Paper Planes & Half-Written Promises 1

 

No loud beginning. No fireworks. Just two teenagers who didn’t know that a simple “Hi” in the school corridor would one day feel like a memory too heavy to carry.

Ayaan was the quiet kind of boy—soft-spoken, always with a book in hand, like he was searching for a place that wasn’t reality. And Aria… she was sunshine with shoes on. Loud laugh, messy hair, and eyes that believed everything in life could be fixed with hope.

They met in the most ordinary way—Ayaan dropped his notebook, Aria picked it up, and found a page he never intended anyone to read:

“If someone ever looks at me like I’m enough, I think I’ll finally breathe.”

She looked at him that way.

That was the beginning.

For months, they shared lunch, secrets, playlists, and dreams. They sent paper planes across the classroom with dumb jokes and half-drawn doodles. Aria always wrote:

“Promise me you won’t leave.”

Ayaan never promised. He was scared of promises—scared of being someone’s disappointment.

But he fell for her anyway. Slowly. Silently. Deeply.

They weren’t a perfect couple, not even officially. They were something in-between—almost lovers, almost confession, almost forever. Everyone saw it, felt it, knew it. Everyone except them.

Life, however, doesn’t wait for teenagers to figure out their hearts.

Aria’s parents planned to move to another city… permanently. She told him on a winter afternoon, hugging her knees on the school rooftop, trying not to break.

“Ayaan… tell me not to go. Just once. Give me a reason to stay.”

His heart screamed. But his mouth remained silent.

Because he believed he wasn’t enough to hold her back from a better life.

So, he watched her cry, watched her walk away, watched his own everything pack up and leave.

On her last day, she placed a paper plane in his hand.

Inside, only five words:

“You were always my reason.”

After she left, Ayaan wrote her hundreds of letters he never sent, walked by places that smelled like her laughter, replayed every “almost” like punishment.

Years later, Aria said she would visit the old town for just one evening. Ayaan ran to the school rooftop—their rooftop—hoping she still remembered.

She did.

But the timing was cruel.

She wasn’t alone.

She was engaged.

She looked happy… the kind of happy he always wanted for her, even if it wasn’t with him. They talked, but not about love. They talked like strangers with too much history and too little courage.

Before leaving, she placed one last paper plane in his hand.

This time, only three words:

“In another life…”

Ayaan smiled painfully. Because he finally understood…