In Between Leaving and Becoming

The Boy Who Doesn’t Talk About it

Kabelo didn’t like questions that started with “Why don’t you…?”

Why don’t you talk more?

Why don’t you hang out with people?

Why don’t you smile more?

He had learned long ago that people only asked those questions when they already expected a simple answer.

And he didn’t have simple answers.

⸻

At St. Catherine’s Rewrite Academy, Kabelo was the kind of person people noticed without understanding.

Quiet.

Polite.

Always present, but never fully reachable.

Teachers liked him because he never caused problems. Students respected him because he never tried too hard to be seen.

But no one really knew him.

Not even close.

⸻

Naledi started noticing the pattern.

He arrived early—but never rushed in.

He left late—but never stayed with groups.

He sat where he could see everyone—but never felt like part of them.

It wasn’t loneliness in the obvious way.

It was chosen distance.

Or something like it.

⸻

That afternoon, Naledi found him behind the school again.

Same place. Same silence.

Except today, he wasn’t alone in the way he usually was.

He looked… tired.

Not physically.

Something deeper.

“Hey,” Naledi said softly.

Kabelo glanced up. “Hey.”

She hesitated before sitting down beside him.

“You’ve been quiet today,” she said.

A small pause.

Then—

“I’m always quiet,” he replied.

Naledi tilted her head slightly. “Not like this.”

That made him look at her properly.

For a moment, he didn’t answer.

Then he said, “Some days are just heavier.”

Naledi didn’t push.

She understood that kind of heaviness.

Too well.

⸻

A breeze moved through the space between them.

For a while, neither spoke.

Then Kabelo finally said, almost quietly—

“I used to live somewhere else.”

Naledi turned slightly. “Yeah?”

He nodded.

“Not like here.”

That wasn’t much.

But it was enough to feel like a beginning.

⸻

He leaned back slightly against the wall.

“My mom passed when I was younger,” he said.

Naledi stayed still.

Not because she didn’t know what to say—

but because she knew some stories didn’t need interruption.

Kabelo continued.

“My dad… he changed after that. Not in a good way.”

A pause.

Naledi’s chest tightened slightly, but she didn’t speak.

“He worked a lot. When he was home, he wasn’t really there.”

Kabelo’s voice stayed steady, like he had practiced not breaking while saying it.

“I learned early that silence keeps you out of trouble.”

⸻

Naledi looked at him differently now.

Not as the quiet boy in class.

But as someone who had built himself out of silence.

⸻

“I didn’t always transfer schools,” he added after a while. “I used to be somewhere else. Things happened… I just ended up here.”

Naledi nodded slowly.

“That’s why you don’t talk much?” she asked softly.

Kabelo gave a small, almost invisible shrug.

“Talking doesn’t change anything,” he said.

Then, after a pause—

“It just makes people expect things from you.”

⸻

That hit something inside Naledi.

Because she understood expectations.

The kind that crush you slowly.

The kind you can’t escape.

⸻

“You don’t believe that,” she said quietly.

Kabelo glanced at her.

“I believe what I’ve experienced.”

Naledi frowned slightly. “But that doesn’t mean it’s all there is.”

For the first time, something flickered in his expression.

Not disagreement.

Just… curiosity.

⸻

“You always talk like there’s something better waiting,” he said.

Naledi looked down at her hands.

“I don’t feel like that,” she admitted. “Not most days.”

A pause.

Then softer—

“I just… don’t want to believe this is all there is.”

⸻

Silence again.

But different this time.

Less empty.

More careful.

⸻

Kabelo studied her for a moment.

“You’re strong, you know that?” he said quietly.

Naledi let out a small, tired laugh. “No, I’m just tired.”

“That too,” he replied.

Then, after a beat—

“But you’re still here.”

⸻

Something in Naledi’s chest tightened.

Because he said it like it mattered.

Like staying was not nothing.

⸻

For a moment, she almost told him everything.

Home.

The weight.

The nights she barely survived emotionally.

The thoughts she pushed away when no one was looking.

But she didn’t.

Not yet.

Instead she asked—

“What happened after your dad changed?”

Kabelo exhaled slowly.

“I learned how to take care of myself,” he said.

A pause.

“Mostly by not needing anyone.”

⸻

Naledi felt that sentence more than she expected.

Because it wasn’t sad in the way people assume.

It was survival.

⸻

They sat in silence again.

But this time, it wasn’t distance.

It was understanding forming slowly.

⸻

Later that day, as they walked back toward the school gate, Kabelo spoke again.

“I don’t really get involved with people,” he said.

Naledi glanced at him. “I noticed.”

A faint, almost reluctant smile appeared on his face.

“But you’re different,” he added.

Naledi blinked. “How?”

He shrugged slightly.

“You don’t feel fake.”

That one landed quietly.

Deeply.

⸻

Naledi didn’t know what to say.

So she didn’t say anything.

⸻

That night, back home, things were the same.

Too loud. Too messy. Too heavy.

But Naledi didn’t collapse into it the same way she used to.

She moved through it.

Not unaffected.

But no longer completely consumed.

⸻

Later, lying in bed, she stared at the ceiling again.

The familiar thoughts tried to return.

The heaviness. The tiredness. The question of what’s the point?

But something interrupted it this time.

Kabelo’s voice.

“But you’re still here.”

⸻

Naledi closed her eyes.

“I am still here,” she whispered.

Not as a question.

Not as a struggle.

Just a fact.

⸻

And somewhere between silence, survival, and something quietly growing—

she started to understand that she wasn’t the only one learning how to stay alive in different ways.