The Quiet Within..[COMPLETED]

Journal Entry #111:
"Being someone's 'maybe' feels like wearing clothes three sizes too big.
You exist inside them, but never truly fill the space."

Rain never asked the sky if it could fall.
It just did.
And no one ever asked Aanya if she wanted to be invisible.
She just was.

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Aanya Sharma walked slowly through the corridor outside the Film Society room, her fingers ghosting along the wall. It was Friday night. Most of the hostel had emptied into the city - neon cafes, bonfire parties, someone's cousin's wedding.

The fluorescent lights overhead flickered once, like they, too, were tired of trying to shine.

She wasn't here out of interest. Not really. She was here because the Film Society's group chat had sent a plea:
"EMERGENCY: Need 3 more people to fill seats for tonight's screening or the collab gets canceled."

And Aanya - professional filler, background extra in her own life - had typed:
"I can come."
Then deleted it.
Typed again: "I'm free."
Sent it.
No one replied.
No one ever did. But the door had been left open.

Inside, the screening room was dim, cold, and already halfway full. Students draped themselves in boho scarves, laughed at inside jokes. Conversations happened like fast-moving trains - Aanya could hear them, but she was always at the wrong station.

She sat in the third row. Not the front - too visible. Not the back - too aloof.
The perfect middle.
The perfect nowhere.

The documentary started. It was about Kashmir. Slow, painful frames. An old man talking about missing his home as if it had been buried with his childhood. A girl who hadn't spoken since her father disappeared.

Aanya's eyes stung. Not from the film, but because she recognized the language of grief - the quiet kind. The kind that doesn't scream.
It just stands silently in the corner of a room, waiting for someone to notice.

She didn't cry. She never cried in front of people. But her chest ached in that sharp, silent way - like trying to breathe through a too-small straw.

When the film ended, the Vice President - Arnav - clapped once. Everyone followed like sheep. Then discussion began. Loud, assertive voices filled the space with terms like "subaltern discourse" and "cinematic layering."

Aanya sat with her hands folded. No one turned to her.
No one ever did.

But then Arnav looked over and said, "Hey. You."
Her spine straightened. She pointed to herself.
"Yeah, you. New girl. Help stack the chairs, will you?"

Just like that.
Not a compliment. Not a conversation.
An instruction.

She stood, nodding. Automatically.
As if her worth lived in being useful.
As if she had been waiting her entire life to be picked - even for the scraps.

She lifted plastic chair after plastic chair, arms trembling slightly.
The laughter of the group faded as they spilled out into the hallway, headed to some café for post-screening pizza. No one asked her if she wanted to come.

By the time she finished, the room was empty.
All that remained was a stray paper cup and her own echoing breath.

She stood still for a moment. Her fingers smelled faintly of dust and old fabric.
This is how they see me, she thought. Movable furniture. Background filler.
Not a person.
Just a presence.

Back in her dorm room, Priya wasn't there. Her bed was a pile of glittery shawls and tangled hair curlers. There was a pink sticky note on Aanya's desk:
"Went out! Don't wait up 💃💋"

Of course.
There was always a world Priya belonged to - crowded, sparkling, noisy.
And then there was Aanya's world.
Quiet. Soft.
Like breathing into a pillow you can't scream into.

She opened her journal. The one she never let anyone see.
The only place her voice didn't stutter.

Journal Entry #112
"Sometimes I think if I vanished, no one would notice -
just adjust the room to fill the space I once took up.
A chair pushed in.
A bed made.
A name erased from the WhatsApp group."

She closed the journal and let herself lie down without changing. She liked the weight of her jeans, the scratchiness of the denim. It reminded her that she was still here - not comfortable, not resting, but undeniably present.

Somewhere outside, someone played a love song on guitar. It floated up through the window like a story meant for someone else.

She whispered to the ceiling,
"Am I really this forgettable?
Or am I just too much for the wrong people?"

But the ceiling, like most people, stayed silent.

The next morning, her phone buzzed.
Unknown Number: "Hey. Your writing was up on the department board, right? That poem... 'Movable Furniture.' That was yours?"

Her heart stopped.
No one was supposed to know.

She didn't reply.
She deleted the message.

Because sometimes the idea of being seen - truly seen - was more terrifying than invisibility.

Later that afternoon, in the common room, Priya walked in with two other girls. They were laughing about a professor's accent.
"Oh, Aanya! You're here," she said, as if it was a surprise.
She turned to the others, "This is my roomie. She's super quiet. Like, you won't even notice her."

And everyone laughed.
Aanya laughed too.
But her laugh was made of glass.
It shimmered.
It cut.

That night, she wrote until her pen bled through the pages.

Journal Entry #114
"I don't want to be loud.
I don't want to be center stage.
I just want to matter in the quiet ways.
I want someone to remember the way I handed them tissues when no one else noticed they were crying.
I want to be the song someone finds at 2AM and says,
'God, this feels like me.'
I want to be the invisible thread
that held someone together
without them ever realizing it was me."

Aanya wasn't the type of girl people posted Instagram stories about.
She was the one behind the camera.
The one who'd take 47 pictures until your smile looked candid.
The one who remembered your favorite pen brand.
The one who texted "You okay?"
Even when you'd been ignoring her all week.

And maybe - just maybe -
she was tired of being that girl.

Tired of writing the world's stories in the margins of her own.

She shut her journal.
And for the first time in weeks,
she cried.
Not pretty tears. Not cinematic sobbing.

Just small, breathless gasps -
as if her body didn't know
what to do with emotion
that had been held too tightly for too long.

That night, something small cracked.
Not broken.
Not destroyed.

Just...
cracked.

A tiny shift.
A single beat.

As if her soul, trapped beneath years of silence,
had whispered,
"I'm still here."

🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧

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