Chapter 7 - Between the Lines

Chapter 7: Between the Lines

The rooftop terrace wasn’t a secret, but few people used it. A wooden bench sat beneath a frangipani tree, its blossoms occasionally tumbling to the tiled floor. On cloudless afternoons, the space was warm and open, but today, it was overcast—soft light, cooler wind, and the kind of sky that made everything feel slightly suspended.

Meilin found herself there with no real intention, a paper cup of barley tea in her hands. She hadn’t expected to see Rafiq.

But when the glass door slid open, and he stepped out, she didn’t move. Just smiled, small and instinctive.

He hesitated only for a second, then walked over and sat beside her—not close, but not far.

For a while, they said nothing.

The breeze tugged lightly at the hem of her sleeves.

“Long day?” he asked.

She nodded. “Just full. Yours?”

“Same.”

It could have ended there. But it didn’t.

She turned to him slowly. “You said something, in one of the pages. About waiting.”

Rafiq looked down, the corner of his mouth twitching with a quiet breath of a smile. “Yeah.”

“You meant it?”

He turned to her now, fully. “Every word.”

The wind passed between them, and then Rafiq shifted on the bench, his voice lower.

“I’ve been thinking about saying something. Not because I expect anything from you. But because I don’t want to keep it to myself anymore.”

Meilin’s fingers tightened slightly around her cup. She said nothing.

Rafiq looked at the sky once, then at her. His voice trembled ever so slightly, like a chord just barely held in tune.

“I like you, Meilin. Not in the way people say it when they’re trying to fill silence. Not because I want anything from you. I like you in the way that feels like catching your breath after a long swim. Like finding a song you didn’t know you needed to hear, and realizing it’s been playing in the background all along.”

He paused, searching her expression—not to gauge her reaction, but because he wanted to remember the way she looked in this moment.

“I like you in the way that makes me want to slow everything down just to make room for you. Your words. Your quiet. Your whole presence.”

Her breath caught. She hadn’t prepared for this—hadn’t even let herself imagine it clearly. But now that it was here, it didn’t feel like a surprise.

It felt like a page they had both been turning toward.

“I don’t know what’s next,” he continued. “And I know there’s a lot—differences, timing, faith. But I wanted you to hear it. From me. Clearly.”

Meilin stared at him for a long moment. Her heart wasn’t racing—it was steady, quiet, and somehow… full. There had been a time when someone saying they liked her would have made her retreat, would have sounded like pressure. But this—Rafiq’s voice, his timing, his honesty—felt like a hand gently offered, not a pull.

She thought about the moments that had led to this one: his voice beside hers in the rehearsal room, the way he laughed when no one else did, the way his silences always made space for hers. And the notebook—that quiet gift that had said more than flowers or scripted words ever could.

He had never once asked her to meet him where he was. He simply stood still long enough for her to arrive on her own.

And for someone who had spent much of her life shrinking, being allowed to unfold—without demand—was more moving than she could express.

So she said the only thing she was sure of.

“Thank you. For not rushing. For letting me… arrive slowly.”

She paused, eyes on the blossoms scattered across the floor. Then, more softly, as though offering a piece of herself that had long been folded away—

“I don’t know if I’m ready to step forward. But I want to keep walking with you. One step at a time. That much I’m sure of.”

She turned to meet his gaze, and for the first time, didn’t look away.

“I like you too, Rafiq. Quietly. Deeply. Maybe in a way I don’t yet know how to name. But it’s there.”

Her voice trembled slightly, but she didn’t look away. It felt vulnerable to say it out loud—like placing a piece of her heart on the table between them. And yet, for the first time, she wasn’t afraid of being misunderstood.

She continued, slower now, searching for the right words.

“I think I’ve spent so long protecting myself that I forgot how to let someone in. But with you… it doesn’t feel like letting someone in. It feels like you were already here, waiting quietly, not asking for anything but my truth.”

She glanced down at her hands, then back to him.

“So I don’t know what this becomes. Or how we’ll manage everything that comes next. But I know I feel safe. I know I trust you. And that’s not something I say lightly.”

Rafiq’s shoulders softened. He nodded. “Always.”

They sat a while longer, side by side, saying nothing more.

But the silence had changed.

It wasn’t waiting anymore.

It was becoming.

—

Rafiq

Later that night, Rafiq sat by his window, the rooftop breeze still clinging to his skin like memory. The world outside was quiet—streetlights casting their gold over parked cars and shuttered shops—but his thoughts were anything but still.

He replayed her words again and again. Not just the ones she said aloud, but the way she said them—the calm certainty behind her pause, the way her voice softened when she said she wanted to keep walking with him.

He had told himself he didn’t need an answer. That confessing was enough. But her response—I like you too, Rafiq. Quietly. Deeply.—had filled a space in him he hadn’t known was hollow.

It wasn’t fireworks. It wasn’t dramatic.

It was gentle. Measured. Real.

He had spent years being the one to lead, to push, to fix. But with Meilin, he had learned to stay. To wait. To make space.

And now she was here. Not in full certainty, but in full sincerity.

That, he thought, was more beautiful than anything else.

Because it meant they weren’t rushing toward an ending.

They were building something that might last.

He let the thought settle as he opened his notebook again, flipping to a blank page. The lines he had once written to no one in particular now felt tethered to something real—someone real.

He didn’t write much. Just a date. And a single line:

She said she’d walk with me. That’s all I’ve ever needed.

Rafiq closed the notebook gently, laying it on his bedside table. For once, he didn’t feel the urge to scroll through old messages, or worry over what would happen next. There was peace in knowing that the beginning they had found was not fragile—it was patient. Willing.

He looked out the window again, letting the weight of her words fill the quiet.

Not promises. But presence.

And sometimes, that was the louder kind of love.

—

Meilin

That night, Meilin lay in bed with the notebook on her nightstand, the same page turned open to where she’d slipped a small pressed frangipani blossom between the margins. She hadn’t meant to keep it. But when it fell beside her feet on the rooftop earlier, something in her had told her to hold onto it.

Her thoughts drifted back to Rafiq’s words—his voice clear but careful, his eyes steady but tender. She had never been confessed to like that before. Not with reverence. Not with space.

What struck her most wasn’t just the way he looked at her—it was how he didn’t look away when she stumbled through her truths.

She thought about the versions of herself she had hidden from past lovers—the too-quiet, too-careful, too-complicated sides. But Rafiq hadn’t asked her to perform. He hadn’t even asked her to speak. He had just listened. And waited.

The blossom in the notebook had begun to dry. But in her heart, something had only just begun to open.

She reached for a pen and, after a moment, flipped to a blank page near the back.

Tonight, something changed. Not because I was asked to love, but because I was given the room to.

She paused, pen hovering.

Then slowly, she added beneath it:

I used to think love meant proving yourself useful, staying small enough not to burden someone else’s life. But Rafiq… he made space without asking for anything in return. He made it feel okay to take up space, to not know all the answers.

She leaned back against her pillow, the pen resting on her chest.

There was no rush. No demands. Just this quiet becoming between them.

And for the first time, she allowed herself to believe—maybe this wasn’t too good to be true.

Maybe it was just good. And true.