Short Campus Love Stories: A Thousand Words Unspoken
When I first started college, there was a girl who treated me particularly well, making breakfast for me every day. However, I soon realized that she liked my roommate. She was too shy to only make breakfast for him, so she made mine as well.
I figured it out because she always added an extra egg to his meal. Once I understood her intention, I took her out for a meal and told her that she only needed to make breakfast for my roommate and not to worry about me.
She said, “Please don’t refuse. If you do, he’ll notice.” I thought about it for a moment, touched my belly, and agreed.
My roommate often had unpredictable whereabouts. One night, he got drunk and called the girl instead of me.
When I arrived, I found him passed out on the lawn across from McDonald’s, holding a half-eaten burger. We managed to get him into a taxi, and then she turned to leave.
I called after her and asked where she was going.
She said, “Now that you’re here, I’ll head home.”
I said, “Let’s go together. I’ll drop him off first and then take you home.”
She replied, “It’s fine. I live nearby. Just make sure he drinks plenty of water.”
It wasn’t until much later that I realized her home was actually in the opposite direction.
The next day, when my roommate woke up, he complained about a headache and couldn’t remember how he got home. I was about to tell him that the girl had brought him back, but then I thought about all she’d done and decided it wasn’t my place to say.
When my roommate was sober, he was a bookworm. One day, the girl came to our dorm while he was out. She stared at his bookshelf for a long time, her eyes sparkling, and asked me, “Which books does he read?”
I took some time to categorize the books he read, and she stared at the titles for a long time. I asked her, “What are you looking at?” She said, “I want to read all the books he’s read. Also, tell me what songs he likes.”
I spent some more time thinking about the songs he loved to sing and made her a playlist. She took the list and asked, “If I listen to all these songs, do you think I’ll be closer to him?”
I asked, “When are you planning to tell him you like him?”
She said, “After I finish reading these books, after I listen to these songs, after I feel like I understand him.” She said this with a smile on her face.
Just when you think you know how the story will go, it takes an unexpected turn. In our sophomore year, my roommate transferred to another school in a different city. Before he left, the girl came to help him pack. I hinted that she should confess her feelings that day, but she ignored me, doing nothing and saying nothing.
The next morning, she told me she wanted to visit his city. I asked, “Are you finally going to confess?” But she gave me a look I couldn’t understand.
A week later, she came back and brought me a bunch of snacks. As I ate, I asked how things had gone. She said she visited his school, had afternoon tea with him, and then spent a few days on her own. I asked, “Is that all? What happened next?” She said, “That’s it.”
My roommate graduated a year early and went abroad. While I was still struggling with my thesis, he posted his marriage certificate on social media. The girl, however, never dated anyone.
Her birthday party was shortly after my roommate’s wedding, and I attended. She brought a stack of books and placed them in front of me, saying, “These are the books I never finished. I’m giving them to you.”
I looked down; these were the same books that had once been on our dorm’s bookshelf, with the same titles, the same editions.
She started talking about her trip to see him. She said she had planned to tell him over tea, to casually drop in references from those books, to mention the songs she had been listening to, but she realized she still didn’t understand him.
If we can’t walk side by side, then let me pretend to just pass by, even though you don’t know that this “coincidental” passing is the result of running towards you the whole way. I never really understood your world, so even if I were sitting next to you today, I wouldn’t dare say that I love you. So, instead of a thousand words, silence will do. This is how someone like me, clumsy as I am, shows my love for you.
Thank you for reading! ” Sitestorys “
