Sometimes, the quietest words are the ones people remember.
---
Aarav Mehta never liked the school magazine.
Not because it was poorly written—though, most years, it was—but because it always felt... curated. Glossy. Polished in all the wrong places. Like someone had tried too hard to smile through words that didn't belong to them.
Which is why, when the literature teacher asked him if he'd submit something for the winter edition, Aarav's first instinct was to say no.
Flat. Simple. Safe.
But then he thought about Suhani's sketches.
Kabir's grin during their presentation.
The moment on stage when the applause didn't sound like noise—it sounded like understanding.
And something inside him shifted.
So instead of declining, Aarav reached into his notebook, flipped through the scrawled pages of poetry, fragments, and wandering thoughts…
And tore out five.
Not the most beautiful ones.
Not the cleverest or cleanest.
But the truest.
The ones that hurt a little to give away.
---
The magazine came out on a Monday.
It was a thick, white booklet with a student's artwork on the front—flowers blooming from a broken clock. Inside were articles about environmental clubs, farewell memories, doodles from 8th grade, and a very aggressive comic about a math teacher turning into a kaiju.
And then, halfway through, were Aarav's pages.
No title.
No name.
Just five entries under a section titled: "Notes in the Wind."
They weren't labeled as poems.
They didn't need to be.
---
> "I once stood on a stage and forgot how to breathe.
Everyone clapped.
I didn't know if it was for the silence or the shaking."
---
> "Maybe the stars are lonely too.
Maybe that's why they burn."
---
> "People say don't bottle things up.
But what if spilling means breaking?"
---
> "My brother told me,
'Some books are meant to be unfinished.'
I think he meant people."
---
> "Today, I wanted to vanish.
So instead, I wrote this."
---
By lunch, people were whispering.
"Did you read page 17?"
"Who wrote that? It's... wow."
"Is this about someone's brother?"
"Page 19. The one about the stars. I think I cried."
Even Aarav's own classmates were stunned.
Kabir cornered him near the water cooler.
"You sneaky poetic menace," he said. "You didn't even tell me."
"You'd have made fun of me."
"Damn right. But now I can't because it was good."
Suhani said nothing when she walked past him in the corridor.
She just slipped a small note into his hand.
He waited until she disappeared around the corner before unfolding it.
Inside:
> "You gave the wind something to carry."
---
For the first time in his life, Aarav felt what it meant to be heard without raising your voice.
---
That week, juniors he barely recognized asked if he could look over their writing.
A boy from Class 10 left a folded poem on Aarav's desk, with a nervous sticky note: "Does this feel real to you?"
A girl from another section found him near the canteen and said, "Thank you. I didn't know we were allowed to feel like that."
He had no idea how to respond.
So he just nodded.
And kept the note in his bag.
---
One afternoon, Aarav found himself in the old art room—alone.
Rain tapped against the high windows.
Suhani had drawn a new mural along the back wall: A cityscape where the buildings were made of stacked books. Each window lit up like a thought waiting to be seen.
In the far corner, beside the paint shelves, he found a small sketch pinned to the corkboard.
Three people standing on a page.
Not a stage.
Not a street.
A page.
And beneath them, words that looked like they were falling, not written.
Aarav smiled.
He didn't need to ask who had drawn it.
---
On Thursday, Mrs. Fernandes asked him to give a reading at the upcoming farewell program. Just a short piece, something original.
He froze.
"I don't think—" he began.
She raised a hand. "Aarav. You already changed something just by letting your words breathe. Let them walk a little further."
He hesitated.
Then said, "Okay."
---
He told no one.
Not Suhani.
Not Kabir.
Not even the juniors who now called him "Writer Bhaiya" behind his back.
Instead, he sat on the school roof the evening before the farewell and wrote in his notebook.
The sky was pale blue, streaked with clouds that looked like erased thoughts.
Aarav scribbled slowly, carefully.
He didn't want this piece to sound wise.
He wanted it to sound true.
---
The next day, he stood behind the mic in the school auditorium.
Seniors filled the chairs in semi-formal dress.
Teachers lined the walls, half-smiling.
Suhani sat in the fourth row, eyes steady.
Kabir leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
Aarav cleared his throat.
And read:
> *"I used to think the loudest voices were the only ones worth hearing.
That silence meant absence.
That quiet meant weakness.
But I was wrong.
I learned that sometimes, what we whisper—
is what people carry home.
That pain is a kind of presence.
That even the smallest thought,
left on a page,
can become someone else's reason to write."*
He stepped back.
No applause erupted.
Just… stillness.
Then the clapping came.
Warm.
Real.
Not explosive, but steady.
Like rain on rooftops.
---
Afterward, Aarav sat beside Suhani under the neem tree behind the building.
She didn't say much.
Just leaned her shoulder against his.
And whispered, "You didn't disappear."
He turned slightly toward her and said, "I'm still learning how not to."
They sat there as the breeze moved through the leaves, shaking loose a few yellowing ones.
Suhani opened her sketchpad and began to draw without looking at the page.
Aarav, notebook in lap, wrote beside her.
No one watching.
No need to perform.
Just two people leaving notes in the wind.
And trusting the world might listen.