The weight of silence

The hostel at night had its own kind of noise. Pipes groaning somewhere on the floor above, someone's phone speaker playing worship music too low to make out the words, footsteps in the corridor that never seemed to belong to anyone in particular. Tolu had gotten used to it all by her final year. What she hadn't gotten used to was the way the light could vanish without warning, swallowing the whole room in one breath. It was 11:30 p.m. when it happened again. The bulb flickered once, then gave up entirely, plunging the room into a sudden, thick silence. "Susan, I knew this was going to happen. They'll never let me read in peace." "Tolu, as if they're after your progress, always ceasing the light at your reading hour. Thank God I read during the day." "It's not NEPA. Aunty Bisi had the generator on earlier. I guess it's the fuel." Tolu's phone shone a little brightly from her corner as she fumbled with the switch on the small rechargeable lamp they kept for nights exactly like this one. It took her a few seconds, the switch always stuck, before the room finally brightened, soft and yellow, enough for Susan to see her textbook again. Susan quickly exclaimed, "Thank you! You're a lifesaver." "You're not welcome," Tolu replied, settling back onto her bed with a small laugh. It was moments like this, small and unremarkable and easily forgotten by anyone else, that Tolu had come to treasure most about their friendship. Not the big things. The lamp. The late-night blackouts. The way Susan always said thank you like she meant it, every single time, even for the smallest favors. It all started one fateful morning when Susan almost brought down the whole hostel with her scream after seeing a cockroach. Tolu, with her mind racing, rushed out to see who was being harassed, only to find a fair-skinned lady standing in the bathroom, dripping wet, with a sponge covered in foam in her hand. "What's the matter with you?" Tolu asked. Susan pointed toward a huge cockroach, frozen in horror as if the insect might charge at her. Tolu stared at it in disbelief. Susan was already expecting her to burst into mocking laughter, the kind most people gave when someone screamed over something so small. But instead, Tolu grabbed the broom from the corridor and killed the cockroach without a second thought, like it was the most ordinary task in the world. "You can now go and continue your bath," Tolu said. "Thank you for rescuing me," Susan replied, still catching her breath. "Anytime." Tolu smiled. "By the way, I'm Tolu. Room 404." "Oh! I stay in Room 404 too." Neither of them could have known, in that ordinary, foam-covered moment, that it would be the start of something that would define both of their university years. And that was how, from killing cockroaches to becoming the best of buddies, the two girls became inseparable. On campus, people no longer called Susan separately. It was always, "Tolu and Susan." "This upcoming exam gets me worried," Susan said, pulling her knees up to her chest. "You've never scored below an A. And don't tell me the little power outage is what's bringing this sudden worry." "Your As are permanent. My brain just worries more about people like me." That got Susan laughing out loud. She playfully hit Tolu with her leg. "You funny, ambitious child. Don't make me laugh." "Ehhhn… did you hear about the scholarship rumor? From Mr. Bello, the HOD?" "What scholarship?" Tolu asked, not even looking up from her phone. "Are you kidding me?" "You weren't in class when Mr. Bello made the announcement?" "You know I don't pay attention to anything that isn't food or money," Tolu said, still pressing her phone. "I don't know how you managed to be this ambitious, kind, and intelligent with this your 'I-don't-care' attitude most times," Susan said, shaking her head. "This is a life-changing opportunity. Better take it seriously." Tolu finally set her phone down, stretching. "I'm going to bed. Goodnight, buddy." "Yeah! Go to bed. We're going to school really early tomorrow." Susan sighed, flipping off her own lamp. "And as for me, I don't know if insomnia will be the end of me. Sleeping has become my biggest enemy." The room fell quiet again, the kind of quiet that only exists between two people who don't need to fill every silence with words. Outside, the hostel noises carried on, footsteps, a distant generator sputtering back to life somewhere down the corridor. But in Room 404, for now, everything was still. Neither of them knew yet how much that word, scholarship, would come to matter. Or how much it would eventually cost.