Most people remember 19 as loud—hostel noise, late-night chai, rush for attendance, unplanned trips.
But for Ruhan, 19 was quiet.
Not peaceful. Just...quiet.
He wasn’t invisible. People knew him. Teachers nodded when they passed him in corridors. Friends waved. Sometimes they joked about how calm he always looked.
But Ruhan wasn’t calm.
He was contained.
His World Was Made of Edges
He sat near the edges of classrooms.
Took the corner table at the canteen.
Exited group chats silently.
Said “I’m good” more than he should’ve.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to belong. He just never knew how to fit himself into conversations that moved faster than his thoughts.
He didn’t hate people. He just preferred listening over explaining.
So he started writing instead.
The Diary That Didn’t Care
It wasn’t just any notebook.
It was an old, leftover diary from 2021 — thick pages, hard paper cover, originally meant for planning days that had already passed.
He found it in a rusted shelf at home, under old bills and phone boxes. The cover was maroonish-brown, with corners that looked chewed by time.
On the back, in his own uneven handwriting, he wrote:
Ruhan M. | Private. Do Not Read.
But of course, that was just for effect.
No one even knew it existed.
That diary became his second skin.
He wrote every single day—not in paragraphs or poetry—but in fragments.
“Felt too much again today. Didn’t say anything, just walked away.”
“The chai guy asked if I was okay. That was the only real question I heard all week.”
“Still miss Bhai. Two years. Funny how people stop asking about someone just because they’ve been gone a while.”
It wasn’t about being deep or dramatic.
It was survival.
A quiet unburdening.
Life Between Bookshelves
Three evenings a week, Ruhan worked at a bookstore named “Paper & Pause”. It wasn’t big. Just one floor, one counter, one bell that rang when someone entered.
The owners were old, kind, and rarely spoke unless spoken to.
Perfect.
Ruhan loved rearranging shelves, discovering strange book titles, watching customers debate over covers and blurbs. He even had a secret game—guessing people’s personalities based on which aisle they walked into first.
The job didn’t pay much.
But it gave him stillness.
And in that stillness, he’d write.
The Drift
College life was moving like a train.
People around him were applying for internships, planning their resumes, asking “Where do you see yourself in five years?”
Ruhan didn’t have an answer.
He barely knew where he’d be next week.
His connection with people began to thin. Conversations felt surface-level. He smiled at the right times. Laughed when others did. Nodded like everything made sense.
But most nights, it was just him, a pen, and that diary.
The Afternoon Everything Shifted
It was a Wednesday.
Clouds hovered. Not dark enough to rain, not light enough to ignore.
His second lecture had ended early. He had an hour to waste.
He slipped into the campus library.
Found a seat by the window—his usual one.
Opened a random book—just to look like he belonged there.
He took out his diary, scribbled a line or two, then tucked it between the open pages of the book.
Just for a moment.
A message flashed on his phone:
“Classroom shifted to 302. Come fast.”
In that small rush—the kind where your body moves faster than your awareness—he packed up his bag, stuffed the book back into the shelf…
And left.
The diary stayed behind.
And Ruhan wouldn’t realize it was gone…
until it was already too late.