A Journey to finding myself

Episode Two – The Girl Who Stayed Quiet

Not all wounds make noise. Some just settle in and stay.

There are things we remember not because they were loud, but because they were silent. Because they left us feeling small.

After that afternoon by the water tap, I began to see school differently. It wasn't just a place to learn anymore—it was a place where people could decide how much space you were allowed to take up. I started to walk with my head lower. I avoided certain people. I started shrinking into myself.

Zainab went on like nothing happened. She laughed louder. She threw glances my way in class, not with guilt, but with that casual boldness that only people who never get questioned seem to have. And I… I stayed quiet.

But something was growing inside me. Not anger. Not yet. Just a small ache. Like a voice that was trying to speak, but didn’t know the words.

I wish I could say I told someone. That I stood up for myself. That I walked into the classroom the next day and confronted her in front of everyone. But that didn’t happen.

Instead, I carried it. Quietly. Like a stone in my pocket.

At home, things were normal. My mom still gave me 10 naira each morning, not knowing I’d stopped buying tigernuts. My siblings still chatted about their school day, and I laughed with them like nothing had changed. I didn’t want them to see me differently. I didn’t want anyone to think I was weak, even though I already believed it.

I think that’s when I started journaling. Nothing deep—just small scribbles, short lines. Words I couldn’t say out loud. I’d write things like “today was fine” or “I wish I had said something”. And sometimes just one word: “tired.”

I didn’t know it then, but I was starting to build something. A quiet place for myself. A place where I didn’t have to be brave or loud, but I could still exist fully. That small notebook became my voice—long before I learned how to use it outside the pages.

If you had asked anyone back then what kind of girl I was, they’d probably say I was just the quiet one. The soft one. The girl who always sat in the second row. They wouldn’t know that behind that quietness was a storm waiting to form.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s where all stories begin not when something big happens, but when something small refuses to be forgotten.

to be continued…