It was one of those days that passed like a secret — not loud, not dramatic, but still heavy with something unspoken.
We didn't meet after school. Harish had basketball practice, and Anika had to stay back for an art submission. I walked home alone, hands in pockets, the weight of memory trailing me like a shadow.
At the corner of the bookstore, I paused.
The sign was faded now — Srinivas Paper & Prints. Back then, it used to be the place where I spent hours flipping through comic books I couldn't afford, where Anika once lost her sketchbook, and where Harish stole his first pen… only to come back and return it the next day with a sorry note and fifty rupees.
I stepped inside. The bell above the door gave its familiar rusty jingle. The air smelled of glue, dust, and fading ink.
"Looking for something?" asked the old shopkeeper, barely looking up from his ledger.
"No," I said softly. "Just… passing time."
He nodded and went back to writing, his pen scratching against paper. I wandered between the racks, running my fingers along the plastic-wrapped notebooks, the rows of gel pens, the shelves of forgotten textbooks.
That's when I saw it — the wall behind the counter. It was covered in small pinned papers and postcards. Some yellowed, some curling at the edges. Notes from students, thank-yous, doodles, names.
And there, right near the center, I saw it.
"Come back when you're not pretending to be okay." — A.
Her handwriting. Her angry, slanted signature.
I remembered the fight now. Not the big one — the small one. The quiet one that happened in the background of everything else. I had ignored her message for two whole days after she cried on a call. Told her I was "busy with exams" when really, I just didn't know what to say.
She left that note here the next day. And I never saw it until now.
I swallowed hard. My hands trembled a little.
How many things had I missed the first time?
How many signs, how many silences, how many small cries for help?
I walked out of the store and sat on the bench outside. The street was quiet. A dog barked in the distance. Somewhere, a radio played an old tune from a Tamil movie I hadn't heard in years.
I pulled out my phone and opened the notes app.
I didn't want to forget this.
Not again.
"When you say nothing, it still says something.
And when they stop asking, it's already too late."
I saved it.
Back home, I found my brother sitting on the terrace, flipping through a cricket magazine. He looked younger, lighter, still untouched by the bitterness that would later pull him away from us.
"Wanna bowl?" he asked, grinning.
I smiled and nodded.
Sometimes healing isn't loud.
Sometimes it's just showing up —
When no one is watching.