The whispers had started before the morning bell rang.
"She's leaving."
"Back to Kolkata, I heard."
"Something about her mom—"
Aarav didn't ask. He didn't need to. He had felt the truth weeks before it surfaced in conversation, like a change in the weather — the kind you couldn't see but could feel in your bones.
The sun was out, unusually warm for early February, but everything still felt cold.
He watched Suhani from the classroom window that day. She laughed at something Kabir said, but her shoulders gave her away. Too stiff. Too careful. Her hand lingered on the desk a little too long, as if trying to memorize it.
She hadn't told him yet.
Maybe she didn't know how.
Maybe she thought he already knew.
Maybe that made it worse.
---
They didn't speak until the final bell rang. Suhani waited for him near the back field, beneath the peepal tree — their quiet corner. The same place they'd once argued about poetry, cried after exams, and sat in silence because that was enough.
He approached slowly. Not out of hesitation, but reverence — as if walking toward a moment that would not repeat.
She was sitting on the bench, bag at her side, fingers running along the worn edge of the seat. The light hit her hair in a way that made it look gold. But there was no magic in the air today — only endings.
"You heard?" she asked, eyes fixed on the grass.
Aarav nodded and sat beside her. "Yeah."
Suhani didn't explain right away. Her hands tightened around the strap of her bag.
"It's my mom," she finally said. "She's not sick, exactly, just… fragile. Emotionally. My dad thinks we all need to be back together. He says I've been strong for long enough."
"And you?" Aarav asked.
She shrugged. "I don't know. I wanted to stay. I've made a life here. But sometimes, what you want doesn't matter."
That struck him — hard. He wanted to tell her that she mattered. That this place wouldn't be the same without her. That he wouldn't be the same. But his throat closed around every sentence.
Silence stretched between them. Comfortable. Heavy.
He glanced at her. Her eyes were dry but tired, like she had cried everything out already.
"How long?" he asked.
"A week. Maybe less."
Aarav nodded again. It was all he could do.
---
The air between them shifted as the wind picked up. A few yellowed leaves danced around their feet.
"You ever feel like… you got too close to something you were never meant to keep?" she asked suddenly.
He turned to her. "Yeah. Every time I look at you."
Suhani's lips parted, surprised — not at the honesty, but that it was said aloud.
"I'm not trying to be dramatic," he continued. "But I think if I'd met you any earlier or any later, I wouldn't be who I am now. I'd still be… frozen."
She looked at him with soft eyes. "You're not frozen anymore."
"No," he said. "I'm not. Thanks to you."
Suhani didn't reply. Instead, she pulled something out from her bag — a folded sheet of paper, edges worn from being handled.
"I wrote something," she said. "It's not a goodbye note. Just… a moment I wanted to share."
He took it gently, opening it like it was fragile. Her handwriting curved softly on the page.
"Sometimes, people walk into your life like whispers — soft, unassuming, and then suddenly, you can't remember a time when their voice wasn't echoing in your thoughts.
But not all whispers stay.
Some are borrowed by the wind."
He read it twice. Then once more. Each time, it carved a little deeper into his chest.
"It's beautiful," he said.
"It's honest," she replied.
They sat like that, side by side, not touching — not yet. The sky had started to dim, a slow fade into that in-between hour when everything looks gold and grey at once.
Aarav spoke again, softer this time. "You know, when you first came here, I thought you were just noise. Too bright. Too loud. But… you weren't. You were the space between the noise."
She smiled. "And you were silence pretending not to want to be heard."
He laughed, just once — because it was true.
---
She stood then, brushing the dust from her skirt. "Walk me home?"
He nodded, and they started walking side by side through the back gate. It was a slow walk. Neither of them wanted it to end.
They passed the bakery where they used to sneak rolls after class. The wall where Suhani had drawn that lopsided heart with chalk. The bookstore where they argued about whether emotions or logic made better stories. Every corner was a memory folded into stone.
"You won't write to me," she said after a while, teasing but knowing.
"I will," he replied. "I'll just never send it."
They reached her lane too quickly. She stopped a few steps from the gate and turned to him.
"I wanted to say something," she said. "But I think it would just make things harder."
"Same," he whispered.
Then, quietly — like a gesture instead of a decision — he reached out his hand.
She didn't hesitate. Her fingers slid into his, and they stood like that.
No words. No promises. Just two hands holding everything they didn't say.
---
The porch light flickered on behind her.
"I should go," she said.
"I know."
She looked up at him, eyes shining but steady. "I'll remember this."
"So will I."
And then she did something Aarav would never forget — she leaned forward and rested her forehead against his, just for a heartbeat.
Then she let go.
---
That night, Aarav didn't write in his journal. He sat on his bed, the paper she'd given him beside him, and stared at the stars outside his window.
A part of him wanted to scream, to chase the train before it ever left, to tell her something stupid and romantic and impossible.
But he didn't.
Instead, he whispered to the dark:
"Not the end. Just a comma."