Classes went by easier than I expected.
Not because I loved school or anything…
just because I learned how to exist in it without trying too hard.
People came and went.
Some faces stayed long enough to feel familiar,
others disappeared before I could even decide how I felt about them.
But most of us…
we stayed.
Long enough to watch each other grow into different versions of ourselves.
There was this girl—
I'll call her Adaeze.
She joined later on.
We weren't exactly best friends, but we were… something.
Close enough to talk.
Close enough to joke.
And then there was a boy—
let me call him Ethan.
I don't even remember what came over me that day.
Maybe I was bored.
Maybe I just wanted to stir something small and harmless.
I took a piece of paper and wrote
ALE.
When I showed Ethan, he figured it out almost immediately.
Adaeze Loves Ethan.
He laughed.
His friend laughed too.
And for a second, it felt like exactly what I intended—
just a silly joke.
So I showed her.
I expected laughter.
But that's not what I got.
Her face changed.
Not shocked.
Not amused.
Just… angry.
I didn't even get the chance to explain before she threatened to report me.
And she did.
I remember sitting there, more annoyed than anything else.
Because in my head, it wasn't that serious.
It was never meant to be.
But to her, it clearly was.
And just like that… whatever "friendship" we had ended.
I didn't try to fix it.
I didn't even want to.
Something about it irritated me too much.
She left the school not long after.
And honestly…
I didn't care.
I stayed friends with Ethan and his circle though.
That part didn't change.
Then there was another girl—
I'll call her Zara.
She was… difficult.
The kind of person who always had something to say.
About how I ate.
How I sat.
How I existed.
It wasn't loud bullying.
Just small, constant irritation.
The kind that builds up slowly until you realize you genuinely don't like someone.
And I didn't like her.
Not even a little.
She left too, eventually.
Funny how the people who made the most noise never really stayed.
But not everyone was like that.
There were good people too.
I'll call them Lily, Grace, and Selena.
They were… easy.
Not in a boring way.
Just in a way that didn't make me feel like I had to defend myself all the time.
Selena especially.
I didn't know it yet, but she would become something more later.
Not immediately.
Not then.
But eventually…
she would matter.
Looking back now, that phase of my life felt like practice.
Learning people.
Learning reactions.
Learning when to step forward… and when to pull back.
And through all of it—
I still kept most of myself… in my head.
Where things made more sense.
Where people reacted the way I expected them to.
Where nothing felt… out of place.
Maybe that's why I kept going back there.
Even when I didn't realize I was.
Because real life…
didn't always follow the script I had written for it.
Senior secondary school felt like a reset.
New people.
New energy.
New versions of everyone… including me.
That was when she came.
I'll call her Selene.
And she didn't arrive quietly.
Not in the loud, attention-seeking way…
but in a way that made you notice her without understanding why.
Along with her came others—
Dara, Farah, Amara…
and somewhere in between all of that, I found myself surrounded by more people than I was used to.
I met Talia, Mira, Priya, Ava… and a few others who blended into the rhythm of school life.
And then there were the boys.
There were always boys.
At first, we were all together.
One class. One space. One routine.
But by the time we reached our second year, everything split.
Science.
Arts.
Commercial.
(and all the little differences that came with them.)
I ended up in Science.
Eight girls.
Twelve boys.
Including me.
Selene went to Arts.
Dara to Commercial.
And since Arts and Commercial stayed close…
they stayed close too.
Meanwhile, I stayed where I was.
It's funny how separation works.
You don't always realize what someone means to you…
until they're no longer within reach.
There were other girls too.
Farah grew close to me in her own way.
Amara lived right next door to me, which made everything feel more familiar than it should have.
They were both beautiful—
in different ways.
And they had their own stories.
Their own people.
Some of them were already in relationships.
Moving through things I watched from a distance but never stepped into myself.
I stayed out of it.
Not because I couldn't…
but because I didn't want to.
Talia stayed like me.
We didn't say it out loud, but we understood each other in that quiet way.
And then there was Mira.
The boys liked her.
Not in a subtle way.
She became the center of too many jokes, too many looks, too many conversations that didn't always feel kind.
I watched it happen the same way I watched everything else—
from a distance.
Not involved.
Just… aware.
But none of them held my attention the way Selene did.
From the first day she walked into class in SSS1…
something in me shifted.
I didn't understand it then.
I told myself I just wanted to be her friend.
That she was different.
That she felt… interesting.
But looking back now—
I think I wanted more than that.
I didn't like the way I felt when she talked to other people.
Especially other girls.
Or boys.
I didn't like when she laughed with someone else the way I thought she should laugh with me.
I didn't like when she didn't sit next to me.
And the worst part?
I couldn't explain why.
She got popular quickly.
The kind of popular that just… happens.
She always sat at the back.
Surrounded.
I could have sat there too.
I'm tall enough.
I would have fit right in.
But I didn't.
I chose the front.
Close to the teacher.
Where everything made sense.
Where things stayed structured.
And maybe that says a lot about me.
Because while a part of me wanted to be near her…
another part of me stayed exactly where it felt safest.
And somehow—
even with all that distance…
she still found a way to stay in my mind more than anyone else.