The woman I became

Growing up in the heart of Lagos, I always knew I was different. Not the kind of different you celebrate—no. The kind people whisper about in hushed tones, the kind that earns you strange looks from aunties and judgment from elders. I was Linda, the tomboy who never liked dresses, who climbed trees instead of cooking, who found comfort in sneakers and baggy jeans instead of gele and makeup. From as early as age ten, I’d begun to feel the weight of expectations. My mother would scold me endlessly for sitting like a boy or refusing to wear skirts. "Linda, what will people say?" she’d hiss, tightening my braids while I squirmed in discomfort. But I didn’t care then. I was happy being me—until the world began to demand a version of me that didn’t exist. By the time I turned sixteen, it became harder to hide. I’d fallen for a girl. Her name was Sarah. Her laugh made me weak, and her eyes held stories I wanted to spend forever listening to. We were just classmates, but to me, she was everything. We shared secret notes and longer-than-necessary hugs. She knew what I was, and she never judged me. But Lagos is not kind to girls like me. One evening, my cousin found one of our notes. He didn’t ask questions; he simply handed it to my father. That night was the first time I tasted true fear. My father called me into the parlor, his eyes bloodshot with fury. “Is this what you’ve become? An abomination?” I couldn’t speak. I just stood there, trembling. He tore into me with words that pierced deeper than knives. My mother cried in the corner, not out of sympathy, but out of shame. “You want to disgrace us?” she kept saying, over and over like a broken record. They took my phone. I was barred from school for two weeks. And Sarah? She disappeared. I later heard her family send her to Abuja. From that moment, I learned to hide. I tried, I really did. I forced myself to talk to boys, to smile when aunties brought up marriage. But it felt like I was burying myself alive every day. I couldn’t breathe under the expectations, the traditions, the shame. And then came *Tunde*. He was tall, quiet, and polite—the kind of guy mothers prayed for. Our families knew each other, and when I turned twenty-three, my parents announced the engagement like it was some national achievement. I begged. I pleaded. I cried. “Linda, we’ve had enough,” my father said. “You're going to be a wife. That’s final.” And just like that, my fate was sealed.