-Part-1-
I wasn’t supposed to be there.
It was our games period, and I had forgotten my notebook in the library. The halls were quiet, the kind of quiet that makes your footsteps feel guilty. As I turned the corner of our classroom, I heard voices—low, urgent.
I paused. Not out of curiosity, but because I recognized my name.
"That girl—Dhwani—she's wasting her potential on poetry and journals. Her parents want her in science, but she's... always scribbling things."
It was my best friend,divya.I froze.
Another voice joined in, probably another friend of hers.
"She’s actually brilliant. But she hides. Behind her words. Have you read her essays? She’s asking all the right questions—but not aloud."
They sighed.
"I just hope she doesn’t hear the wrong thing and stop trying."
I didn’t wait to hear more. I slipped away, heart pounding. I don’t know what hurt more—the doubt or the quiet hope in their voices.
That night, I stared at my ceiling for hours. Were they right? Was I hiding? And more terrifying—was I allowed to be seen?
The next day, I handed in a poem to the noticeboard. Not because I was confident. But because someone out there was listening.
Even when I wasn’t meant to hear it.
-Part-2-
The poem stayed there. For three days. Then four.
No one said anything.
Not my classmates. Not my teacher. Not even the peon who usually rips down notices before anyone’s read them.
I thought maybe they hadn’t noticed it. Or maybe they had, and it just didn’t matter.
Until Thursday.
“You wrote that?”
The question came softly, like someone testing ice before stepping onto it.
It was kashvi—from the back row. The girl who usually borrowed erasers from without even looking at me.
I nodded, unsure what that meant.
She smiled. “It made me cry a little.”
That was the first time I realized that words didn’t need applause. Sometimes, all they needed was to land quietly in the right heart.
I sat on the bench outside, opened my diary, and wrote:
"I heard something I wasn’t meant to.
But maybe, I was meant to hear it after all.
And kept the diary again inside the bag.
Because sometimes, when you overhear the world talking about you—
you don’t speak back.
You write.
-Part-3-
A week passed.
No mention of the note. No whisper. No clue.
I almost forgot I had left it.
Until Monday morning, when I walked into class and found a folded sheet of paper on my desk. Plain. Unnamed. Just like mine had been.
I opened it slowly, pulse skipping beats like missed steps on a staircase.
Inside, in familiar handwriting, were just five words:
“We’re listening. Keep writing, Dhwani.”
That was it.
No name. No lecture. No marks in red ink.
But something inside me—something quiet and small and afraid—exhaled.
For the first time, I felt seen not as a student, not as a daughter, not as a rank-holder or back-bencher…
…but as a voice.
So I did what I knew how to do.
I wrote.
Whatever you feel,
is what you deal.
Be positive always,
to find different ways.
Running like ocean's waves,
don't stay roaring in the caves.
Come out with your silent paws,
and correct your each flaws.
Why facing quite rage,
break it and come out of the cage.
When you are right,
you are always full of delight.
No need to give others justification,
as your hardwork is enough for your satisfaction.
World will remember your good deed.
and the reason for your ruin would be greed.
You are your friend when you are alone,
and don't even try to become others clone.
The next day, I sat under the neem tree by the back gate — my usual spot when I didn’t want to be found.
My diary lay open on my lap, half-filled, half-hoping.
That’s when I heard footsteps.
I didn’t look up until I heard the voice.
“Hey… Dhwani?”
It was Divya.
Yes — the same Divya
who once told others I was wasting my potential. The science-stream star. The girl who had never spoken to me unless it was about assignments.
I blinked, unsure. “Yeah?”
She hesitated, then sat down beside me, dusting her skirt.
“I read your poem. The one on the board. ‘That Feeling’.”
She paused. “I read it three times, actually.”
I said nothing. My fingers tightened around the pen.
She exhaled. “I used to think you were just… you know, hiding behind words. Escaping. But... I think I was wrong.”
I turned toward her slowly.
“You don’t just write. You... say things. Things I didn’t even know I felt until I read them.”
A pause.
Then she added softly, “You’re not wasting your potential, Dhwani. You’re actually using it. In a way some of us never even thought possible.”
Something shifted inside me. Something that had been bracing for judgement, but instead found warmth.
She looked down at my diary.
“If you ever write something... and you want someone to read it, I’d like to be that someone.”
I smiled. The kind of smile that doesn’t just touch your lips, but something deeper.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
And as she stood and walked away, I looked back at the blank page before me.
They became a way out.
And all because I overheard something I wasn’t supposed to.
Funny, isn’t it?
How sometimes, you have to accidentally hear yourself—in other people’s voices—
before you truly begin to speak.
-THE END-
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