---
“I hate it here. I hate how they make me smile when I want to cry. I hate pretending. I wish someone would see me—not the version I keep performing.”
Prathibha re-read the message before pressing send.
It wasn’t meant for attention. It wasn’t meant for advice. It was just one of those venting things—the kind you send to your best friend, the kind you delete later because you regret being so honest. But this time, her fingers moved too fast.
She hit send.
Then she froze.
It didn’t go to Shubhi.
It went to someone else.
Aarav Verma.
The name stared at her like a blinking siren. The Aarav Verma. The school’s unattainable, untouchable boy. Cold, arrogant, sharp-tongued. The one who once told her she looked like “a background character in someone else's story.”
Panic rose like acid in her throat.
Unsend, unsend, UNSEND!
But her phone had no “unsend” option for SMS.
She threw it on the bed and pulled a blanket over her head. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.
She waited for a reply.
None came.
---
Day 1: Silence.
At school, she kept her head low, avoiding eye contact. Aarav passed by once, his usual indifferent expression firmly in place. No smirk. No mockery. Just nothing.
Was it possible he didn’t read it?
---
Day 2:
A message arrived.
“I saw your message.”
Her hands trembled. She opened it.
“You’re not pretending as well as you think you are.”
That was all.
She read it ten times.
Was he... judging her?
Or did he understand?
She didn’t reply. How could she?
---
Day 3:
He messaged again.
“Why do you hate it here?”
And just like that, a door she never meant to open… cracked slightly wider.
---
They started texting.
Not like friends. Not like anything else either. Just questions. Sometimes she answered. Sometimes she didn’t. But there was something oddly comforting about being seen by someone who had no expectations of her.
One night, she replied honestly:
“Because people like me only matter when we’re useful. Or perfect. Or silent.”
He replied in two minutes.
“Then stop being perfect. Start being real.”
---
Two weeks passed.
They hadn’t spoken in person. Not once.
But their chats grew deeper.
She found herself telling him things she’d never told anyone—not even Shubhi. Like how her parents expected her to always be the "ideal daughter" but never asked her how she was really feeling. Like how the pressure of being invisible yet expected to perform was quietly killing her spirit.
One night, she asked him something bold:
“Why haven’t you made fun of me yet?”
His reply came slowly.
“Because I know how it feels. Being in a room full of people and still alone.”
---
The Change:
School became strange. Not easier, but less empty.
Sometimes Prathibha would catch Aarav looking at her from across the class.
Not in a flirty way. In a thoughtful one.
Once, he passed by her in the corridor and muttered,
> “You should speak more. You’re better than half the noise here.”
She blinked.
He didn’t wait for a response.
---
The Shift:
Rumors started.
“You’re talking to Aarav?”
“What even is that pairing?”
“He’s out of your league.”
“She’s just another emotional project for him.”
The noise got louder.
Shubhi, noticing her silence, finally cornered her.
> “Why are you so distant lately? You didn’t even tell me about the Aarav thing!”
Prathibha blinked. “Because it wasn’t a thing. It was an accident. And now it’s… I don’t even know.”
But she did know.
It felt like something was shifting.
In her. In him. Between them.
---
Then came the fall.
One Friday, her father found her poem notebook. The one filled with her rawest emotions.
He wasn’t angry.
He was disappointed.
> “You write about sadness like it’s fashionable. What if someone reads this and thinks we don’t take care of you?”
She stood frozen.
That night, she didn’t text Aarav.
But he noticed.
He messaged:
“You disappeared. Don’t. Not from me.”
Something in her cracked open.
---
They met.
For the first time, truly. Not in texts. Not in passing.
In the quiet corner of the library where no one cared to look.
“Why me?” she asked him.
“You were honest,” he said. “Everyone else… they wear masks. You broke yours.”
She didn’t say anything.
But her silence said everything.
---
The Breaking Point:
One morning, she overheard a group of girls talking.
“She probably wrote that sad message on purpose. Attention seeker.”
And the laugh that followed wasn’t loud, but sharp enough to cut skin.
That day, she cried.
And didn’t tell anyone.
Not even Aarav.
Until he messaged:
“I can feel you pulling away. Don’t.”
She replied:
“Maybe it would’ve been better if I never sent that message.”
And for hours, there was no reply.
---
Then it came:
“Maybe. But I’m glad you did.”
---
The Real Twist:
One evening, after school, Aarav handed her a small envelope.
No words.
Just a tiny folded paper inside.
She opened it later. It was a poem.
“For the girl who mistook silence for safety.
And sadness for weakness.
You were always louder than you knew.”
Underneath, it said:
> —Not by mistake. Not anymore.
She looked up from the page.
And whispered to herself:
“A yes would’ve never come from me.
But a mistake did.
And that was the beginning of everything real.”
---
Two Years Later.
College.
They weren’t together.
Not officially. Not like romance novels promised.
But sometimes she would get a message from Aarav that simply said,
“Don’t fade. The world still needs your voice.”
And sometimes, she’d reply,
“Only because someone once heard it by mistake.”
---
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