My story
661 Words
By the time I reached the bathroom at the end of the hall, my breaths were shallow and my hands were trembling so hard I could barely twist the doorknob. I shut the door behind me, pressing my back against it like it could keep the whole world out, like it could keep him out of his scent, his voice, his presence that still clung to me even now.I looked down at my phone and saw the call screen. It had already ended cut off before I could even swipe to answer. A wave of frustration and helplessness rose up in my throat. I didn’t even know who was calling. I just needed something, anything, to ground me. But it was too late. The silence in the bathroom was deafening, and the tears pricked at the corners of my eyes before I could blink them away. I stood there, shaking, heart racing, wondering what the hell I had just run away from and why a part of me already wanted to run back.
So… how did I end up here?
Hiding in a bathroom with shaking hands and a pounding heart? It didn’t start with chaos. It started quietly, like a spark in a glance, a moment that felt too perfect to be real. I believed in that look, that smile, thinking it meant safety. I didn’t know then that it could be dangerous. I was just a girl who believed in magic, and he was the boy who made it feel real.
So, my story began like this.
It was a quiet Friday evening, the kind where the sky blushes gold and everything feels just a little softer. I was seated in the stillness of church, surrounded by the hush of hymns and whispered prayers, when something call it instinct or divine timing nudged me to check the admission portal on my phone,And there it was.A single line that changed everything: You have been offered admission to study communication and media studies .For a moment, the world blurred. My breath caught, and a smile spread slowly across my face, so wide and full it made my heart ache. I blinked twice, just to be sure I wasn’t imagining it. But no it was real. I made it. My name had found a place in the story I had dreamed of for so long.
Before that night, I had nearly let go of the hope I clung to like a lifeline. I had cried quiet tears behind closed doors, praying for a miracle, for a sign, for something.Ashbourne private university had always felt just slightly out of reach,like a star I couldn’t quite touch, no matter how high I reached. But that evening, in the dim glow of stained glass and sacred stillness, my dream finally whispered back yes. And I had no idea that this small, beautiful beginning… would lead me to him.
After acing my secondary school exams with results I was genuinely proud of, I believed with the kind of quiet certainty only youth can hold that university admission would follow naturally. Anything less felt like it would undo all the years of effort, sacrifice, and hope that had been poured into me. My parents gave everything to make sure I had the best. A reputable school, every resource I could possibly need, a thousand quiet gestures that said," We believe in you. So yes, there was pressure unspoken but ever-present. I didn’t want to disappoint them. Especially not my mother.
Ah, my mother.
She was the kind of woman who turned heads without trying. Graceful, elegant, and effortlessly put-together, with the warm strength of a South African queen. In her early fifties, she still carried herself with the kind of poise that made people stop and listen when she spoke. She had always been my rock the calm in every storm, the one whose eyes lit up when I succeeded, and whose arms opened when I failed.
- Writer
