Mira Dutta
Episode 1 – The First Bell
The school bell rang with a shrill clang that sliced through the sleepy morning air of St. Paul’s Academy. It was the first day of the new academic session, and the classrooms smelled faintly of chalk dust, newly polished wooden desks, and the restless anticipation of students forced back into the rhythm of routine after a long summer. Arjun sat at the corner desk, last row, his head bent low as if the grain of the desk itself demanded his complete attention. He wasn’t shy in the ordinary sense, but silence came easier to him than words. In the worn geometry box that always stayed at the edge of his desk, there was not just a compass and ruler but folded sheets of sketch paper. His habit was simple: while others talked, Arjun drew—faces, eyes, sometimes entire stories in frames of graphite.
The class door swung open, and the noise that had momentarily dipped returned with a rush. A group of girls entered, their laughter spilling into the quiet like spilled ink on clean paper. Among them was Riya. She wasn’t the kind who lit up the room by appearance alone, though her sharp eyes and half-tied hair had their own charm; it was her energy that made people notice. She had the confidence of someone who believed the world could be convinced with words, and perhaps she was right. She found herself assigned to the same section as Arjun, and without hesitation, she walked past the empty front benches to settle near the middle row.
The teacher, a weary man in spectacles that kept slipping down his nose, began the ritual roll call. Names echoed and voices answered, some loud, some mumbled. When “Arjun Sen” was called, his voice barely rose above a whisper. A few snickers followed, and he sank a little deeper into his seat. Minutes later, when “Riya Kapoor” came up, she answered with a clear, ringing “Present, sir,” as if her voice had been waiting for a stage.
Classes dragged through the morning: mathematics that seemed more like a maze than logic, English that floated in metaphors, history that tried to bind centuries into hurried notes. At lunch break, groups scattered in the courtyard. Riya had already made her circle, talking animatedly about novels she had read during vacation. “You know, words can change the world,” she declared, munching on a sandwich. “One day, I’ll write a book. Maybe even two.”
Arjun, who ate quietly on the far bench with two boys who hardly noticed him, looked up. He couldn’t hear every word, but her sentence lingered. Write a book. He understood that longing, though his language wasn’t letters—it was lines, curves, strokes that captured things words often failed to. For a brief second, he imagined sketching her, the way her hands moved as she spoke, the sparkle of stubbornness in her eyes. He shook the thought off quickly, embarrassed at himself.
That afternoon, the sky shifted into gray. A drizzle tapped against the windows while the last class—science—slowed everyone into a near stupor. When the final bell rang, a collective sigh rose from the students. Bags were swung onto shoulders, corridors filled with hurried feet. Arjun lingered, sliding his notebook into his bag, hoping to avoid the rush. That was when he noticed her—Riya—struggling with an umbrella that had clearly given up against the wind. The rain had turned heavier, and students ran past, splashing through puddles, but she stood at the gate frowning at the broken spokes of metal.
Arjun hesitated, then did something uncharacteristic: he walked up. “It’s not going to open,” he said, his voice almost swallowed by the rain. She looked up, surprised. “Yeah, I figured,” she laughed softly, holding up the sad remains of the umbrella. For a moment, silence stretched, filled only by the drumming of rain on tin.
“Here,” he said finally, pushing his own umbrella toward her. It was sturdy, old but reliable. She raised an eyebrow. “And what about you?”
“I… I don’t mind the rain,” he answered, though the dampness creeping into his shirt said otherwise.
She studied him for a beat longer, then smiled. “Thanks, last-bencher.” Before he could reply, she had stepped into the rain, the umbrella shielding her like a fragile dome of defiance.
Arjun stood there, water running down his hair, wondering if he had just made a fool of himself or if he had, unknowingly, opened the first page of something new.
That night, while his classmates crammed equations and memorized timelines, Arjun found himself sketching. Not faces from imagination this time, but hers—half-tied hair, eyes full of words she hadn’t yet written, and a smile that had briefly brushed against his quiet world. He titled the page in his mind: The First Bell.
Episode 2 – Library Secrets
The library was the quietest place in St. Paul’s Academy, though “quiet” was a fragile word there. The room smelled of yellowed pages and wooden shelves polished years ago but left to gather dust in corners. On most days, the library was half-empty, a refuge for students escaping the chatter of corridors or the fatigue of classrooms. Arjun had claimed it as his own since the first year he discovered it. There, between shelves of encyclopedias and half-forgotten novels, he could sketch without interruption, the silence folding around him like a blanket.
A week after the rain-soaked afternoon when he had handed his umbrella to Riya, Arjun sat at his usual corner table in the library, pencil scratching lightly against paper. He had already filled three pages with hurried sketches of faces he had seen that day: the stern maths teacher, the peon carrying registers, and a boy balancing on the edge of his chair during recess. But in the margin of each page, without his permission, appeared fragments of Riya—the curve of her hairline, the tilt of her smile. He tore out one such page before leaving it behind, embarrassed at himself.
That was when the library door creaked open. Riya walked in, her bag slung across her shoulder, strands of hair escaping her ponytail. She scanned the room quickly and, noticing him in the corner, walked straight over. “So this is where the mysterious last-bencher hides,” she said with a grin, dropping her books onto the table opposite him.
Arjun blinked, words forming and dissolving before he managed to say, “I… just come here to draw sometimes.”
Her eyes fell on his sketchbook, half-open, betraying the outlines of figures on paper. “You draw?” she asked, curiosity flashing.
“Not really. Just… scribbles,” he muttered, flipping the cover closed too quickly.
“You’re lying,” she said, leaning forward, resting her chin on her palm. “People who call their work ‘scribbles’ are usually the good ones.” Then, after a pause, she added, “I write sometimes. Stories, poems, random stuff. But I don’t show anyone either.”
That caught his attention. “Why not?”
“Because it’s easier to keep them safe in notebooks than to let people laugh at them,” she answered. For a second, her confidence slipped, and he glimpsed the same vulnerability he often carried in silence.
The library was unusually empty that afternoon, and the ticking of the wall clock seemed louder than usual. They began to talk—not loudly, not hurriedly, but in hushed exchanges that stitched a fragile thread between them. She told him about the diary she filled every night with unfinished stories. He admitted, almost reluctantly, that he dreamed of becoming an artist, though he had never dared say it aloud to his parents.
“You should show me one of your sketches,” she said suddenly, breaking the fragile barrier.
Arjun froze. Showing his drawings felt like opening a secret window. But something in her gaze—steady, expectant, without mockery—made him pull a page from the back of his sketchbook. It wasn’t of her, thankfully, but of the school courtyard under rain, tiny figures running with umbrellas, each stroke capturing motion.
She looked at it carefully, too carefully. Then she smiled. “You see the world differently, don’t you? Like the details most people miss.”
His ears warmed. “I just… notice things.”
“I like that,” she said, tucking the page into her notebook before he could protest. “Consider this an exchange. Next time, I’ll show you something I wrote.”
True to her word, the next afternoon, she slipped a folded sheet across the table. “Don’t laugh,” she warned. Arjun unfolded it slowly. It was a short poem—clumsy in rhythm, but alive with feeling:
Rain writes letters on the windowpane,
Some words wash away, some remain.
If only hearts could speak this way,
Half our secrets wouldn’t decay.
Arjun read it twice, maybe thrice. His silence made her fidget. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”
“No,” he said finally. “It’s… like rain on paper. You can almost hear it.”
Her laughter was soft, relieved. “Maybe we should make a deal then. You show me your drawings, I show you my words. Secret exchange, no telling anyone.”
“Like… library secrets?” he suggested.
“Yes,” she said, her eyes bright. “Library secrets.”
And so it began. Each afternoon, while the rest of the school drowned in chatter, they met in the library corner—she with her words, he with his sketches. A poem scribbled on the back of a math assignment found its way into his hands. In return, he offered a sketch of the banyan tree that shadowed the playground. They spoke little about the outside world, as though the library had carved its own universe where they didn’t need to be loud to be heard.
One day, she asked, “Do you ever draw people you know?”
He hesitated. “Sometimes.”
“Have you ever drawn me?” she teased.
He didn’t answer. Instead, he quickly shoved a fresh page under his pencil, lines moving almost on instinct. Within minutes, her outline appeared—the slant of her shoulders, the strands of hair falling near her cheek. She watched in awe as her likeness grew on the page. When he finally stopped, embarrassed, she whispered, “That’s me.”
He nodded.
“Keep it safe,” she said after a moment, her voice quieter than usual. “Don’t give it to me yet. Some secrets are sweeter when they wait.”
The library clock ticked past five, the light outside shifting into amber. As they left that day, walking in different directions through the drizzle, Arjun realized he was no longer invisible. Someone had noticed him—not just his name on a roll call, but the lines he drew, the silences he carried. And maybe, just maybe, she had given him permission to notice her back.
That night, he opened his sketchbook again. On the last page, he wrote three words in bold pencil strokes: Library Secrets.
Episode 3 – The Rainy Bench
The monsoon had returned with its unpredictable moods—sometimes a drizzle that left the classroom windows misted with blurred outlines of the playground, sometimes a downpour that roared against the tin sheds, drowning out even the teacher’s voice. For students at St. Paul’s Academy, rain meant two things: either being trapped indoors with the monotony of lessons, or sneaking outside when teachers weren’t looking, chasing puddles and laughter. For Arjun, it meant another chance to notice the world with fresh eyes. For Riya, it meant another story waiting to be written.
That Friday afternoon, the rain came suddenly, sheets of water slashing across the courtyard as if the sky had tipped over a bucket. Classes were suspended midway, and students crowded near the verandah, some complaining, others cheering. Arjun, however, slipped away toward the far side of the building where a large banyan tree stretched its roots across the lawn. Beneath it stood a stone bench, half-soaked, half-sheltered. It had always been his retreat during rains, a place where the world blurred into gray and he could be alone with his sketchbook.
But he wasn’t alone that day. Riya was already there, perched at one end of the bench, her hair clinging to her face, notebook balanced precariously on her lap as she scribbled with quick strokes of her pen. She looked up when she noticed him, surprised but not displeased. “So, the last-bencher has a secret bench too,” she said, patting the space beside her.
Arjun hesitated, then sat down, keeping a polite distance though the bench wasn’t long. The rain drummed above, dripping through gaps in the leaves. For a while, they didn’t speak—she wrote, he watched the shifting patterns of water against the ground. Finally, she closed her notebook with a sigh. “Sometimes I feel the rain writes better stories than I do,” she murmured.
He turned to her, curious. “What do you mean?”
“Look at it,” she gestured toward the courtyard. “Every drop leaves a mark, then disappears. Like unfinished sentences. Maybe that’s why I love writing in the rain. It feels like I’m finishing what the sky starts.”
Her words lingered. Arjun wished he had the courage to tell her how much sense she made to him, how her metaphors felt like sketches of a different kind. Instead, he pulled out his sketchbook, opening to a blank page. Slowly, carefully, he began drawing—the bench, the falling rain, and her sitting there, notebook in hand, eyes bright despite the gray world around them. She leaned closer, watching silently as the lines took form.
“You make it look like something more than what it is,” she said when he finished. “Just a rainy bench becomes… I don’t know, a memory.”
“Maybe because it is one,” he replied softly, surprising himself.
Her eyes flickered to his, and for a moment, the rain seemed to hush around them. She broke the silence with a laugh, light but nervous. “You’re not as quiet as you look, Arjun.”
He felt his ears warm. “Maybe I just don’t find the right people to talk to.”
They sat there longer than they should have, exchanging fragments of themselves in conversation—her dream of writing a book one day, his fear that his art would never be taken seriously, her annoyance at teachers who dismissed her as “too talkative,” his confession that he often felt invisible in class. The rain became their curtain, shielding them from the noise of the rest of the school.
When the downpour finally softened into drizzle, Riya opened her notebook again. “Here,” she said, tearing out a page and handing it to him. “A story I just wrote while sitting here. Don’t laugh.”
Arjun read it slowly. It was about a girl who met a boy on a rainy bench, both of them strangers until the storm forced them together. The story ended unfinished, mid-sentence: And maybe, if the rain hadn’t stopped, they would have discovered what silence could mean.
He looked up at her, unsure of what to say. “You didn’t finish it.”
“Maybe I don’t want to,” she shrugged. “Some stories are better left incomplete.”
He folded the page carefully, slipping it into his sketchbook. “Then I’ll finish it with a drawing,” he said.
Her smile widened. “That’s why we make a good team—your lines, my words.”
The final bell rang in the distance, faint against the drizzle. Students began leaving the classrooms, their chatter drifting toward the gate. Neither of them moved immediately. When they finally stood, side by side under the banyan tree, Riya tilted her face up toward the sky, letting a few raindrops fall directly onto her skin. “Promise me something, last-bencher,” she said suddenly.
“What?”
“Promise me we’ll keep this. The library secrets, the rainy bench, everything. Even when the world outside tries to change us.”
Arjun wasn’t used to promises; they always felt heavy, binding. But with her eyes fixed on him, the words came easily. “I promise.”
They walked back toward the gate together, no umbrella between them this time, the drizzle weaving their steps into rhythm. The courtyard looked ordinary again, just wet ground and dripping leaves, but for Arjun it had transformed. The rainy bench was no longer just a stone seat under a tree. It was a memory etched in graphite and words, a secret belonging only to the two of them.
That night, as he sketched once more, he didn’t just draw the bench or the rain. He drew the way she had looked at him, half-smiling, half-daring, as if inviting him into a story that wasn’t finished yet. On the bottom corner of the page, he wrote: The Rainy Bench.
And somewhere in her room, Riya wrote a new entry in her diary: Today, the rain gave me more than a story. It gave me someone who listens without interrupting, who sees without judgment. Maybe that’s rarer than love itself.
Neither of them knew what it meant, not yet. But both of them felt it—the beginning of something that had quietly stepped out of silence and into rain.
Episode 4 – The School Fest
Every year, St. Paul’s Academy buzzed with an energy that no examination or lesson could create—the annual school fest. It was the one week when the rigid discipline of uniforms and classes gave way to stages, decorations, and performances that made even the most withdrawn students reveal something of themselves. The fest was more than just a string of events; it was the school’s heartbeat, stitched together with rehearsals, nervous laughter, and the smell of freshly painted banners.
This year, Riya was everywhere. She had volunteered for the literary committee, signed up for the debate, and somehow convinced her friends to participate in the drama competition. She carried a notebook wherever she went, scribbling lines of dialogue, ideas for stage décor, and lists of who would do what. Her energy was unstoppable, and even teachers who usually scolded her for being too restless admitted she was indispensable during the preparations.
Arjun, as usual, had tried to stay unnoticed. He never volunteered for stage events, preferring to sit in the audience with his sketchbook. But fate—or perhaps Riya—had other plans. One afternoon, while he was sketching near the library steps, she appeared, notebook in hand, cheeks flushed from running across the courtyard. “I need your help,” she declared before he could escape.
“With what?” he asked cautiously.
“The backdrop for the drama. You draw, you’re good, and I’m not taking no for an answer.”
He opened his mouth to protest, but her raised eyebrow silenced him. And so, against his natural instinct to avoid attention, Arjun found himself standing on the stage two evenings later, surrounded by paints, brushes, and chart papers. The drama they were preparing was a modern retelling of Romeo and Juliet, and Riya had insisted that the backdrop must be “a city split in two, like a love story trapped in walls.”
Arjun began sketching on the massive white sheets pinned across the wooden boards. Slowly, under his hands, buildings rose, streets curved, and a dividing wall split the cityscape in two. His lines were bold yet delicate, creating an atmosphere that even the teachers supervising couldn’t stop admiring. “You’ve got real talent, boy,” one of them muttered, and Arjun felt heat rise in his cheeks.
Riya hovered nearby, handing him colors, occasionally adding her opinions. “Make the wall darker, yes, and maybe a faint outline of broken chains… oh, that’s perfect!” She wasn’t just giving instructions—she was breathing life into the vision, and together they built something neither could have managed alone.
The rehearsals stretched late into the evenings. Riya, who played Juliet in the drama, practiced her lines with exaggerated flourishes that made her friends giggle. Arjun, sitting on the edge of the stage with paint-stained fingers, watched quietly. He wasn’t watching the drama, really—he was watching her, the way she poured her entire self into every word, every gesture, as if the story mattered deeply even when it was just a school fest performance.
On the final day of the fest, the entire school gathered in the decorated hall. Colorful banners hung from the ceiling, stalls lined the courtyard with food and crafts, and the stage lights turned ordinary students into stars for a few fleeting minutes. Arjun sat backstage, adjusting the backdrop he had helped create, trying to ignore the pounding of his heart. He wasn’t performing, yet he felt more nervous than ever.
When the drama began, the audience was instantly captivated. Riya walked onto the stage in her simple costume, but to Arjun she might as well have been a professional actress. Her voice rang clear, her eyes glittered with conviction, and when she spoke of love that defied barriers, it felt like she wasn’t just reciting Shakespeare’s lines—she was speaking truths she already knew in her heart.
The backdrop glowed under the stage lights, the painted wall standing tall between the lovers. Arjun realized, with a strange shiver, that it symbolized not just the play but something between them too—an invisible wall of silence and hesitation that neither had dared to cross yet.
At one point in the play, when Juliet (Riya) spoke of love being stronger than fear, her gaze drifted toward the side stage for a fraction of a second, and Arjun felt as though the words were meant for him alone. He quickly looked away, afraid his face betrayed too much.
The audience erupted in applause when the play ended. Teachers congratulated the students, the principal praised the creativity of the backdrop, and Riya was showered with compliments for her performance. In the middle of the chaos, she slipped backstage, found Arjun, and without hesitation clasped his paint-stained hand. “You made this happen,” she whispered. “Without your backdrop, it wouldn’t have felt real.”
He wanted to say something—anything—but words caught in his throat. She squeezed his hand once before letting go, running back to her friends who were already posing for photographs. Arjun stood there, heart racing, his palm still warm where her hand had been.
Later, as the fest drew to a close and students carried home memories of victories and failures, Riya found him again near the gate. “You know,” she said lightly, “Romeo and Juliet is supposed to be tragic. But if I wrote it, I’d give them a different ending. Why should love always lose to walls and rules?”
Arjun met her gaze, the words forming slowly but surely this time. “Maybe… maybe in your story, love wins.”
She smiled, a smile that reached her eyes, and said, “Maybe in ours too.”
The rain began again that night, faint and distant, as if applauding quietly for promises unspoken yet understood. Arjun walked home carrying the scent of paint and the echo of her words, knowing that the school fest had given him more than just applause for his art. It had given him the courage to imagine endings where walls could fall, where silence could break, and where a last-bencher and a dreamer might write their story together.
On the last page of his sketchbook, he drew the painted wall from the backdrop. But this time, he added cracks, flowers pushing through the stone, as if love had already begun rewriting its ending. At the corner, he titled it: The School Fest.
Episode 5 – Whispers in the Corridor
The week after the school fest, St. Paul’s Academy returned to its usual rhythm—bells ringing on time, teachers enforcing order, students yawning through lessons. But something had shifted, invisible yet undeniable. Arjun felt it each time he walked into class and caught Riya’s glance, quick and fleeting, as though the stage lights of the drama had left behind a glow only the two of them could still see. Their library secrets and rainy bench conversations had already made their bond different from ordinary friendships, but now it was harder to keep it hidden.
It began with whispers. A group of girls in the corridor giggled when Riya walked past, one of them sing-songing, “Juliet found her Romeo.” She rolled her eyes but later, when she met Arjun in the library, she laughed. “Apparently, you’re famous now.”
Arjun frowned. “What do you mean?”
“They think you’re my Romeo. Maybe it’s your wall painting,” she teased.
He shifted uncomfortably, his pencil frozen above the sketchbook. “Let them think whatever they want.”
But whispers have a way of growing legs. By midweek, the corridor gossip had spread—Riya and Arjun, the last-bencher artist and the outspoken Juliet, a pair unlikely enough to be interesting. Boys from Arjun’s class nudged him during lunch, asking slyly if the rumors were true. “Did you really walk her home after the fest?” one asked, smirking. Arjun shook his head quickly, retreating into silence, but his reddening ears betrayed him.
Riya, for her part, pretended not to care. When girls in her group asked if she and Arjun were “a thing,” she laughed it off. “Please, he hardly talks. We just work together on stuff.” But in the privacy of her diary, she wrote, Why do I feel like they’re not entirely wrong?
The tension grew heavier during one particular afternoon. Arjun was sketching alone at the back of the library when two boys walked in. They weren’t there for books; they were there for mischief. “Hey, artist boy,” one of them sneered, pulling the sketchbook from under his hand. Arjun jumped to his feet, but it was too late—the boy had already flipped to the page where Riya’s face smiled in delicate graphite lines.
“Oho, look at this,” the other boy laughed. “Romeo’s secret gallery.”
Arjun’s stomach twisted. He lunged forward, snatching the sketchbook back, his voice harsher than he intended. “Don’t touch that.”
The commotion drew Riya, who had just entered carrying a pile of novels. She froze when she saw the scene, the boys grinning, Arjun’s face tight with anger. “What’s going on?” she demanded.
“Nothing,” Arjun muttered, sliding the sketchbook into his bag. The boys smirked as they left, whispering loud enough for everyone to hear, “Guess the rumors are true.”
That evening, Riya cornered him under the banyan tree. “Why didn’t you just tell them to shut up?” she asked, frustration flickering in her eyes.
“I don’t like fights,” he said quietly.
“Sometimes silence is worse,” she shot back. Then, softening, she added, “Let me see what they were laughing at.”
Reluctantly, he handed her the sketchbook. She flipped to the page and gasped—not because she was angry, but because the drawing was so alive. It wasn’t just her face; it was her eyes, drawn with such care that they seemed to hold unspoken words.
“You drew me like I’m… someone worth noticing,” she whispered.
“You are,” he said before he could stop himself.
The silence that followed was not the comfortable kind they shared in the library. It was heavy, trembling with the weight of something neither was ready to name. Riya closed the book and handed it back gently. “Arjun,” she said, her voice steady, “I don’t care about the whispers. But if people talk, it will only get worse. Are you ready for that?”
He looked down, torn. For years he had survived by staying invisible. Now, standing with her under the banyan tree, he realized that being invisible might mean losing her. His voice was almost a whisper: “If you don’t mind… I don’t either.”
For the next few days, the gossip refused to die down. A teacher even scolded them once for sitting “too close” in the library. Riya laughed it off, but Arjun saw how it stung her, the way people reduced their bond into nothing more than teasing. Yet, in strange ways, the scrutiny pulled them closer. They began exchanging folded notes instead of talking too much in public—scribbled lines of poetry from her, half-drawn sketches from him. They didn’t call it love; they didn’t even name it friendship. But each note carried a piece of trust, stronger than the whispers trying to pull them apart.
One afternoon, as they crossed paths in the corridor, Riya leaned in just enough to whisper, “Let them talk. We’ll write our own story.”
For the first time in his life, Arjun walked through the crowded hall without lowering his gaze. Maybe people stared, maybe they didn’t. All he knew was that her words had made the whispers smaller, less important, like background noise against something far louder—the rhythm of something real, something theirs.
That night, his sketchbook bore a new drawing: a long corridor filled with shadows, and at the center, two figures walking side by side. At the bottom, he wrote: Whispers in the Corridor.
Episode 6 – A Missed Call
The school year had begun sliding into its restless middle, the stretch of months between festivals and exams where every day looked almost the same: classes spilling into each other, corridors echoing with laughter, teachers tired of repeating instructions, and students secretly counting the days until holidays. Yet for Arjun and Riya, sameness had quietly turned into difference. Their days now carried secret weight—the slip of a folded note into each other’s bags, the silent exchange of smiles across classrooms, the meetings in the library where words and sketches spoke louder than voices.
But routine has a way of testing even the strongest bonds, and sometimes it chooses the smallest cracks to widen. It began innocently, with a phone. Riya had finally convinced her parents to let her use their old handset—a clunky, scratched device with limited features but enough to allow her to send texts. She scribbled Arjun’s number on the back page of her diary one afternoon and pressed the paper into his hand. “Now we don’t have to wait till school,” she said, her eyes glowing with mischief.
Arjun stared at the number like it was a puzzle. He had never really shared his with anyone outside his family, and the thought of messages buzzing late at night both thrilled and unsettled him. That evening, after pacing his room for what felt like hours, he typed his first message: Hi. A single word, as hesitant as his own voice.
Her reply came almost instantly: Took you long enough, last-bencher.
From then on, the quiet evenings filled with conversations that had no bell to interrupt them. They spoke about everything—her frustrations with teachers who dismissed her stories as distractions, his fear that art would never be more than a hobby, her dreams of traveling to cities where libraries stretched like mazes, his longing to escape the constant expectations of grades. Sometimes they argued over silly things—whether rain was better than winter, whether tea was superior to coffee—but even those arguments ended in laughter.
Then, one evening, came the silence. Arjun had sent her a sketch of the banyan tree with the caption our bench, waiting for her reply. Hours passed, but none came. He tried again—Did you see it? Still nothing. His anxiety grew like a storm cloud. Had he done something wrong? Had someone discovered their messages? He stared at the blank screen until sleep pulled him into uneasy dreams.
The next morning at school, Riya seemed distracted. She avoided his gaze in class, spoke quickly to her friends, and disappeared during lunch. When he finally caught her in the corridor, she smiled faintly but didn’t stop. “I’ll talk later,” she murmured, leaving him with questions that twisted in his stomach.
That afternoon, he gathered courage and called her number, something he had never done before. The phone rang once, twice, three times—and then clicked into silence. Missed call. He tried again, only to meet the same end. He didn’t realize how tightly he was gripping the phone until his knuckles turned white.
The next day, she was waiting near the library steps. “Sorry,” she said before he could speak. Her voice was softer than usual. “My parents saw the messages. They weren’t happy.”
Arjun’s throat tightened. “Because of me?”
“Because of the idea of… anyone,” she admitted. “They think I should focus on studies, not… this.” She gestured vaguely, as though afraid to give their bond a name.
He swallowed hard. “So what happens now?”
She looked at him, her eyes a mixture of defiance and worry. “We just have to be careful. Less messages, no calls. At least until things calm down.”
It was a reasonable answer, yet it cut deeper than any scolding could. For days afterward, Arjun stared at his phone, resisting the urge to type, to send, to call. The silence stretched like a wall between them, reminding him of the painted backdrop he had once drawn for the drama—the wall that divided lovers. Only this time, it wasn’t fiction.
But Riya was not one to surrender easily. One afternoon, during library hour, she slipped him a folded note. Inside was a single line: Walls don’t last forever. Meet me at the bench tomorrow.
The following day, when the rain had just begun to mist the courtyard, they sat under the banyan tree once more. For a while neither spoke, the silence heavy with what had been left unsaid. Then Riya broke it. “You know what hurt the most? Seeing your missed call on my phone and not being able to answer. It felt like turning away from something real.”
He met her gaze, his own voice trembling. “I thought maybe you didn’t want to talk anymore.”
“Arjun,” she said firmly, “I do. More than ever. But sometimes wanting isn’t enough. We’ll just… find another way.”
And so they did. Their communication shifted back into the world of pen and paper—notes slipped into library books, poems written on the margins of assignments, sketches tucked into her diary. The phone became a silent object again, but their story refused to wither. If anything, the secrecy sharpened their bond, making each exchanged word feel precious, stolen, like treasure smuggled through narrow cracks.
That night, Arjun opened his sketchbook and drew a phone with its screen blank, no messages, no calls. Beside it, he drew two figures sitting under a tree, closer than the device could ever bring them. At the bottom, he wrote in quiet strokes: A Missed Call.
Somewhere in her room, Riya closed her diary after writing: A missed call is not the end. It’s only proof that silence can’t always win.
Neither knew what challenges the coming months would bring, but both understood something new: that absence could ache, but it could also remind them why presence mattered so much. And as the rain tapped on their windows that night, they each felt it—the story was far from over.
Episode 7 – The Farewell Dress
The calendar had turned faster than either of them expected. One moment it was the middle of the term, assignments piling up, teachers warning about exams; the next moment, whispers of farewell filled the corridors. The seniors would soon be leaving, and with them the rituals of farewells, speeches, photographs, and dresses that made everyone feel older than their years. For class ten, it wasn’t quite the end, but the juniors organized a farewell for them too—a rehearsal of growing up, a small ceremony before the weight of board exams would close in.
Riya was at the center of preparations, as always. She and her friends spent hours planning what to wear, trading fabric swatches, whispering about hairdos and shoes. Arjun listened silently whenever her chatter drifted his way, though secretly he sketched her in every imagined outfit, wondering which one she would finally choose.
The day arrived wrapped in late winter chill. The school hall had been decorated with strings of lights and paper lanterns, the stage adorned with flowers. Students who usually wore the sameness of uniforms now arrived transformed—boys in formal shirts and ties too tight around their necks, girls in colorful salwar suits or sarees borrowed from elder sisters. The air shimmered with perfume and nervous laughter.
Arjun stood awkwardly near the back, dressed in his best shirt, which felt too stiff, collar scratching his neck. He had never been good with occasions like this. But then Riya walked in, and the hall seemed to rearrange itself around her. She wore a simple cream-colored saree with a thin golden border, her hair let loose over her shoulders. She wasn’t the most extravagantly dressed girl there, but something about her confidence, the way she carried herself as if she belonged under every spotlight, made her impossible to ignore.
Arjun froze. His pencil hand itched though he wasn’t carrying his sketchbook. His mind began sketching her anyway—the fold of the saree, the way light caught at the edge of her earrings, the faint smile she carried like a secret. She caught his gaze across the crowd and tilted her head slightly, as if to say, Well, what do you think? He could only nod, his throat dry.
The farewell began with speeches, long-winded goodbyes from teachers, followed by skits and songs from juniors. Arjun clapped politely, but his eyes kept drifting toward Riya, who sat a few rows ahead, laughing with her friends. Once, she turned back suddenly, and their eyes met. He quickly looked away, but his heart thudded loud enough that he was sure the entire hall could hear.
When the music started and groups began dancing on stage, Riya disappeared backstage. Minutes later, she reappeared near him, her saree swishing at her ankles. “You’re hiding here,” she accused lightly.
“I’m not good with crowds,” he muttered.
“Well, you’ll have to be good with me,” she said, tugging at his sleeve. Before he could protest, she had pulled him toward the side of the hall where fewer people stood. The music thumped in the background, but here the noise softened, replaced by the hum of string lights above.
“You look…” He stopped, words slipping away.
She raised an eyebrow. “I look what?”
“Different,” he said finally, though the word felt too small.
She laughed. “That’s what everyone keeps saying. Different. As if a saree changes who I am. But you—” she leaned closer—“you look the same. Still the last-bencher who’d rather draw than dance.”
He smiled faintly. “And you? Still the Juliet who thinks stories can change the world.”
Her laughter softened into silence. “Maybe they can,” she said. “Or maybe just ours.”
The moment stretched. Around them, the world glittered with lights, but inside it was just the two of them, suspended between childhood and something else they couldn’t name yet. Then someone called her name, breaking the spell. She sighed, adjusting her saree. “Duty calls,” she joked, slipping back into the crowd.
Later, during the photo session, groups posed with arms slung around each other, faces bright with promises of friendship. Riya insisted Arjun join her group photo. He stood at the edge, stiff and unsure, but when the photographer counted to three, she leaned just close enough for their shoulders to touch. The flash captured more than an image—it captured a memory he would carry long after the photograph was forgotten.
As the farewell drew to its close, the hall buzzed with plans—exams, tuitions, future colleges. Everyone was suddenly talking about what lay beyond these walls. Riya found him again near the exit, holding a crumpled piece of paper. “Here,” she said, slipping it into his hand. “Don’t open it now. Later.”
He nodded, tucking it safely into his pocket. On the way home, he walked slower than usual, afraid the paper might burn through his clothes with its weight. That night, under the yellow light of his desk lamp, he unfolded it. Inside, in her looping handwriting, were just a few lines:
I don’t care about whispers or walls. Today, in this saree, I felt older than my age. But when I looked at you, I felt like myself. That matters more. —R.
Arjun sat staring at the note long after midnight. He pulled out his sketchbook and drew her exactly as she had appeared—cream saree, golden border, eyes alive with laughter. At the bottom, he wrote: The Farewell Dress.
And in another notebook, far away, Riya wrote her diary entry: I thought a saree would make me look different, but love—whatever this is—makes me feel more like myself than anything else ever has.
Episode 8 – The Last Notebook
Exams were drawing near, their shadow stretching long across the school. Teachers no longer smiled during classes, their voices sharpening with urgency. Corridors once filled with idle chatter now echoed with murmurs of formulas, dates, and definitions. Even the library, usually empty except for Arjun and Riya, was crowded with anxious students leafing through textbooks. The world of notebooks and pens, once their playground for secrets, had suddenly turned into battlefields for marks.
Riya, however, hadn’t changed much. She still carried her diary, still scribbled in margins when lectures dragged too long, still found ways to slip a folded sheet into Arjun’s desk. But now her words often ended mid-sentence, as if even her stories felt the pressure of unfinished syllabi. Arjun too sketched less, his pencils dulled under the weight of endless equations. Yet, when the silence between them threatened to grow, something unexpected happened—Riya discovered his notebook.
It happened one afternoon when the library was emptier than usual. Arjun had left his sketchbook behind on the corner table while rushing to borrow a reference guide. Riya, waiting for him, noticed it lying there, the familiar brown cover worn soft from years of use. She hesitated at first—she had promised not to peek without his permission. But curiosity, that stubborn trait she could never silence, urged her fingers forward. Slowly, she opened the book.
What she saw wasn’t just sketches. It was a chronicle of their year together. The first page bore the drawing of the rainy courtyard, tiny umbrellas scattered like ink drops. The next showed the library table with two figures leaning toward each other. Then came the banyan tree, the stone bench, the painted wall from the drama, the crowd at the farewell—and her, over and over again, her face etched with more care than she thought anyone could give.
She turned the pages slowly, each one tugging at her heart. Here she was laughing, here she was thoughtful, here she was simply sitting with her notebook. He had captured not just her likeness but her moods, her silences, her unspoken sentences. And at the end, she found a sketch unlike the others—unfinished, just outlines of her holding a diary close to her chest. Beneath it, in his hesitant handwriting, were three words: My last notebook.
Her throat tightened. When Arjun returned, arms full of books, she quickly closed the sketchbook, but not before he noticed. His eyes widened, color rushing to his face. “You… you looked?”
“I’m sorry,” she blurted, standing quickly. “I didn’t mean to—well, I did, but I couldn’t stop.”
He set the books down, flustered. “It’s not ready. I didn’t want—”
“Arjun,” she interrupted, her voice firm but gentle. “Do you realize what you’ve done? You’ve drawn our story. Every moment, every secret. Do you know how rare that is?”
He stared at the floor. “It’s just drawings.”
“No,” she said, lifting his chin until their eyes met. “It’s proof. Proof that even when the world forgets us, we’ll exist here. In your last notebook.”
The silence stretched, heavy and fragile, before he whispered, “I was afraid you’d be angry.”
“Angry?” She almost laughed. “Do you think I’d be angry that someone saw me so carefully, more carefully than I’ve ever seen myself?” Her fingers traced the edge of the sketchbook. “You’ve given me something my words could never hold.”
From that day, the notebook became more than his secret. It became their treasure. He continued sketching, but now sometimes she leaned over, adding her own words in the margins—lines of poetry wrapping around his drawings, sentences weaving through graphite. A rainy sketch carried her words: Clouds break, hearts don’t. A library drawing had her note: Silence is safer when shared. Slowly, the notebook turned into a dialogue, art and writing holding hands across pages.
But exams loomed, and with them came the fear that their world would scatter. Teachers warned of limited time, parents tightened schedules, friends disappeared into coaching classes. One evening, while they sat under the banyan tree, Riya closed the notebook gently. “What if this ends after exams?” she asked quietly.
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean… what if we get busy, go to different places, new schools, new people? What happens to the last-bencher and Juliet then?” Her eyes shimmered with something close to fear.
Arjun was silent for a long time. Then, carefully, he said, “Then this notebook will remind us. Even if we forget, even if the world pulls us apart, these pages will wait. They don’t need marks or results. They’ll just… stay.”
Her smile returned slowly. “Then promise me something. No matter where we go, no matter what happens, we’ll finish this notebook together. Until the last page.”
“I promise,” he said, and for once his voice didn’t tremble.
That night, Arjun sat at his desk, turning the pages again. The sketches stared back at him like mirrors of memory, and her words wrapped around them like whispers. He drew one more image before closing the book: two hands holding the same notebook. At the bottom, he wrote: The Last Notebook.
And in her diary, Riya wrote: Some people write their love letters. Mine is sketched in shadows and lines. Maybe that’s why it feels real—because it’s not just spoken, it’s drawn into permanence.
Episode 9 – Confession Before Exams
The countdown to board exams had begun. It was written on every notice board, stamped into every timetable, echoed in every classroom where teachers no longer tolerated distraction. The school seemed transformed into a pressure chamber: corridors that once hummed with laughter now buzzed with nervous revision, library shelves emptied of reference guides, and parents waiting at the gates with anxious eyes. For Arjun and Riya, the world that had once been filled with secrets and rain-drenched benches shrank suddenly into textbooks, notes, and mock tests.
They still met, but less often. A glance in the corridor, a quick smile across the classroom, a folded sheet slipped between pages—these became luxuries rather than habits. And yet, the less they met, the stronger the ache grew. Absence made each moment of presence sharper, more fragile, like glass that could break if touched too suddenly.
It was during one such evening, just a week before the first exam, that Riya sent him a note: Meet me tonight. The bench. Don’t say no.
Arjun read it three times, his chest tightening. Night? Outside school? He wasn’t used to breaking rules. But her handwriting, quick and insistent, felt like a pulse he couldn’t ignore. So, after dinner, under the excuse of a walk, he slipped out with his sketchbook tucked under his arm.
The town was quiet, the streets almost empty, the air thick with the smell of summer rain. The banyan tree near school loomed darker at night, its roots like sleeping serpents. And there she was, waiting, her hair untied, her uniform replaced by a simple salwar, eyes shining with a nervous excitement that mirrored his own.
“You came,” she whispered.
“I almost didn’t,” he admitted. “If my parents find out—”
“They won’t,” she said quickly, brushing the worry away with the same confidence she always carried. Then her tone softened. “I needed to see you. Exams feel like the end of everything, Arjun. Everyone keeps saying these results will decide our whole lives. But I don’t want to lose what we have in all this noise.”
He lowered himself onto the bench beside her. “We won’t lose it. I promised, remember?”
“I know,” she said, staring at the ground. “But promises don’t always survive reality. What if after exams you join some art school and I end up in another city? What if we get so busy that this—” she gestured between them “—becomes just memory?”
Arjun felt a weight press against his chest. He opened his sketchbook, flipping through pages until he reached the unfinished drawing of her holding her diary. “Even if that happens,” he said quietly, “you’ll still be here. On these pages. In my head. You’ve already become part of me.”
She looked at him for a long time, her eyes shimmering in the faint streetlight. Then, in a voice softer than the rustle of leaves, she asked, “Do you like me, Arjun?”
His pencil slipped from his fingers, clattering softly against the stone bench. For a moment, he could only hear his own heartbeat pounding in his ears. “I…” He swallowed, struggling to find the courage that always hid behind silence. Finally, the words came, halting but true. “Yes. More than like. Maybe… more than I even understand.”
The world seemed to pause. Even the night air held still. Riya let out a shaky breath, a half-laugh, half-sob. “Finally. Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for you to say that?”
He blinked, startled. “You… knew?”
“Of course I knew,” she said, her voice trembling with relief. “Do you think all those sketches went unnoticed? Do you think I didn’t see myself in your silence, in every page of your notebook? I’ve been waiting for you to admit it. Because—” she hesitated, then whispered, “—because I feel the same.”
The words wrapped around him like a storm breaking open. For the first time, the silence he carried all his life didn’t feel heavy—it felt like it had led to this moment. He wanted to say more, but words were too small. Instead, he simply looked at her, and in that gaze was everything he couldn’t put into sentences: gratitude, fear, joy, love.
She reached for his hand, tentative at first, then firmer when he didn’t pull away. Their fingers laced together awkwardly, palms sweaty, but to them it felt like holding the entire world. They sat like that, saying nothing, because confession had already spoken louder than any story or sketch.
When it was time to leave, she whispered, “We’ll get through the exams. And after that, we’ll write the next chapter, together.”
Walking back home, Arjun replayed the night in his mind again and again. The missed call, the whispers in the corridor, the farewell dress, the last notebook—everything had been leading to this single truth. He pulled out his pencil one last time before sleeping and drew two hands joined together under a banyan tree, rain falling faintly in the background. At the bottom, he wrote: Confession Before Exams.
And in her diary that night, Riya wrote: Sometimes love doesn’t need fireworks. Sometimes it’s just a boy admitting what he’s always drawn in silence, and a girl finally hearing the words she already knew. Tonight, silence broke. And it was beautiful.
Episode 10 – The Last Bell
The day of the last exam dawned bright and restless, the kind of morning when the air itself carried urgency. Students streamed into St. Paul’s Academy with sharpened pencils, heavy bags, and eyes half-dreaming of freedom. The corridors smelled of ink and nervous sweat. For most, it was simply the end of tests, the beginning of holidays. For Arjun and Riya, it was more than that—it was the day their school life, the world that had carried their secrets, would ring its final bell.
Arjun arrived early, sketchbook tucked inside his bag though he knew he wouldn’t need it. He found Riya waiting by the gate, her hair tied back, her face calm despite the storm of students around her. She greeted him with a smile that steadied his nerves more than any last-minute revision could.
“How much did you study?” she asked.
“Enough to pass,” he said honestly.
She laughed. “Good. Then you’ll have more space in your head for memories.”
They walked into the examination hall, sitting at separate desks under the watchful eyes of invigilators. The paper was long, the questions tricky, but Arjun found himself strangely unafraid. Each answer he wrote felt like a countdown, not to results, but to something larger—the moment when they would step out of this hall not just as students but as two people carrying a promise.
When the bell finally rang, sharp and clear, the room erupted in sighs and cheers. Answer sheets shuffled, pens dropped, chairs screeched against the floor. It was over. Months of pressure dissolved in a single sound. For the rest of the class, it meant freedom. For Arjun and Riya, it meant farewell.
Outside, the courtyard was alive with relief. Students scribbled on each other’s shirts, signing names, leaving messages, promising to stay in touch. Riya’s friends pulled her into the frenzy, scrawling across her sleeves with markers. She smiled, posed for photos, but her eyes kept searching the crowd until they found Arjun standing at the edge, watching quietly.
She broke away and walked toward him, holding out a pen. “Write something,” she said, pointing to the back of her shirt already filled with signatures.
Arjun hesitated, then took the pen and bent down. Instead of his name, he drew a small sketch—a tree, a bench, and two figures sitting side by side. She turned to look, her eyes softening. “That’s better than any name,” she whispered.
The afternoon blurred into photographs, laughter, and promises shouted across the courtyard. Slowly, students began leaving, some in groups, some alone. Arjun and Riya found themselves lingering by the banyan tree, their tree, the place that had held their silences and secrets.
“This is it,” she said, her voice steady but her fingers tightening around her diary. “The last day of school. Tomorrow, it won’t be the same.”
He nodded, feeling the truth settle heavily inside him. “But tomorrow isn’t today. We still have this moment.”
She smiled faintly. “Then let’s not waste it.”
They sat on the stone bench, the same one that had once introduced them during rain. For a while, they said nothing, just listening to the echoes of footsteps fading from the grounds. Then Riya opened her diary, tearing out a page carefully. She handed it to him.
“This is my last school entry,” she said. “Read it when you’re alone.”
He tucked it carefully into his sketchbook. In return, he pulled out a folded sheet, a sketch he had prepared the night before: the school gate, with two small figures walking out side by side, their backs turned toward the world ahead. Beneath it, he had written: The story isn’t ending. It’s just changing its chapter.
Her eyes glistened. “You always know how to say things without words.”
“Maybe because you already say them with words,” he replied.
The final bell of the day rang, distant and echoing. It wasn’t like any other—it was sharper, heavier, the sound of an era closing. They stood, neither wanting to be the first to move. Finally, Riya reached for his hand, squeezing it tightly.
“Promise me again,” she whispered.
“I promise,” he said, his voice sure. “The notebook, the bench, the rain, the secrets—we’ll carry them. Wherever we go.”
She nodded, her grip lingering before she let go. Together, they walked toward the gate, past the emptying corridors, past the classrooms that had once caged their whispers. At the threshold, she turned once more to look back at the school. “Goodbye,” she murmured, though it sounded less like farewell and more like gratitude.
That evening, at his desk, Arjun finally unfolded the page she had given him. Her handwriting danced across the paper:
The last bell doesn’t mean the end. It means we’ve learned enough to write the next story ourselves. If love is real, it doesn’t need uniforms or corridors—it only needs memory. And you, Arjun, are mine.
He closed his eyes, letting the words sink into him. Then he opened his sketchbook for the last time that year. On the final page, he drew a bell—swinging, ringing, the sound etched in lines. Beneath it, he wrote in bold strokes: The Last Bell.
And in her diary, Riya ended with: Some stories aren’t written in chapters. They’re written in benches, libraries, rains, and promises. This was ours. And it’s only the beginning.
