Title: What We Lost in Love
Author: by wajeeha zahra
It was the first day of college when Lily stepped into the vast, echoing hallway of Alverton University. Her bag hung loosely off her shoulder, her journal tightly clutched to her chest like armor. Everything about her was quiet—the way she walked, the way her eyes scanned faces without meeting any, the way her heart beat in hushed hopes.
Lily wasn't invisible, but she had mastered the art of not being seen. Love, to her, was a distant foggy word she read about in books—dramatic, consuming, sometimes cruel. But she never expected it would find her when she wasn't looking. She never expected Xavier.
Xavier had a laugh that could fill empty spaces. He was known not just for his looks—though his sea-glass eyes and artist's hands were hard to ignore—but for the way he noticed things no one else did. He remembered the name of the janitor's dog. He held the door for everyone. He walked like he owned every hallway but never made anyone feel small in it.
They met when Lily dropped her journal outside the literature hall. The pages fluttered open like broken wings, poetry scattered across the floor. Xavier was the only one who knelt to help her. His fingers paused on one page—a poem about rain and regret.
"This yours?" he asked, eyes gentle.
She only nodded.
He didn't tease her. He didn't smile smugly. He read another line, quietly. Then he handed it back.
"It's beautiful," he said. "You're beautiful."
And that was the beginning.
Lily wasn't used to being seen. Not like this. Xavier saw through the silence she wore like a coat, through the poems she wrote as a way to speak without speaking. It terrified her.
They started talking after classes—at first, brief moments in the library, then long walks between buildings, and slowly, evenings that bled into nights under the campus trees. Lily showed Xavier the world through her poetry. Xavier showed Lily how to live without hiding.
One rainy afternoon, they sat under the covered bridge near the campus lake. Xavier looked at her like she was a masterpiece he didn't deserve to touch.
"You ever think love is just... timing?" he asked.
Lily frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Like… people can feel something real, but the world just keeps getting in the way."
She didn't answer. Instead, she leaned her head on his shoulder, the rain whispering secrets only broken hearts understood.
But as seasons passed, life began to shift. Xavier's father fell ill, and he started spending weekends back home. His laughter dimmed. His texts grew shorter. He missed their poetry nights. Lily didn't complain. She understood.
Love wasn't always loud. Sometimes it was silent endurance.
One night, Lily found a crumpled piece of paper in the bottom of her bag. It was one of Xavier's sketches—a portrait of her, smiling. But he had never shown it to her. On the back, he had written:
"I'm scared I'll lose you before I even get to keep you."
Tears blurred the words. Something inside her cracked.
Was love enough, if timing was cruel?
And then came Noah.
She was bold, loud, and stunning. Noah had a magnetic confidence that turned heads wherever she went. She was Xavier's new partner in an art elective—something Lily hadn't signed up for. At first, Lily didn't mind. Xavier spoke about Noah casually. But slowly, she began noticing the changes.
Noah posted pictures of them painting together. They started going for coffee after class. Once, Lily waited outside the lecture hall only to find them walking out, laughing like they shared a private world Lily didn't belong in.
"You trust me, right?" Xavier asked one night.
Lily nodded, but her heart whispered doubts.
Then it happened. A week of silence. No calls. No messages. Until Lily saw it—with her own eyes. Xavier and Noah, hand in hand near the art building.
Her journal fell again, this time not by accident. Pages tore as she knelt, not to pick them up, but to breathe.
She didn't cry in front of him. She walked away.
That night, she wrote in her journal:
"I was the poetry. She was the painting. He chose colors over words."
The days that followed were quiet in the loudest way. Lily stopped writing. Her eyes, once deep with emotion, now stared blankly at the sky, wondering how it all turned gray so quickly.
Her friends tried. They brought her coffee. Took her to the campus café. Texted memes and quotes. But nothing reached her.
Because Xavier wasn't just a boy. He was the first person who ever made her feel real.
And now? He felt like a ghost haunting every hallway, every bench, every page she tried to write on.
But pain, like love, doesn't stay the same. It evolves. It teaches.
One afternoon, while sitting in the old literature hall alone, Lily heard footsteps. She looked up. It was Noah.
"I didn't come to fight," Noah said, sitting beside her. "I just… wanted to say I didn't plan it. I didn't mean to take him."
Lily looked at her, expression unreadable.
"You didn't take him," she whispered. "He gave himself."
And with that, she stood. Her voice didn't shake. Her heart did—but she held it together.
That night, she wrote for the first time in weeks:
"I died the day he stopped choosing me. But I came back the moment I chose myself."
It wasn't over. Her story was still being written.
Months passed like winds carrying pieces of Lily's broken heart across time. She focused on healing—slowly, painfully, but truly. The pain became part of her poetry, not the end of it. She started performing at open mics again, this time with fire in her voice and resilience in her eyes.
Xavier tried to return. Once.
He found her under the same covered bridge where they'd once watched the rain.
He looked older—tired, a little unsure.
"I messed up," he said. "She was... easy to fall into. But she wasn't you."
Lily didn't cry. She didn't smile either. She just looked at him, finally seeing him clearly.
"You didn't break me," she said softly. "You taught me where not to trust. You taught me how to rise."
He nodded, understanding. Perhaps this was love too—not the kind that stays, but the kind that sets you free.
As he turned to leave, Lily whispered something—not to him, but to herself:
"I lost him, but I found me."
She still walked the same campus sometimes, smiling at memories, both sweet and sad.
She never forgot Xavier. But she didn't need to.
It's not end