1.The Church Bells

Every Sunday morning, the church bells rang through our little village. Their sound carried across the fields, soft and steady, waking me before the sun fully rose. I always meant to be early, but somehow I never was. By the time I reached the church at the top of the hill, I’d already be running.

Camila was always there first. She stood near the altar, arranging flowers or handing out hymn books, her white ribbon glowing in the morning light. She never rushed, never looked tired. Everything about her felt calm the kind of calm that made the noise in my head go quiet.

I liked to think I came for the sermons, but the truth was, I came for her.

When I slipped through the church doors, she always noticed. A quick glance, a soft smile, a small shake of her head that was all. I didn’t need more. Even when she looked away, the air felt different, lighter somehow.

We had known each other since we were kids. The same small school, the same church, the same dusty roads after rain. She was a year older, but it had always felt like more. She knew how to stay calm when things went wrong, how to talk gently when everyone else raised their voice. People listened to her. I always did.

After mass, when most people left, we stayed behind to help the caretaker. She worked quietly, moving from bench to bench, making everything neat again. I tried to help, though most of the time I just watched. The light from the stained-glass windows covered the floor in colors red, blue, gold and I thought she looked like part of it.

She laughed sometimes, usually at something clumsy I did. It wasn’t loud, just soft and quick, but it always stayed with me. That laugh had a way of filling the empty church better than any hymn.

I didn’t know when I started feeling different around her. Maybe it was always there, waiting to grow. She’d been my friend, my classmate, the one who lent me pencils and scolded me when I forgot my homework. But somewhere along the years, she stopped feeling like a habit and started feeling like a heartbeat.

On the way home, she walked ahead as always. The road stretched between rice fields, the sun warm on our backs. She talked about something,school, choir, I don’t even remember but I barely heard. I was busy memorizing the sound of her voice.

I wanted to tell her that her smile stayed in my mind even when she wasn’t around. I wanted to tell her that sometimes, when the church bells rang at night, I heard her laughter in them. But I didn’t. I just walked beside her, pretending nothing had changed.

When we reached the road that split toward our homes, she waved and smiled again before leaving. I watched her walk away, her ribbon catching the wind.

That evening, as the bells rang again for prayer, I sat by the window. The sky turned orange, the fields glowed, and everything felt still. Somewhere far off, I could hear the faint sound of her voice, or maybe I just imagined it.

I whispered her name softly, not because I wanted her to hear it, but because I wanted to remember how it felt to say it.

“Camila.”

It was just her name, but it carried something I didn’t yet understand something that hurt and comforted me at the same time.

Maybe love begins like that quietly, without warning, between two people who’ve known each other forever. Not in grand moments, but in small ones. In the sound of bells. In the space between laughter. In the way sunlight catches someone’s hair and makes you believe in things you can’t explain.

That was the day I realized it the bells didn’t just call me to church anymore. They called me to her.

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