This is not your story
By Sapoorna
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEvgptW6eVr
Dedication
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ80FcPeRoA1
For the ones who watched quietly.
And for the ones who spoke when it mattered.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpMJ6uI5Jx4
Preface
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8DpLoyEWHC
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.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzFr6dMG19V
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.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZvhyQjulfd
But you are here now.
That’s enough.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQ6SxbNABUN
1
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4I1HS2I0sr
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.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlnYgzUiVBA
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.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡI9JEIwtfMA
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.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlACbLKg41Q
But Neel didn’t want their story. He didn’t want their definitions.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOej5CL83qY
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.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡy7plhtNH2q
But he wasn’t proud of himself. He wasn’t sure he even knew how to be.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3Kd2zxVvrT
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.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJiDzNnH1lC
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.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiXbk1G1Qof
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.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcHJnEkxe77
“Study harder.”
“You can’t waste time like this.”
“What will you do with your life?”
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfjB4sxbKLb
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.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡftEz5M5ILv
But he didn’t know how to leave it behind.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsPbXGcZhOB
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.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡo75uaI8GGk
But morning always came, and with it, the suffocating weight of reality.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxWYXkPkQO8
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.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkOFluyE3pd
That night, he told his father he wanted to stop studying. Just for a while. Just to breathe.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqnLg2Af428
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.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXM3QTO5YOj
His mother cried quietly in the kitchen.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvKLaZyCvQh
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.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDkHhEIZGSw
He left a week later.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEOEVX7auxk
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.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpfPE9PzLjM
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.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9T6ESJH9O6
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.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡp9cNf3ciUB
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.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXxkGKKUiXF
And for the first time, he felt like he was writing his own story.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWCJwof2pVB
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.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOV5TUYnlOr
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.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAvN1jnoDLp
“Do you think he ever found his rose?” she asked.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ86rM7l1DtD
Neel thought for a long time before answering.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCDoBoAYMxC
“Maybe the rose wasn’t the point,” he said. “Maybe it was the journey.”
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnR0hpdTmmX
She smiled. And for a moment, Neel felt like maybe he wasn’t alone.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCixnvPdwrB
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.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbQxx3P73WU
She told him her name was Mira. She told him she had run away too. Different reasons. Same ache.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKfXVdg14cE
They sat by the sea one night, watching the waves crash against the rocks.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxDRiFBeZhm
“Do you ever miss it?” she asked.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSrC0yf7pMn
Neel shook his head.
“There’s nothing to miss.”
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXpCneSKQlT
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.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgtwI3ImTcg
“You’ll go back,” Mira said softly.
“One day.”
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnFFlTYbzFF
Neel didn’t answer. He didn’t know if he believed in “one day.”
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEsh41bnHGA
But she was right. He went back.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5vjfRHrwif
Not because he missed them. Not because he had something to prove. But because he was ready.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJSY3vAqXdk
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.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLtKLYXwcjU
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.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡle5jnzalEj
They didn’t understand. But they tried. And that was enough.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDfNtDefpan
Years later, Neel sat by another window. In another city. With another life.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ82VwPDwGIc
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.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡW5VglWboW7
His books weren’t bestsellers. But they found people who needed them. People like him.
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaIs00l4MrQ
And sometimes, he thought
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡt218KVhPak
about what he would tell his younger self.
“This is not your story,” he would say.
“But you can write it now.”
212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSZ3MvaxoPu
And so he did.
ns3.140.201.179da2
