupting us. He asked her to sit, and she apologised again as she sat opposite me.
She was smiling a lot. She looked at me and then turned to him and asked, "Is she that friend?"
My heart immediately became curious. She said it wasn't anything bad. That it was more in the context of how I help people. It made me blush a little that someone thought so highly of me.
Then he looked at me and said how he was really lucky that Allah had blessed him with good friends. He looked at me when he said it, and my heart melted.
We all talked for a bit, our conversations flowing quite nicely, and it was then that she told him he seemed different today, that he was talking differently. He replied smiling, "That's because my friend is here," and gestured to me. Later, he said I was good at convincing people. I said he was too. He leaned in, smiling, and said, 'Maybe we should open an NGO together.' We would have continued, but someone interrupted.
Another guy came to greet him, and while he talked, I ended up in a one-on-one conversation with the girl. We talked so much that even when the guy left, we didn't notice until he tapped his pen to get our attention.
We talked much more, and the conversation shifted to how attachment hurts, about how he used to tell one of his friends that. We talked about how death was the best reminder to help remove attachment.
We also talked about how sadness too is an emotion, so why do we run from it? Why do we treat it like something shameful?
No great work was ever created from happiness alone. Sometimes sadness is the thing that cracks us open wide enough to finally see clearly. It makes us feel everything, not just the pretty parts.
~
The mood had gotten pretty tense since we were all thinking deeply now, so he turned to the girl and smiled as he said to her, Our conversations are usually very serious like this, but today wasn't serious at all. This made me want to smile. It was true. This was the first time I had casually talked to him like that. Before that, there was always something stopping us. It was an invisible wall, one maybe I had built or maybe he had. I couldn't tell, but what I could tell was that we both weren't good at making it casual.
We would talk for hours. We had been friends for months, but none of us had actually put a name to what we had. It had started pretty awkwardly, and after that, even as our friendship progressed, we didn't call each other 'friend' or anything at all. I was and felt close to him, but at the same time I wasn't sure. My interactions with him were pretty formal, and it always felt like a one-sided lecture. But today, we were finally able to put a name to it, and it made me feel nice and special. The regard he was giving me was something I wasn't expecting at all.
I always thought it was only me admiring him, that it was one-sided admiration, that him giving me time was something he didn't even benefit from. So to hear how he had talked about me to someone else, to realise that those around him already knew of me, made me feel really special.
It felt like a gentle hug.
Then the other students from her class arrived, and he introduced me to all of them again. He said my name with so much regard that I honestly didn't know what to do with myself. A part of me wanted to interrupt him, to tell them he was speaking far too highly of me and that I wasn't all that, but the words didn't come out.
One of the girls looked at me and said, "So, this is the doctor you were talking about, sir? The one who works and then, after work, even though she takes off her coat, still helps everyone?"
I was stunned. I had no idea he ever talked about me like that behind my back. I was so speechless that the only thing I managed to say, laughing lightly, was, "I'm actually a dentist, not a 'doctor'," and everyone laughed with me. The laughter softened the air around us. It felt warm, familiar, and easy. The students were friendly, and we talked comfortably. I found myself watching him as he interacted with them, how effortlessly he held their attention. He was older than they were, yet he didn't make them feel it. He spoke to them casually, openly, as if he were one of them. They teased him, joked with him, and debated small things with him, and he responded with that same unbothered ease I admired so much.
And in that moment, I felt proud. I was proud that he was my friend, that he felt close enough to be casual with me, and that he made it so quietly obvious to everyone there that I mattered to him. It felt nice, genuinely nice. I went home still smiling because of that interaction.
~
Eventually, the students left, and it was just me, him, and the girl. And that's when I embarrassed myself.
He showed us a group photo, a random picture of the team, and then a picture of someone he had a crush on. And I don't know what came over me, but I thought that since we were finally being casual, I could finally show him the unfiltered side of me that simps over cute people.
The girl beside me was the same. We had just bonded over having similar celebrity crushes and our old Wattpad days, so I felt safe to be myself around her.
Which, in hindsight, was a terrible miscalculation.
I pointed at a guy in the picture, a cute, foreign-looking guy, and said, "This one's cute. Introduce me to him."
He stared. "Which one?"
I pointed again.
He squinted.
I pointed again, convinced he simply didn't know which person I meant.
And somewhere in the middle of my third attempt, he looked at me and said, "…That's me."
I froze.
"What?" I whispered.
"That's me," he repeated, almost amused.
I could not believe myself. It was so embarrassing that I wanted to disappear. To dissolve. To evaporate. If the ground had opened and swallowed me, I would have thanked it wholeheartedly. But it didn't, and I had to deal with the awkwardness.
~
The next day, I still felt soft. Light. Happy. Being with him makes me feel like I'm flying, I realised. Yesterday had such a strong impact on me that even today, I am happy and energetic and full of life.
Rumi's words keep echoing in my mind: You were born to fly, so why prefer to crawl through life?
And after yesterday, I genuinely feel like I can fly.
He makes me feel like I can do everything I used to be afraid of. Just thinking about yesterday — about how natural everything felt — brings a smile to my face. It's the same gentle warmth I felt in the early days when I first started liking him. Like the day I finally gathered the courage to approach him at the library.
Even now, just thinking of him brings a soft, innocent smile. And I like this version of myself — the version that feels alive again.
~
I understand it now.
I'm in love with him.
Not romantically — not the kind of love that wants to possess someone or imagine a future with them.
It's something deeper than that.
Softer.
Purer.
A kind of platonic love that feels like soul-homeliness.
The kind you feel for a best friend, a soulmate, a person whose presence sits gently on your heart.
Thinking about him makes me happy. Spending time with him makes me feel grateful — genuinely grateful that Allah allowed our paths to cross. It feels like a blessing to sit with someone who brings out parts of me I thought were gone.
Our time together is limited, but then again — so is life.
And I know my time with him is limited too.
But now I've decided to cherish it.
To make the best of it.
For however long God has written for us.