Part 1 When Heaven Draws a Line:The First Time I Saw You | Desire Lines
DL - I still remember the first time I saw you not because the world suddenly slowed down, or because violins played in the background.
It was nothing like the movies.
It was quieter than that.
Quieter, but somehow louder in my chest.
You were standing in line at the campus coffee shop, tapping your fingers lightly on your notebook. You looked impatient, no, more like distracted, like your body was there but your thoughts were somewhere else. Maybe in a different country, or a different sky.
You turned, and for a second, your eyes met mine.
It was barely two seconds. But somehow, I remember it more vividly than entire years of my life.
You didn’t smile.
Neither did I.
But something in me moved. As if a forgotten part of me had been found.
We weren’t introduced that day. Not yet. But fate had other plans, waiting quietly in the corners of our tomorrows.
A week later, I found you again. This time, not through chance, but through a mutual friend. Your name was Layla. The way you said it, soft, slow, almost like a whisper, made me want to memorize it like a song.
You laughed at a joke I made. It wasn’t even funny. But you laughed anyway, like you wanted to make me feel seen.
And from that moment, I was ruined.
In the most beautiful way possible.
We started talking. In stolen moments between classes. In long texts at midnight. In the spaces where words didn’t need to be clever, just honest.
I learned that you loved rainy days. That you carried a small journal in your bag wherever you went. That you cried too easily when watching sad movies, but pretended not to.
I told you things I never told anyone, about my childhood, about my fears, about the way my hands shook every time I spoke in front of a crowd. You listened, really listened, as if my words mattered.
And for the first time in a long time, I believed they did.
We never called it love, not in the beginning.
It was just something we felt, like a song we both knew the lyrics to, even though we never remembered learning it.
But deep down, even then, I think we knew.
This wasn't going to be a normal story.
Because as our hearts grew closer, we began to hear the quiet warnings in the wind. The way your smile faltered every time someone asked if we had "the same faith." The way my chest tightened when I thought of introducing you to my parents.
Still, we kept walking forward.
Because in that moment, love felt bigger than anything that could separate us.
Even heaven.
To be continued...