It was the last English period before the mid-term break. The teacher, Ms. Kavita, had walked in with her usual click-clack heels and a mischievous glint in her eye. "Today," she announced, "you will write a letter to your best friend. You won't name them, but write everything you wish you could say to them. Think of it as a letter you may never send."
The classroom buzzed with energy. Pages rustled. Pens scribbled. Words tumbled out like secrets.
Amrita began writing immediately. Her brow furrowed with concentration. Lines formed quickly on her page, flowing like a stream. She wrote about laughter, about quiet support, about arguments that ended in shared chocolate bars. She didn't name Tushar, but every word hummed with his presence.
Tushar, on the other hand, sat frozen. He held his pen in a stiff grip and stared at the lined paper in front of him. The minutes slipped by.
Dear Amrita, he finally wrote.
Then — nothing.
What could he write? That she was the first person to notice when he was sad? That when she smiled, he felt the world could still be good? That sometimes, when his parents fought at night, he closed his eyes and thought of the way she braided friendship bands for the class?
Nothing seemed big enough. Or maybe everything felt too big to say.
When the bell rang, Amrita turned toward him. "Done?"
He hesitated, then passed her the notebook.
She read the two words — Dear Amrita — and looked at him, not with disappointment, but with understanding.
"You don't need to write more," she said, and beneath his line, in her graceful handwriting, she added:
I understand.
Tushar looked at the words. They made his throat tighten.
Sometimes, the heart didn't need decoration. Sometimes, it just needed to be seen.
Moral: Real friendship listens to the silences between words — and understands even what's unspoken.