The Girl Who Forgot How to Smile

The world was never quiet, but inside me, it always was.

Even when people laughed around me, my heart stayed still. I used to talk a lot as a child, but after my mum died, something inside me went silent. It wasn’t that I couldn’t speak — I just didn’t see a reason to anymore.

Mum’s voice was my calm. When she left, home became heavy. My father buried himself in work and my older siblings moved to other cities. So, it was just me, the house, and echoes of everything that used to be warm.

I grew up learning to hide pain behind silence. People said I was shy. Some said proud. But none of them knew that silence was my only way to stay safe.

By the time I turned nineteen, I had moved to the city for school. Life there was louder — cars honking, music everywhere, laughter in the hostel. Everyone had a story to tell, except me.

Until the day he sat next to me in class.

He wasn’t like the others. His name was Kian — a bit too confident, a bit too carefree. He had that kind of smile that made people forget what they were thinking. He talked to everyone, even me — the quiet girl who never looked up from her books.

“Why don’t you ever talk?” he asked one afternoon, resting his chin on his hand as if he had all the time in the world.

I didn’t answer. I just looked away.

But the next day, he tried again.

And the next.

And the next.

He didn’t ask the same question again — instead, he started telling me little stories. Funny things that happened to him. Silly jokes that didn’t even make sense. Sometimes he’d just talk about the sky or a song he liked.

He never expected me to reply. But somehow, his words filled the quiet space around me.

And then one day, without meaning to, I laughed.

Just a small laugh — but it surprised even me.

He froze for a second, looked at me with that teasing grin and said,

“There you are. I was starting to think you didn’t know how to smile.”

That moment — that small, unexpected laugh — was the first crack in my silence.