WHAT WE NEVER SAID

CHAPTER ONE: THE DAY HE ARRIVED The first time I saw Noah, the sun was melting into gold behind the school gates, and the air smelled of rain and chalk dust. He stood there, tall and calm, the new corps member everyone had been talking about. He didn’t smile much, but his eyes carried a quiet kindness, the sort that makes you feel seen even when you’re trying to disappear. I was sitting by the window of my classroom, pretending to copy notes, when his gaze brushed past me like a breeze. For a heartbeat, the world slowed down. They said his name was Noah Akan, sent from Luniba to teach English for a year. He looked too polished for our small town, light-skinned, soft-spoken, the kind of person who seemed to belong somewhere larger than Aremu. But still, he stayed. --- He taught differently from everyone else. His lessons weren’t just about grammar and essays; he spoke about meaning, how words could heal, how stories could change you if you let them. I didn’t know if he realized it, but every time he spoke, I listened like my life depended on it. One afternoon, I lingered after class, helping him carry books to the staffroom. He thanked me, his tone gentle. “You remind me of myself when I was your age,” he said, arranging papers. “Quiet, always watching.” I smiled faintly, Maybe I just like silence. “Silence isn’t emptiness, Ayden,” he said softly. “It’s full of the things we never say.” Those words stayed with me. Even that night, long after the town fell asleep, I could still hear his voice. --- Sometimes, when the corridors were empty, our eyes would meet not for long, just enough to stir something inside me that I didn’t understand. It wasn’t just admiration. It was warmth, curiosity, and a strange kind of longing that frightened me. I wrote in my diary that night: > There are people who enter your life quietly, yet leave echoes that never fade, Noah was already becoming one of them.