The Unspoken Words english love stories
The Unspoken Words
They say first love is hard to forget, but in my case, it took seven years just to say hello.
It started when I was fourteen. I was walking home from my evening math tuition in a quiet town called Alwaye when I saw her for the first time. She was crossing the market road with her elder sister. She wore a simple pastel green salwar suit with matching bangles, but it was her unruly, honey-brown curls that caught my breath. Until that day, "love at first sight" was just a line in romantic movies. That evening, sitting alone in my bedroom, her warm smile kept flashing in my mind.
I wanted to see her again. The next day, I took the same route home, scanning every corner of the street. I checked the local tea stalls, ice cream shops, and the famous chat vendors where teenagers usually hung out, but she was nowhere to be found.
Days turned into months, and months into years. I kept wondering: if I ever saw her again, would I have the courage to talk to her?
The truth was, I carried a deep insecurity. I had a severe stammer. Because of my speech impediment, I had almost no friends growing up. Classmates often mimicked or teased me, so I chose solitude over conversation. I became quiet, shy, and distant. But whenever I thought of that girl in the green dress, I wished with all my heart that I could speak like a normal teenager. I knew no girl would want a boyfriend who couldn't utter a full sentence without stuttering.
Three full years passed. I had almost given up hope, assuming she was just a visitor passing through town.
Then came an ordinary Saturday afternoon. I was at the local market helping my father pick up groceries when I spotted her outside a stationery store—standing with the same sister. My heart did a sudden flip. I quickly lied to my father, saying I needed to fetch notes from a classmate, and quietly followed them from a distance.
They walked without exchanging a single word, unlike other teenagers who chatted endlessly. After a ten-minute walk, they entered a modest two-story house with the gate number B-34. She lived barely a kilometer from my house!
That night, joy mixed with frustration. I knew where she lived, but I still couldn't speak to her. I blamed my fate, but then I decided to take control of my life. I searched for speech therapy clinics in the city and enrolled in an evening program.
For the next two years—through my high school finals and into my first year of college—I worked relentlessly. Every morning, I practiced breathing exercises and vocal drills in front of the mirror. Every evening, I walked past house B-34.
I observed little details about her over time. She barely went out, except to play badminton in her courtyard with her sister. Once every month, a taxi would pick up her family and take them toward the city hospital, which I assumed was for routine family checkups. Interestingly, while her sister went to the local school every morning, I never saw her going to school or college.
By the time I graduated with an engineering degree and secured a job offer at a reputed firm, my hard work had paid off—my stammer was entirely gone. I could speak clearly, confidently, and fluently.
With a stable career and newfound confidence, I knew it was time. I prepared a short speech in my mind—the exact confession I had been rehearsing for seven long years.
Two days before Valentine's Day, I walked toward her neighborhood, determined to finally speak to her. As luck would have it, I bumped into her and her sister near the market. She was holding a thick paperback book.
My hands trembled, but taking a deep breath, I stepped in front of them.
"Excuse me," I said, my voice clear and steady.
They both stopped and looked at me with puzzled expressions.
Before her sister could walk away, I blurted out everything I had kept bottled up for seven years:
"I saw you for the first time when I was fourteen. Since that day, you've been the person who motivated me to change my life. I spent seven years working on myself just to be able to stand here and talk to you smoothly. I love you, and I want to ask if you would be my Valentine?"
The silence that followed was heavy. Her sister looked at me in utter disbelief, then held up the book the girl was carrying.
The title on the cover read: "A Beginner's Guide to Indian Sign Language."
"Are you out of your mind?" her sister asked softly. "You claim you've watched her for seven years, and you never realized she is deaf and mute?"
I stood frozen on the pavement as the girl smiled at me warmly, completely unaware of the speech I had just delivered.