The Quiet Within..[COMPLETED]

There were no fireworks, no grand declarations.

Just a Tuesday.

Aanya stood at the back of her media theory class, watching the sunlight thread through the window blinds. It landed across her notebook in pale gold stripes. She blinked slowly, almost amused by how... normal it all was.

The world hadn't changed.

But she had.

Professor Mehta was mid-rant about audience reception theory, his glasses slipping down his nose as he paced the front of the room. A few weeks ago, Aanya would've been frantically noting every word, terrified of missing something that might be on the exam.

Today, her pen moved differently-more like a dialogue than a dictation.

Somewhere on the margin of her notes, she'd scribbled a thought:

"We study how people receive stories. But no one teaches us how to tell our own."

She didn't know if it was profound or pointless. She just liked the way it felt sitting there on the page. Like a secret handshake with herself.

After class, Mehta caught her just as she was slinging her bag over her shoulder.

"Aanya," he called out.

She turned, surprised. Professors didn't usually remember her name on the first try.

He gave her a small nod. "The final edit you submitted... it was exceptional."

She blinked. "Thank you, sir."

"Thoughtful. Restrained. You didn't try to impress. You just... told the truth. That's harder than people think."

Aanya shifted her bag slightly. "I didn't mean for it to be anything big. It just happened."

"That's exactly why it worked," he said, with something close to a smile. "Don't let that instinct get diluted."

She nodded quietly, walking out into the corridor with a strange new thought in her chest:

Maybe I'm not just someone who hides. Maybe I'm someone who sees.

The group chat from Reyansh's team had exploded that morning with memes, jokes, and festival feedback. She'd muted it long ago, but today-just for a moment-she opened it.

There was a new message from Reyansh.

"To everyone asking: Aanya Sharma is the editor. She's the reason it made sense."

There were a few surprised emojis, a few "Damn!" comments, and then silence.

She read it twice, then locked her phone.

She didn't feel the need to reply.

At lunch, someone from another section approached her while she stood in the water line.

"You're Aanya, right?" the girl asked, biting into a samosa. "The one who edited that docu?"

Aanya hesitated, then nodded. "Yeah."

"It was really... I don't know. Real? Made me cry, kinda. I didn't expect that. I mean, I don't even know you, but it felt like you were saying something I've never been able to."

Aanya didn't know what to say. So she just smiled.

"That's rare," the girl added, before walking away. "People usually try so hard to be deep. Yours just was."

She stood there a little longer, the steel tumbler cooling her palm. Her heart was oddly still.

Not racing. Not shrinking.

Just still.

Later that evening, she sat beside Reyansh under the neem tree near the old admin block. It was their unsaid spot now-a quiet edge of campus no one really bothered with, except them.

He was watching something on his laptop. She wasn't.

They didn't need to fill the space with words. There were no scripts between them anymore.

After a while, he asked, "You ever think about what comes next?"

She picked at the peeling bark on the bench. "Like career stuff?"

"Not just that. Like... who you become after all this. After you're no longer invisible."

She thought about it for a moment.

"I think I still want to be invisible sometimes," she said. "But not because I feel small. Just because I feel whole when I'm with myself."

Reyansh looked over, genuinely listening.

"I don't think I want to be someone else anymore," she continued. "I just want to be someone... steady."

"Like silence that doesn't apologize for existing?"

She smiled at that. "Exactly."

He reached down and picked up a small yellow leaf that had fallen near her feet, handing it to her wordlessly. She took it.

No symbolism. No metaphor.

Just a small moment.

That night, Aanya finally replied to her mother's message. A photo of the meal she cooked herself-dal, two chapatis, and rice.

"I'm eating. Don't worry. Hope your knee's better."

She didn't ask for anything in return. She didn't need closure. She just needed peace.

Later, she opened her blog-not to publish, but to read. The old entries still stung a little, like reading the diary of someone you used to be ashamed of. But now she saw them as proof.

Proof that she had stayed. Even when she wanted to vanish.

She created a new post.

No hashtags. No titles. Just words.

"Some of us bloom in shadows. And that's okay. Because softness, too, is survival."

Then she hit publish.

🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧

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