Chapter 7: The Girl Who Got Quieter
960 Words
My first day of school in the United Kingdom didn’t start with excitement.
It started with silence.
Not the peaceful kind. The kind that sits heavy in your chest, making every step feel louder than it should.
A lady at reception handed me a paper with my name on it and pointed me down a corridor.
“Your form room is just there, love.”
Just there.
Like it was that simple.
I nodded, clutching the paper like it could somehow guide me better than I could guide myself. My footsteps echoed against the polished floors as I walked past classrooms filled with people who already seemed… settled. Like they belonged.
I didn’t.
Back in Nigeria, I was already in secondary school. I had my people, my rhythm, my place. But here, things worked differently. They put you in classes based on your age, not what you had already done.
So just like that, I had to start again.
New system.
New people.
New version of myself, whether I liked it or not.
When I finally reached my form room, I paused at the door for a second.
Then I walked in.
The chatter didn’t stop completely, but it changed.
You know that shift? When people are still talking, but now they’re also looking?
That.
Every eye felt like it landed on me at once.
I was the only Black girl in the room.
I didn’t need a mirror to know it. I could feel it in the way heads tilted slightly, in the way conversations dipped and picked back up again, quieter this time.
The teacher smiled when she saw me.
“You must be new. Come in, don’t be shy.”
Don’t be shy.
I gave a small nod and walked further into the room, aware of every movement I made. Where do you even sit when you know no one?
Clusters of friends filled the room, people laughing like they’d known each other forever.
Because they had.
They came from the same primary schools. Same neighbourhoods. Same memories.
I was the only new piece in a puzzle that was already complete.
“Alright,” the teacher said, glancing down at her register. “Let’s see… how do I say this…”
My heart dropped slightly.
Here we go.
She attempted my name.
It came out wrong.
Not completely wrong, just… off enough that it didn’t feel like mine anymore.
A few people snickered.
“Sorry,” she laughed lightly, “you’ll have to help me with that.”
I corrected her quietly, my voice barely above a whisper.
She repeated it, a little better this time, then moved on like it was nothing.
But it didn’t feel like nothing.
It never did.
For the rest of form time, I sat there in silence, hands folded neatly on the desk like I was trying to take up less space.
People talked around me, over me, through me, conversations about teachers, inside jokes, things that happened in primary school.
Things I wasn’t part of.
Things I would never fully understand.
When the bell rang, everyone moved quickly, slipping back into their groups like magnets pulling together.
I followed where I was told.
Lesson to lesson. Corridor to corridor.
A quiet shadow in a loud world.
Lunchtime was the hardest.
I stood there for a moment, tray in hand, scanning the room like maybe, just maybe I’d recognise a face.
I didn’t.
Every table was already full of laughter, conversations flowing easily.
No awkward pauses.
No overthinking.
Just… belonging.
I picked a seat at the edge of a table where no one noticed me.
Pulled out my phone.
Pretended to scroll.
Anything to avoid looking like the girl who had no one to sit with.
From the corner of my eye, I watched groups of girls leaning into each other, laughing over something small.
For a second, it blurred.
And just like that, I wasn’t there anymore.
I was back in Nigeria.
Sitting with Mide, Ayo, Chioma.
Braiding hair during break, arguing over nothing, laughing so hard our stomachs hurt. Someone always had gist. Someone always had something to say.
We were never quiet.
Never alone.
“Are you gonna eat that?”
The voice snapped me back.
I looked up quickly.
A girl nodded towards my untouched food.
“Oh. yeah,” I said, forcing a small smile.
But my appetite had already disappeared.
Just like that moment.
By the time school ended, I was exhausted.
Not from lessons.
From thinking.
From watching.
From trying to understand how to exist in a place that didn’t feel like it had space for me.
On the walk home, I kept replaying everything in my head.
The stares.
The laughter.
The way my name sounded wrong in someone else’s mouth.
And slowly, without even realising it, something in me shifted.
The next day, I spoke a little less.
The day after that, even less.
I started thinking before every sentence.
Adjusting how I said words.
Listening more than talking.
Blending in where I could.
Because maybe…
Maybe this was how you survived here.
Not by standing out.
But by becoming smaller.
Quieter.
Easier to ignore.
That night, lying in bed, I stared at the ceiling again.
Different country.
Same ceiling conversations.
I had imagined the United Kingdom as this place where everything would fall into place.
Where I’d finally become the version of myself I had dreamed about.
But no one tells you that sometimes…
Becoming someone new starts with losing parts of who you were.
And as I lay there in the quiet, one thought settled heavily in my chest:
Maybe the girl I was in Lagos wouldn’t recognise me anymore.
And maybe…
I was starting not to recognise her either.
- Writer
