Aarav had always believed that emotion was a currency—one that people spent carelessly, overdrafting from themselves to win approval, praise, love, or pity. He didn't like the economy of feelings. It felt... unstable. But lately, it was as if someone was cracking into his vault, one thought at a time.
He didn't know if he was being robbed or rescued.
---
The black notebook lay open on his desk.
The pages, once blank and cold, were now alive with thoughts he had never spoken aloud. Lines of poetry, unfinished metaphors, observations of the world through tinted glass. He had written nearly ten pages in the last week—a record since the silence began.
Each sentence came like breath after drowning.
> "Some days, I don't know if I'm quiet or just unheard."
"People think feeling nothing is peaceful. It's not. It's noisy in a different way."
"If I disappeared, would they miss me—or just the empty space I used to occupy?"
He didn't write to be read. But part of him wondered what would happen if someone did.
That was when Suhani passed him a folded slip of paper during math class.
It read:
"Stop hiding your storm. The sky misses your lightning."
He looked up sharply.
She didn't even glance at him. Just stared ahead, pencil tapping gently against the desk.
After class, he walked up to her.
"Did you read it?" he asked, voice barely above a whisper.
"No," she said without flinching.
"Then why—?"
"I didn't need to. The way you carry that notebook… it's not for decoration."
He said nothing.
"I think the best writers write for survival," she added. "Not applause."
Aarav looked down at the notebook.
"Maybe I'm just writing to remember that I once felt something."
She smiled, and for a second, it didn't look like a smile. It looked like understanding wearing a mask.
---
At lunch, Kabir dropped down beside them with his usual flair.
"You both look like poets arguing about metaphors again," he said, unwrapping his paratha.
"We were," Suhani replied.
Kabir looked at Aarav. "You gonna show me your notebook too?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because you'd mock it."
Kabir leaned back. "You think I can't take things seriously?"
Aarav raised an eyebrow.
Kabir held his gaze for a moment. Then he pulled out his own notebook—leather-bound, surprisingly worn.
He flipped through the pages.
Drawings.
Sketches of faces, street scenes, messy handwriting beneath each one.
"People think I'm all talk," Kabir said. "Truth is, I draw to shut myself up."
Suhani looked surprised. Aarav didn't show it, but inside, something softened.
He leaned closer. "These are good."
Kabir smirked. "I know. I'm the full package."
Aarav rolled his eyes.
But in that moment, something shifted. A wall between them cracked, letting in just a sliver of light.
---
The following day, a new notice went up on the class bulletin board:
"School Literary Festival – Submissions Open!"
Themes: Voice, Silence, and Becoming.
Deadline: Two weeks.
Suhani was the first to sign up.
Kabir joined for the drama category.
Aarav stared at the form for a long time.
"You should," Suhani whispered behind him.
"I haven't submitted anything in years."
"Maybe this is the year you remember how."
He signed without another word.
---
The week was a blur of soft awakenings.
Aarav wrote at night now. Not because he had to, but because his mind wouldn't stop weaving words together. Class felt less like a prison and more like a window. He began answering questions. Sometimes. Occasionally. Rarely with full sentences. But that was a start.
He even got into a small debate with the chemistry teacher about the use of critical thinking in textbook questions.
His classmates noticed.
"Is he okay?" someone whispered behind him.
"Did he get dumped or something?"
"Maybe he's finally growing up."
He didn't care.
Actually… he did.
Just a little.
---
One afternoon, Suhani found him sitting on the rooftop terrace, legs hanging over the edge, notebook open in his lap.
"Thought you didn't like heights," she said.
"I don't," he replied. "But I like seeing things from above. It makes problems look small."
She sat beside him.
"What are you writing?"
He handed the notebook to her.
She read it silently.
> "I don't know if I'm becoming someone new,
Or just remembering who I was before I stopped trying."*
She ran her fingers over the page gently.
"This is beautiful."
"I don't know if it's real," he replied. "Sometimes I feel like I'm acting. Like this version of me is just... a character someone else created."
She looked at him for a long moment.
"Maybe we all are. But the thing is—every version of you is still you. Even the broken ones."
---
That evening, Kabir challenged Aarav to a chess game in the library.
"Bet you think you're a strategist," he said with a grin.
"I think you rely too much on charisma," Aarav replied.
They played. And talked.
About Delhi. About Kabir's school. About the pressure to be likable, to be smart, to always perform.
Kabir confessed that he used to get anxiety attacks during debates.
"No one knew. They thought I was born to lead."
"Were you?"
Kabir laughed. "I was born to hide in plain sight. Leading just came with the mask."
When Aarav won the game with a quiet checkmate, Kabir grinned and said, "Maybe there's more to you than brooding and metaphors."
Aarav shrugged. "Maybe there's more to you than volume and jokes."
They didn't shake hands. But Kabir patted his shoulder on the way out.
It was enough.
---
Later that night, Aarav wrote:
> "Maybe friendship isn't a loud thing. Maybe it's just someone pulling up a chair beside your silence."
He looked at the page. Then smiled, just slightly.
The notebook wasn't just his anymore.
It had become theirs—a silent thread between three broken but burning hearts.
And under the quiet sky of a city that never looked up, Aarav Mehta was slowly remembering what it meant to be alive.