Bleeding inside

CHAPTER FIVE: THE BREAKING POINT

The walk home felt longer than usual.

Wali kept her head down, gripping her school bag so tightly that her knuckles turned white. The murmurs behind her—their smug satisfaction, their whispered amusement—rang louder than any shout could. She could feel the weight of dozens of eyes pressing against her back like heat on bare skin.

She didn't cry.

Not in front of them.

At the compound gate, she paused. The ache in her chest spread, wrapping around her ribs like vines. She knew what was waiting inside: the triumphant glee in Hajjo’s eyes, the veiled mockery in Hajiya Hassanna’s compliments, and the suffocating silence from Hajiya Hussyina. They had all won. Somehow, they had turned her own goodness into a weapon against her.

She stepped through the gate, spine straight, but each step felt heavier than the last.

The compound was unusually quiet, but the air crackled with unspoken tension. A curtain fluttered as someone inside let it fall, hiding their watchful eyes. From a window, Hajjo observed her with a grin curling her lips before she turned away.

Wali went straight to her room. She sat on the edge of her bed, then lay back, staring at the ceiling. The sting of rejection was sharp, but what hurt most wasn’t the loss of the scholarship—it was the betrayal. Her kindness had been twisted, her motives questioned, her character smeared. And she’d done nothing to deserve it.

A knock came at the door.

She expected Hajjo or one of the aunties, ready to salt the wound. But it was Aunty Farida, one of the older women in the compound, known more for her quiet wisdom than meddling.

“Wali,” she said gently, “Can I come in?”

Wali nodded, surprised.

Aunty Farida entered and sat beside her. She said nothing for a moment, just placed a hand on Wali’s arm. Her touch was warm, grounding.

“I heard what happened,” she said finally. “You don’t have to explain. But I want you to know—not everyone believes the stories being spread. Some of us still see you clearly.”

Wali’s eyes brimmed with tears, but she blinked them away. “I don’t know what I did wrong,” she whispered.

“You did nothing wrong,” Aunty Farida replied firmly. “And that frightens them. People like your aunties thrive on control. They mistake your strength for arrogance. They see your light and want to dim it.”

Wali sat up slowly. “So what do I do now?”

Aunty Farida’s eyes softened. “You survive. You keep doing what is right, even when no one is watching. Trust me—opportunities will come. Ones they can’t take away.”

---

The next morning, Wali walked through the school gates with quieter confidence. Not defiant—but steady.

She didn’t argue when people whispered. She didn’t fight to defend her name. But she didn’t shrink either.

She found solace in books, in routines, in the small acts of goodness she still had control over. She offered to help the librarian sort through donated books, started staying after school to tutor the younger students who struggled in math. Soon, some of the same classmates who once whispered behind her back began to ask for her help.

She organized a small reading group for junior students. At first, it was just three girls sitting under the neem tree behind the science lab. By the second week, there were twelve. She brought them biscuits from home, read to them from books she’d loved as a child. They listened wide-eyed, hanging on her every word.

One afternoon, as the group ended, a shy JSS1 girl tugged at Wali’s sleeve.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “I want to be like you one day.”

Wali’s heart clenched, but this time, it was from something warm. Something good.

Yet even as she rebuilt herself piece by piece, Hajjo watched from a distance, her irritation deepening.

She had expected Wali to break. To withdraw. To disappear beneath the weight of shame. But instead, she was rising again—and worse, she was doing it with grace.

One evening, as the sky turned from gold to dusk, Hajjo burst into Hajiya Hassanna’s room.

“She’s still acting like she’s the perfect one,” she said bitterly. “Everyone’s starting to like her again.”

Hajiya Hassanna looked up from her mirror. “Then it’s time you reminded them why they shouldn’t.”

That night, Hajjo sat at her desk with a sheet of paper and a pen.

She chewed on the end of the pen for a while, then began to write. The letter was cruel and deliberate. It accused Wali of falsifying grades, manipulating teachers, and taking advantage of her prefect position. It framed her as a wolf in sheep’s clothing—a conniving girl who knew how to wear masks.

She wrote it anonymously, then carefully folded it and slid it into an envelope.

The next morning, before classes began, she dropped it into the school’s suggestion box—an old wooden box near the principal’s office used for feedback and complaints.

She dusted her hands off and walked away without a backward glance.

Let her try to survive this.