My First Time

Still Awake

I stared at her message for a long time.

“Are you still awake?”

Three simple words, but they made my chest feel tight. My unsent message was still sitting in the chat box — the one where I had almost told her how much I liked her. I deleted it quickly, heart beating too fast, and typed something safer.

“Yeah. Can’t sleep.”

Her reply came almost immediately.

“Me neither. Talk to me?”

I sat up in bed, leaning against the wall. The room was quiet except for the low hum of the fan. Outside, a dog barked once and then went silent. I could feel the usual nervousness rising, but tonight it felt softer somehow. Less like panic. More like the feeling you get just before you jump into water you already know is cold.

“Okay,” I typed. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Anything. Tell me something you don’t usually tell people.”

I thought for a moment. Most of the things I didn’t tell people were the same things I was already slowly telling her — the insecurity, the overthinking, the way I sometimes felt invisible even in a crowded classroom. Still, I searched for something smaller. Something true, but not too heavy.

“I used to practice conversations in the mirror when I was younger,” I wrote. “Like, full conversations. Pretending someone was actually interested in talking to me.”

There was a short pause. Then she sent a voice note. I played it carefully, volume low so Kemi wouldn’t hear.

Her voice was soft and a little amused. “That’s actually cute. Did it help?”

I smiled in the dark. “Not really. Real conversations still scare me.”

“You’re doing fine with me.”

Those words again. They settled somewhere deep. I replayed the note once more before I answered.

We kept talking. The conversation drifted from silly childhood habits to the things that kept us awake at night. She told me she sometimes worried about disappointing her parents, about choosing the wrong course later, about being seen as only the pretty girl and nothing else. I told her I sometimes worried that people only tolerated me. That if I talked too much, they would realise I wasn’t as interesting as I hoped. Neither of us tried to fix the other’s fears. We just listened.

At some point the texts turned into another voice note exchange. Hearing her speak in the quiet of my room made everything feel closer. I could hear the slight smile in her voice when she teased me, and the softer tone when she got serious. There was a small rustle in the background of one note, like she was shifting under her blanket.

“Josh,” she said in one of the notes, “you know you don’t have to be perfect around me, right?”

I didn’t know how to answer that immediately. Perfection had never been my goal. Survival had. Staying invisible had. Not giving people reasons to laugh had. The idea that someone might actually want the messy, sweaty, overthinking version of me still felt strange. Almost suspicious.

“I’m trying to believe that,” I finally replied.

“Good. Keep trying.”

We talked until the sky outside my window started changing colour. I didn’t notice how late it had become until I heard the first call to prayer from a nearby mosque. My eyes were heavy, but I didn’t want the conversation to end. Every time I thought we were about to say goodnight, one of us sent another message.

“You should sleep,” she said eventually.

“You first.”

“Bossy.”

“You started it.”

She sent a laughing emoji and then, a moment later, “Goodnight, Josh.”

“Goodnight, Yoma.”

I put the phone down on my chest and stared at the ceiling. Sleep didn’t come quickly. My mind kept replaying her voice, the way she said my name, the quiet permission she kept giving me to just be myself. For the first time in a long time, the usual heavy feeling in my chest felt lighter. Not gone. Just lighter.

The next day at school passed in a strange mix of tiredness and quiet excitement. I saw her twice in the corridors. Both times she smiled. Both times I managed to smile back without looking away too fast. Chioma caught one of the exchanges and gave me a small, almost approving nod. David noticed too and muttered something under his breath that I chose to ignore.

During break Tunde took one look at me and shook his head.

“You look like you slept for three minutes.”

“Something like that.”

“Worth it?”

I thought about the voice notes, the quiet honesty, the way the conversation had stretched into the early morning. I thought about the way she said I didn’t have to be perfect.

“Yeah,” I said. “Worth it.”

He studied my face for a second, then smirked. “You’re gone, bro. Completely gone.”

I didn’t argue.

After school we didn’t meet at the wall. Yoma had a group project and needed to stay behind. She texted me while I was walking home.

“Missed our wall today.”

I smiled at the screen even though I was standing in the middle of a noisy junction.

“There’s always tomorrow.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

That evening the house felt unusually quiet. Kemi was at a friend’s place. My mother was in her room. I sat at the dining table with my books open, pretending to study while my mind stayed on Yoma. Every so often I checked my phone, even when there was no notification. The silence of the house made the waiting feel louder.

Around nine she sent a picture of her study table again, this time with a half-eaten plate of food beside the notes.

“Dinner of champions,” she captioned it.

I sent back a photo of my own half-hearted attempt at studying.

“Same here.”

The conversation that followed was lighter than the night before, but still warm. We complained about teachers, shared random memes, and argued playfully about which subject was worse. She said Biology practicals were designed to humble people. I said Mathematics existed only to expose weakness. She sent a voice note laughing at that.

At some point she asked if I was still nervous around her.

“Yes,” I admitted. “But it’s a different kind of nervous now.”

“What kind?”

I stared at the screen for a while before answering. The honest answer felt bigger than I was ready for, but I sent it anyway.

“The kind that makes me want to stay instead of run.”

There was a longer pause this time. I watched the screen, wondering if I had said too much. My thumb hovered near the delete button even though the message had already been sent. Then her reply appeared.

“I’m glad.”

Two words. That was all. But they were enough to make my ears feel warm.

We said goodnight earlier than the previous night. I lay in bed afterwards with the phone still in my hand, scrolling slowly through our chat history. The messages from the first day felt like they belonged to a different version of me — the version that had been terrified just to reply. Now the fear was still there, but it no longer controlled every decision.

I was starting to believe that maybe, just maybe, I wouldn’t ruin this.

My eyes were closing when a new message lit up the screen.

It was from Yoma.

“Josh… can I tell you something tomorrow? In person?”

I sat up immediately, sleep forgotten.

The room suddenly felt too quiet. My mind started running through every possible meaning. Was it good? Was it bad? Had I said something wrong last night? Did Chioma say something? Did she change her mind about whatever this was becoming?

I typed “Yeah. Of course.” Then I stared at it, deleted it, and typed it again.

I hit send.

The ticks turned blue.

She didn’t reply after that.

I sat in the dark with the phone in my hand, heart beating too fast, already knowing that whatever she wanted to say tomorrow would change something between us.

I just didn’t know yet whether it would be the kind of change I had been hoping for, or the kind I had been quietly afraid of all along.