The first day of secondary school carried a strange excitement. The buildings were taller, the uniforms newer, the voices louder. I wasn't afraid, not at first, because I still had my two best friends with me — Jumahi and Khadijah. We had been inseparable since childhood, three shadows moving together. We ate together, studied together, laughed together. It was us against the world.
I remember whispering to them on that first day, promising:
"No matter what happens, we'll always be together."
They nodded, smiling, and for a while, I believed it.
But life does not always keep promises.
At first, it was small changes. Jumahi started missing classes because her parents were making plans to move. Khadijah sometimes came late, already distracted by responsibilities at home. I tried not to notice, tried to hold tighter to the bond we shared. But one by one, things began to slip away.
The day Jumahi left was quiet, almost too quiet. She came to school with her books packed neatly in her bag, her eyes shining with something she tried to hide. She didn't want to tell me at first, but when the last bell rang, she whispered:
"We're moving. My father says it's better for me… I can't stay here anymore."
I stood frozen, the weight of her words sinking like stones in my chest. I wanted to beg her not to go, to tell her we had a promise. But the words got stuck in my throat. Instead, I hugged her tightly, pretending I was strong. When she walked away for the last time, it felt like someone had stolen half of me.
Khadijah didn't stay long after that. Her family made a similar decision — another school, another path. She didn't even get to say a proper goodbye. One day she was there, sitting beside me, helping me solve a math problem. The next, her seat was empty. I kept looking at it for days, expecting her to walk back in with her cheerful smile. But she never did.
And so, I was left alone.
The emptiness was unbearable. At break-time, I stood at the edge of the schoolyard, watching other groups of friends laugh and play. I clutched my lunchbox, the food tasting like nothing without the jokes we used to share. When I tried to join others, they looked at me strangely. Some mocked me: "Why are you always alone? Fool. Weird. Disgusting." Their words were sharp, like knives pressed into my skin. I carried them home, silent tears falling into my pillow.
But something inside me refused to break completely. If I couldn't have friends to walk beside me, then I would walk with my books. If no one would call my name with love, then I would make sure the world remembered my name for something else: excellence.
So I turned my loneliness into fuel.
My nights became sleepless nights, the lamp on my desk burning long after everyone else had gone to bed. I studied one semester ahead, racing against time, as though Jumahi and Khadijah might suddenly come back and I needed to prove I had become someone worth returning to. The stress wore me down. Sometimes my nose bled from exhaustion, sometimes migraines forced me to press my head against the cold wall just to breathe. But I didn't stop. I couldn't.
Then came COVID-19.
When schools shut down, the silence was almost worse than loneliness. No classrooms, no blackboards, no teachers' voices. Just me, the walls, and my books. At first, I thought it would be a short holiday. But soon the weeks dragged on, empty and endless. Online classes were broken and distant, the voices crackling through weak connections. I missed the sound of chalk scratching on the board, the murmurs of students reciting, even the strict punishments of teachers.
Yet, I didn't give up. Instead, I doubled my effort. While the world slowed down, I sped up. I filled notebooks with notes no teacher would see, solved problems no one asked me to solve, memorized chapters no one else bothered to open. It was lonely, almost unbearable at times — but it was the only way forward.
When school finally reopened, I returned stronger, sharper, and harder. I had trained myself in the silence. The whispers of "fool" and "weird" no longer cut me. I had already decided who I would become.