Sleep became a stranger.
Every time Aaliyah closed her eyes, she was either back in that rain or standing in that bookstore—trapped between two brothers who spoke in riddles and burned with something that shouldn't have touched her soul.
She fasted that week. Voluntarily. Not because it was Ramadan, but because her body felt unclean. Her thoughts were louder than her prayers. And that terrified her more than anything else.
Silas hadn't messaged again.
Lucien didn't need to.
He haunted differently. Like a bruise under fabric—hidden, but impossible to ignore.
She avoided the mosque.
Not because she didn't believe.
But because she didn't want to be reminded of how little belief was left in her.
---
The university library became her refuge. She started studying late. Staying past dusk. Avoiding home where her mother eyed her with suspicion, and her father talked about marriage proposals as if she were cattle in need of a better stable.
And one night—after 9 p.m.—he came.
Silas.
In the shadows between shelves.
Not with a smirk. Not with a challenge.
Just quiet eyes and hands shoved into his coat pockets.
"You shouldn't be here," she whispered.
He didn't flinch. "Neither should you."
She looked away. "I'm here to study."
He took a step closer. "You've been fasting."
She froze.
"I noticed," he added, voice almost gentle. "You look… tired. Hollow."
"Maybe that's what God wants from me."
Silas's eyes narrowed. "No. That's what they want from you."
She blinked. "They?"
He stepped closer—too close. "The ones who never let you speak. The ones who think a good woman is a silent one."
She backed up. He didn't follow.
"You don't know anything about faith," she said softly.
He nodded. "Maybe not. But I know what doubt tastes like. And you're choking on it."
A silence stretched between them. This time, not cruel. Just... unbearably real.
Aaliyah exhaled. "Why are you here?"
Silas looked at her for a long time, something unreadable in his eyes.
"To tell you," he said, "that I never wanted to ruin you. I just wanted to know if someone like you… could love someone like me."
She swallowed. Her throat ached.
"And what if I could?" she asked, barely a whisper.
He didn't smile.
He didn't move.
He just whispered back: "Then I'd spend the rest of my life trying to unlearn the parts of me that don't deserve you."
And then he left.
Quietly. No touch. No threat. No claim.
Just silence.
A silence that echoed louder than thunder.
That night, Aaliyah didn't pray.
Not because she didn't believe.
But because she finally understood—God wasn't the only one watching.
---