This is not your story
By Sapoorna
120Please respect copyright.PENANAMDBqWpBAyZ
Dedication
120Please respect copyright.PENANAegIuNfKO2S
For the ones who watched quietly.
And for the ones who spoke when it mattered.
120Please respect copyright.PENANAOEv9euo1dt
Preface
120Please respect copyright.PENANAAFjOlyFQly
There are stories that belong to everyone.
And there are stories that belong to no one.
This is not your story.
It is mine.
It is hers.
It is a space between silence and sound.
120Please respect copyright.PENANA9SXkQBYYT7
I didn’t write this for everyone.
I wrote this for someone who needed it.
If you are holding this, maybe it’s you.
And maybe it’s not.
120Please respect copyright.PENANAOqdtEhhZSq
But you are here now.
That’s enough.
120Please respect copyright.PENANAKSvzFh9Cww
1
120Please respect copyright.PENANAlzADMNC4tC
Neel sat by the window again. He always did. As if it was some old habit, some ritual to remind himself that he was still breathing. His hands rested on the chipped wooden frame, his fingers tracing invisible maps on its surface. Outside, the world moved. People moved. Time moved. But Neel, he stayed still like a word caught between two pages, waiting to be read but never spoken aloud.
120Please respect copyright.PENANAIrSTpmVMn8
He had learned to be silent long before he had learned to speak. Not the kind of silence that draws attention, but the sort that wraps around your existence like a second skin. It was not dramatic. It was not noticeable. It was mundane. The kind of silence that seeps into your bones until it feels natural. Until you forget what it was like to be heard.
120Please respect copyright.PENANA7JtMLgTT1w
As a child, Neel was always called the quiet one. Teachers wrote it on his report cards. Relatives mentioned it like an apology when introducing him. "He’s quiet, but he’s good," they would say, as though the two things could not exist separately. No one ever asked why he was quiet. They didn’t need to. They had already written his story for him.
120Please respect copyright.PENANAIUq8KTQVhL
But Neel didn’t want their story. He didn’t want their definitions.
120Please respect copyright.PENANAMs5hQTeOXL
He grew up in a house where the clocks ticked louder than conversations. His mother hummed old songs in the kitchen, her voice soft and tired, as though she was singing to herself and not to the boy at the table. His father read the newspaper every evening with furrowed brows, shaking his head at things Neel didn’t understand. They loved him, he knew. But they didn’t know him. They loved the idea of him . their son, the boy who would make them proud one day.
120Please respect copyright.PENANAtIL2qEnFjM
But he wasn’t proud of himself. He wasn’t sure he even knew how to be.
120Please respect copyright.PENANA81ie5ifJyP
In school, he sat in the corner of the classroom, always by the window, where the light could reach him even if no one else did. He was the boy who didn't raise his hand. Not because he didn't know the answer, but because he didn't see the point. They measured brilliance in ranks and percentages, and Neel had no interest in running races that felt rigged before they began.
120Please respect copyright.PENANA3mTKLgup2i
He spent his breaks alone, sketching in a small, worn notebook. His drawings weren’t pretty. They were messy and dark, full of shadows and crooked lines. But they were honest. More honest than he could ever be with words. The other boys played cricket. The girls huddled in corners, whispering secrets he was never meant to hear. And Neel? Neel drew worlds where no one asked him to be something he wasn’t.
120Please respect copyright.PENANAhNau3Ks4sR
By the time he was sixteen, he had stopped trying to explain himself. He walked through life like a ghost, present but unseen. Teachers forgot his name during roll call. Friends drifted away like smoke through an open window. Even his parents spoke to him in instructions, not conversations.
120Please respect copyright.PENANALAHtuzRxbU
“Study harder.”
“You can’t waste time like this.”
“What will you do with your life?”
120Please respect copyright.PENANAsvpqnXDp4x
He didn’t have answers for them. He wasn’t sure he wanted answers. He wasn’t sure if there were answers. All he had was the aching feeling that this life, this quiet existence, wasn’t meant for him.
120Please respect copyright.PENANA83PbexDKR8
But he didn’t know how to leave it behind.
120Please respect copyright.PENANArb3RRplLxG
Sometimes, he dreamed of other lives. Lives where he wasn’t Neel , the disappointment, the failure, the boy who never spoke enough. In these dreams, he was someone else entirely. A traveler. A storyteller. A painter who lived in Paris, sketching strangers in the streets, drinking coffee at tiny cafés. No one knew his past there. No one cared about his grades. He was just a boy who told stories, and that was enough.
120Please respect copyright.PENANAwdsiSCKtGQ
But morning always came, and with it, the suffocating weight of reality.
120Please respect copyright.PENANAVFfSE99K1c
The breakdown wasn’t dramatic. It never is. It was quiet, slow, like the gentle dripping of water that eventually cracks stone. He was sitting at his study table, textbooks open in front of him, when he realized he couldn’t breathe. His chest felt tight, his vision blurred, and his hands shook so violently he couldn’t hold his pen. He stared at the equations he was supposed to solve, but they meant nothing to him. Just numbers on a page. Symbols in a language he no longer understood.
120Please respect copyright.PENANAjwpXN635DB
That night, he told his father he wanted to stop studying. Just for a while. Just to breathe.
120Please respect copyright.PENANACfoob5gPns
His father didn’t shout. He didn’t even raise his voice. He simply looked at Neel with an expression that said everything. Disappointment, shame, confusion. As though Neel had just confessed to being a stranger.
120Please respect copyright.PENANApyAaOQ1deT
His mother cried quietly in the kitchen.
120Please respect copyright.PENANAWPfsjKlHCJ
And Neel realized something that night. He would never be who they wanted him to be. No matter how hard he tried. No matter how much he broke himself apart to fit their expectations.
120Please respect copyright.PENANAngnJFbZWez
He left a week later.
120Please respect copyright.PENANABQR1WcCAUf
He didn’t leave a note. There was nothing he could say that would make them understand. He packed a small bag , his sketchbook, some clothes, and the little money he had saved over the years. He took a train heading somewhere. Anywhere. He didn’t care. He just needed to leave.
120Please respect copyright.PENANAXX6hFXU30R
The city he arrived in was loud, chaotic, alive. The streets were crowded with people who didn’t look at him twice. He was invisible, but in a way that felt freeing. No one knew his story here. He could be anyone he wanted.
120Please respect copyright.PENANA6dTZBxqkkM
He found work at a small bookstore. The owner didn’t ask questions. He just handed Neel a broom and told him to sweep the floors. Neel worked quietly. He arranged books on dusty shelves. He read when there were no customers. He drew when there was time.
120Please respect copyright.PENANA9ne50bPDI2
At night, he walked through the streets, sketching people he saw. Lovers sitting on benches. Old men playing chess. Children chasing stray dogs. No one cared who he was. No one asked him what he wanted to be.
120Please respect copyright.PENANAp8HfGajn4w
And for the first time, he felt like he was writing his own story.
120Please respect copyright.PENANAky5HkQabzp
Months passed. He lost track of time. He stopped counting days. He lived quietly, simply. Some days were good. Some days were empty. But they were his days.
120Please respect copyright.PENANApZSugA7hQe
One evening, he met a girl at the bookstore. She was buying an old copy of The Little Prince. She asked him if he had read it. He nodded.
120Please respect copyright.PENANAnmVFRsDVH8
“Do you think he ever found his rose?” she asked.
120Please respect copyright.PENANAC1AhqXETfJ
Neel thought for a long time before answering.
120Please respect copyright.PENANAMqYpCb0gUY
“Maybe the rose wasn’t the point,” he said. “Maybe it was the journey.”
120Please respect copyright.PENANAbAFkeRm4MC
She smiled. And for a moment, Neel felt like maybe he wasn’t alone.
120Please respect copyright.PENANAVAdvnn7TiU
They met again. And again. She was kind. She listened. She didn’t ask him to be anything other than who he was. They talked about books, about places they wanted to visit, about dreams that didn’t make sense but felt important anyway.
120Please respect copyright.PENANAVMKmAVLH7s
She told him her name was Mira. She told him she had run away too. Different reasons. Same ache.
120Please respect copyright.PENANA64CTwJrY0F
They sat by the sea one night, watching the waves crash against the rocks.
120Please respect copyright.PENANAH6BDKLZdeg
“Do you ever miss it?” she asked.
120Please respect copyright.PENANAIRPVeNZ4es
Neel shook his head.
“There’s nothing to miss.”
120Please respect copyright.PENANASkOpKB3TwH
But he wasn’t sure if that was true. Sometimes, late at night, he still thought about his mother’s songs. His father’s quiet presence. The house where the clocks ticked too loudly.
120Please respect copyright.PENANAtsiZf3Ks0g
“You’ll go back,” Mira said softly.
“One day.”
120Please respect copyright.PENANAqfR72Jm8i8
Neel didn’t answer. He didn’t know if he believed in “one day.”
120Please respect copyright.PENANA1AGrmHTl37
But she was right. He went back.
120Please respect copyright.PENANAK8nxvgQu3B
Not because he missed them. Not because he had something to prove. But because he was ready.
120Please respect copyright.PENANANPLtVRNMlU
He found his father sitting in the same chair, reading the same newspaper. His mother was humming in the kitchen. Nothing had changed. And yet, everything had.
120Please respect copyright.PENANAzRoOGX2n9x
They looked at him like they were seeing him for the first time. He told them he was okay. That he was alive. That he had found something. Not success. Not brilliance. But something better. Himself.
120Please respect copyright.PENANAnlpUfB4EFd
They didn’t understand. But they tried. And that was enough.
120Please respect copyright.PENANAczqEXLDyqf
Years later, Neel sat by another window. In another city. With another life.
120Please respect copyright.PENANAV1kpiTAvSy
He wrote stories now. Stories about people who didn’t belong. Stories about boys who sat by windows and dreamed of leaving. Stories about girls who asked about roses. Stories about journeys that mattered more than destinations.
120Please respect copyright.PENANA2VVByQwaGW
His books weren’t bestsellers. But they found people who needed them. People like him.
120Please respect copyright.PENANAPbfhDMm4KX
And sometimes, he thought
120Please respect copyright.PENANAYrIvb2TUoo
about what he would tell his younger self.
“This is not your story,” he would say.
“But you can write it now.”
120Please respect copyright.PENANAuWIBYLUkLL
And so he did.
ns3.143.5.157da2