The language between silences

The first thing Ethan notices was not the canr. It was the silence. Not the ordinary kind that settled over library or the kind that drifted through empty hallways after the class ended but the silence that seemed to follow one particular girl wherever she went. Student laughed around her. The professors greeted her. Conversations buzzed in every direction and yet she stood in the middle of it all as though the world spoke through glass.

She was not alone. She was just simple elsewhere. Ethan has seen her around the campus before. Usually beneath the old Banyan tree near the literature building surrounded by books with tiny slips of paper peeking out between pages. Sometimes she sat outside the greenhouse sketching flowers instead of looking at them. Other days she would walk slowly through the corridor with white cane tapping gently against the tilted floor never hurried and never flustered.

Her name he later learnt was Idha. On Monday morning the fate finally decided that they would meet. The corridor outside the library was usually crowded. Students rushed between lectures balancing coffee cups and backpacks and half finished assignment. Ethan was doing exactly what he did. Walking too fast reading a message on the phone.

The collision was inevitable. Books scattered across the floor. "Oh God! I am so sorry!!!" Ethan blurred immediately crouching to gather the fallen books. The girl knelt beside him calm despite the Chaos. She smiled. She was not annoyed it embarrassed. Just kind.

She pointed towards her ear and gently shook her head. He froze. The realization hit him all at once. She could not hear him. Feeling foolish he gestured awkwardly between himself and the books before giving an apologetic smile that probably looked more like panic. She pulled a small notebook from her bag and scribbled something.

It's okay. Happens more often than you think :)

He couldn't stop smiling. "You carry a notebook?". She looked at him for a second before raising any eyebrow. Right. She could not hear that either. He wrote this in the notebook and she wrote somthing back.

Old habits. Makes conversation easier.

He nodded though she was not sure if he understood what she said fully. When all the books had been gathered he noticed one had tiny pressed flowers tucked between it's pages. "They are beautiful" he said instinctively.

Again. Words. He mentally groaned. She watched his lips move catching only fragments. Then she noticed where his eyes landed. Opening the book she carefully revealed a delicate lavender flower pressed between the pages.

The she signed something. Her hands moved with effortless grace each motion flowing into the next like poetry. Ethan stared Blankly m she laughed. Not loudly and mockingly. Just a soft laugh that reached her eyes. She took the notebook for one last time.

You don't know the sign language.

He shook his head.

Most people don't.

For some reason that sentence stayed with him linger than it should. Most people don't. It was not angry or bitter. Just tired. Around them the students continued to walk past them. Some smiled politely at her. One student asked Ethan " Can you tell her Professor Meera cancelled the class?"

Tell her. As if she was not standing right here. She already noticed it. She always has. She simply had that patient smile that she always worn. Something about that unsettled him.

He turned his phone and types
I am Ethan.

She read and types beneath it.

Isha. Nice to meet you.

There was a pause. He did not try to fill it with words because it was not awkward with her. Then he opened the notes app last time.

I don't know your language yet. But I would like to learn.

For the first time that day, her smile lingered just a bit longer.