Her Mind, Her Power

Chapter 4 – The Weight of Becoming

Shalewa was the first person I truly allowed into my life without resistance, and sometimes I still wonder how it happened. She came into my world unexpectedly, almost like a gentle wind sneaking through a window I didn’t realize I had left open. Before her, my life had always been predictable—school, home, silence, and my own thoughts. I lived inside my head so much that I didn’t really know how to let someone stand beside me. But Shalewa somehow slipped past all my walls.

She told me she was from Ilorin, in the western part of the country. Her mother was Igbo and her father Yoruba—a combination that reflected itself beautifully in her accent and the way she carried herself. She talked with the brightness of the Yoruba people, but when she pronounced certain Igbo words, there was a softness that reminded me of home. She told me her mother had studied in Enugu, and that was why she wanted the same. Her parents were quite comfortable—wealthy even. Studying abroad wouldn’t have been a challenge. But she chose Enugu deliberately, wanting to walk through the same hallways her mother once walked through.

I never asked her all this. She just talked—constantly, freely, like a river eager to empty its stories into the ocean. She talked so much that I sometimes wondered if she breathed through her nose only so her mouth could keep working. But I didn’t mind. Her voice filled the empty space around me. She talked enough for both of us, and I listened enough for both of us.

Her parents lived in Lagos, where her mother owned a pharmaceutical company. So, naturally, Shalewa wanted to study something medical, to follow in her mother’s footsteps. She had just one sibling, a brother—Kayode—who was in the university as well. She told me about him with the kind of irritation only siblings could inspire. Sometimes she would show me pictures of him on her phone and then roll her eyes dramatically.

“Look at him,” she would say, “Fine boy, abi? That is how girls will be disturbing my brother up and down as if he is the only boy that exists in Lagos.”

I never asked, but she told me anyway.

Though she was slightly older than me, she respected me in a way that made me uncomfortable at first. She called me “April baby” sometimes, which I found very unnecessary, but she said it with so much affection that I didn’t bother correcting her. She was talkative, expressive, and dramatic—everything I was not. Somehow, it worked.

One afternoon, she confessed something that surprised me.

“April,” she said while eating plantain chips, “I want to lose weight.”

I stared at her for a moment, confused. She wasn’t exactly slim, but I never saw her size as a flaw.

“Why?” I asked.

She hesitated, looked down at the chips in her hand, then sighed. “Because… I just want to look better. People talk too much.”

I didn’t even think twice.

“Then don’t do it for people,” I said. “If you’re doing anything because of what people think, you’ll always suffer. Do it because you want it—not because you want to look like someone else.”

She froze, as if my words had slapped her gently across the face.

“You really think so?” she asked quietly.

“Yes. Do it for you. For your health. For your happiness. Not for anybody running their mouth.”

She didn’t respond immediately, but I watched the idea settle into her chest, slowly and powerfully. She thought about it for days. Then one morning, she marched into class with the type of determination that scared me a little.

“I’m going to the gym,” she declared.

And she did.

She started going three times a week—Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. And with each week, she changed a little. She began eating healthier, drinking more water, and complaining dramatically about every part of her body that hurt.

“Heeeeey God, April, my legs are paining me,” she would whine.

“You just started. Calm down.”

“I think I’m dying.”

“You’re not dying.”

“Check my pulse.”

“Shalewa, leave me alone.”

But she kept going. And soon enough, something incredible happened—she lost weight. Not too much, but enough to reshape her face, her waist, her confidence. She began to glow in a new way. Her clothes fit differently. People began to notice her. Boys, especially.

At first, I expected her to drift away. In campus, when someone suddenly becomes beautiful, new opportunities open up for them like flowers in the sun—friends, invitations, attention. And ordinarily, someone like Shalewa could have chosen that path easily.

But she didn’t.

She stayed beside me.

Even when other girls started calling her to hang out, she refused unless I was coming—which I usually wasn’t. Even when boys tried forming friendship that smelled like relationship ambition, she would smile and walk away. She always chose me.

“I don’t care about them,” she said one day. “People only like you when you suddenly fit their standard. But you? You liked me when I wasn’t anybody.”

I didn’t respond. Compliments made me uncomfortable. But I understood her.

School was going well too. Our grades were strong. Mine were always excellent, but Shalewa worked hard for hers. She wasn’t as brilliant as I was—but she wasn’t stupid either. She just needed a little push sometimes, and I ended up helping her study more often than I expected.

One evening while we read together in the library, she suddenly paused and looked at me.

“April, you know… I really like you.”

I frowned slightly. “Why are you saying it like that?”

“Because it’s true. You’re… different.”

I didn’t know what to say. Nobody had ever said that to me in a way that felt good.

Ever since she entered my life, I noticed something I had never felt before. A new emotion. I didn’t have a name for it. It wasn’t love. It wasn’t admiration. It wasn’t dependence. It was just… connection. A string tying two people together—not by force, not by obligation, but by choice.

I didn’t know who I could tell. I had never had a friend before. I didn’t know what friendship was supposed to feel like. But with Shalewa, I started to understand slowly.

However, campus wasn’t always peaceful.

Her sudden transformation caught attention—both good and bad. Some girls didn’t like it. Especially the ones who thrived on bullying weaker students. They watched her with sharp eyes, whispering behind her back.

“That girl that was fat before—she thinks she’s fine now.”

“Who is she forming for?”

“Is it not exercise? Anyone can do that.”

One afternoon, we overheard a group of girls talking.

“She’s only losing weight because of boys,” one said.

Shalewa looked at me, hurt.

I shrugged. “Who cares what they think? They don’t matter.”

But campus has a way of poking at every weakness until it becomes a wound. Rumors started spreading that Shalewa had surgery. Others claimed she was taking slimming pills. Someone even said she collapsed at the gym. None of it was true.

But gossip doesn’t need truth—just mouths.

Still, through all the whispers, stares, and jealousy… she stayed beside me.

She kept choosing me.

And for the first time in my life, I didn’t push someone away.

I let her stay.

And because I let her stay, I learned something important:

Sometimes, strength isn’t in walking alone. Sometimes, it’s in allowing someone to walk with you—even when you think you don’t need anyone.

Shalewa became a part of my life in a way I never saw coming. Her presence softened me. Her voice filled my silence. Her loyalty broke through the walls I had built around myself.

And in the middle of school stress, unwanted attention, campus gossip, and growing responsibilities…

I realized something quietly, deeply, and honestly:

I was starting to enjoy her company.

And that frightened me more than anything else ever had.