It started with a whisper in the library.
Amrita sat in the farthest corner of the reading room, flipping through a worn-out copy of Anne Frank's Diary. The ceiling fan creaked above, the only sound in the stillness of the room. Tushar dropped into the seat beside her, holding out a red notebook.
"What's that?" she asked.
"My diary."
Amrita blinked. "You have a diary?"
Tushar looked a little shy. "Don't laugh. I write things. Stuff I don't say out loud."
She took it gently. "Can I…?"
He nodded once.
That night, curled up under her blanket, Amrita read his diary by torchlight. It wasn't filled with secrets, just thoughts. Observations. Feelings he never voiced in class. A poem about his father's silence at the dinner table. A drawing of their school bus from memory. A line that read: "Sometimes I feel invisible, but when she laughs, I remember I exist."
She closed the diary slowly.
The next morning, she returned it without a word. But she'd added a sticky note to the last page: "You're not invisible. You're the best part of my day."
He read it three times, then tore a page from the back and scribbled something. That evening, he handed her a folded note:
Dear Amrita,
This friendship is the only thing I write about that feels like a story worth keeping.
—T
From then on, they began exchanging notebooks—little snapshots of their minds. Poems, drawings, angry rants about teachers, dreams of growing up. The pages became sacred, a bond inked in trust.
One day, a classmate named Kavya snatched the diary from Amrita's hand and read aloud a line about her—something Tushar had written in admiration.
"'Her voice is like the first breeze after summer.' Whoa, Tushar. Crushing hard, aren't we?" she giggled.
Amrita's face burned. Tushar stood frozen.
"Give it back," he said quietly.
"Oh, romantic and brave!" Kavya teased.
Before anyone could move, Amrita snatched it back and slammed it shut. "If you ever touch this again, I'll write a poem about your breath smelling like boiled cabbage. Loudly."
The class exploded in laughter.
Kavya rolled her eyes and walked away. Tushar sat down beside Amrita, embarrassed and quiet.
"You okay?" she asked.
He nodded slowly.
"You know," she said gently, "I liked what you wrote."
He looked at her. "Even the breeze part?"
"Especially that part."
They smiled at each other. The bell rang, but neither moved for a while.
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Moral: Friendship thrives on trust—and sharing your inner world with someone who protects it is one of life's rarest gifts.