A few days later, I gathered the courage to tell my best friend, sofia, about the conversation.
Unlike me, she didn’t hesitate for even a second. She looked at me seriously and said, “No decent boy asks a girl something like that. It isn’t normal, it isn’t okay.”
Her words struck through me harder than his question ever did. For the first time, I began questioning everything. The friendship that had once made me smile.
I spent days thinking about it. Thinking…. thinking…. overthinking. Questioning every conversation we had ever shared. Yet, despite everything, I continued talking to him.
I wasn’t foolish, okay maybe I was. I was just a girl trying to understand a world that seemed far more complicated that I had imagined.
Then something unexpected happened. A boy from my neighbourhood. Someone who had always been a brother to me. He is a brother to me. Rayaan. He and Zorain got into very serious fight.
After it ended, Rayaan told me, “Just remember my words. You are very innocent. If you ever get trapped because of him, don’t say no one warned you. The boys here aren’t as innocent as you think. You’re too kind, too trusting. If one day your name becomes the talk of the school because of him, don’t say I didn’t try to protect you.”
His words filled me with fear. I was terrified. I kept imagining worst.
What if people start talking about me?
What if my parents found out?
At that time, that question felt bigger than the word itself. Without explaining anything, I blocked him.
School felt different. We would cross path in corridors. See each other in classroom, steal awkward glances, and immediately looked away. It hurts. More than I wanted to admit.
“Silence can protect you from people, but it can also become the loudest pain, you’ve ever carried.
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