FAR FROM HOME

ME

FAR FROM HOME

By Mr Black

PART I — THE GIRL WITHOUT A NAME

CHAPTER FIVE

Everybody Knows Your Name

By the time I entered university, I had mastered three things.

How to keep my face expressionless when I was angry.

How to leave a conversation without explaining why.

And how to make people believe they knew me when they knew absolutely nothing.

University tested all three.

The campus was louder than I expected. Students crowded the walkways, vendors shouted over one another, and music escaped from open windows. Everybody seemed to know somebody. Everybody was looking for friends, lovers, connections, or a place to belong.

I was looking for my faculty building.

Nothing else.

My admission letter was folded inside my bag. I had checked the directions twice before leaving my hostel, but somehow I had ended up beside a basketball court, staring at a map that made absolutely no sense.

"You're holding that map upside down."

I didn't look up.

"Then the university should print better maps."

A laugh came from beside me.

I turned.

The girl standing there wore a white shirt tucked into dark jeans, silver earrings, and an expression that suggested she had never been embarrassed in her life.

She pointed at the map.

"Your faculty is that way."

"I know."

"Then why are you going in the opposite direction?"

"I wanted to see whether you would mind your business."

She laughed again.

I folded the map.

"You're welcome," she said.

"For what?"

"For saving your academic career before your first lecture."

I walked away.

She followed.

"What's your name?"

"Why?"

"Because I'm talking to you."

"That's unfortunate."

She stopped walking.

Then she burst out laughing so loudly that two students turned to look.

"Oh, I like you."

I didn't like her.

That was my first mistake.

Her name was Zara.

By lunchtime, she had somehow discovered my department, my hostel, my preferred seat in the lecture hall, and the fact that I drank water instead of buying the sugary drinks everybody else carried around.

I had known her for less than three hours.

It was already too long.

"You're always this serious?" she asked as we sat beneath a tree outside the faculty building.

"Only when people ask unnecessary questions."

"So, always."

I opened my notebook.

She leaned over.

"Do you have friends?"

"Yes."

"Where are they?"

"Somewhere else."

"Do they know you're here?"

I looked at her.

She grinned.

"Okay, okay. I'll stop."

For approximately forty seconds, she remained silent.

Then she said, "There's a party on Friday."

"No."

"You haven't heard where."

"I heard party."

"You don't even know what you're missing."

"Sleep."

Zara shook her head.

"You're going to be difficult."

"I've been told."

She studied me for a moment.

Unlike most people, she didn't immediately try to turn my appearance into a conversation. She didn't ask why I dressed the way I did or whether I had a boyfriend. She simply looked at me with open curiosity, as if she had found an interesting problem and intended to solve it.

I hated that look.

I recognised it.

It was the same look Amara used to give me.

I closed my notebook.

"I have a lecture."

"You have twenty minutes."

"Then I'll arrive early."

I stood.

Zara watched me leave.

"See you tomorrow, mystery girl!"

I didn't turn around.

But I remembered her name.

---

The first rumour about me started on Wednesday.

By Thursday, it had reached people I had never spoken to.

By Friday, somebody had decided I was secretly dating a girl in the faculty.

I discovered this when a stranger stopped me outside the lecture hall.

"Are you Mony?"

I stared at her.

"Who wants to know?"

She looked startled.

"I'm just asking."

"Then you've received your answer."

I walked past her.

Behind me, I heard her whisper to her friend.

"That's her."

I kept walking.

I had survived years of people discussing my clothes, my behaviour, and my refusal to perform femininity for their comfort. A few university students gossiping about my nonexistent relationship didn't concern me.

At least, that's what I told myself.

The truth was that I hated being discussed by people who had never bothered to speak to me.

They could invent a whole person from a pair of trousers and a short haircut, then become offended when the real person refused to match their imagination.

That afternoon, Zara found me in the library.

She dropped into the chair opposite mine.

"Congratulations."

I didn't look up.

"On what?"

"You're famous."

"Tragic."

"Apparently, you're dating somebody."

"Apparently, you're annoying."

She smiled.

"I'm serious."

"So am I."

She lowered her voice.

"People are saying you and Nessa have something going on."

I turned a page.

"Who is Nessa?"

Zara's smile disappeared.

"You don't know Nessa?"

"Should I?"

"She's the girl everybody thinks you're dating."

I looked at her.

"How can I be dating someone I've never spoken to?"

"That's what I asked them."

"And?"

"They said you don't have to talk to someone to be involved with them."

I stared at her for several seconds.

Then I closed my book.

"I need to leave this university."

Zara laughed.

I didn't.

Because, across the library, a girl was standing between two shelves, watching us.

She had long braids, a dark jacket, and a small silver ring on her right hand.

When our eyes met, she smiled.

I had never seen her before.

But something about that smile made my stomach tighten.

She walked towards our table.

"You're Mony, right?"

I didn't answer immediately.

Zara looked between us.

The girl pulled out the empty chair beside her.

"My name is Nessa."

She sat down without waiting for an invitation.

Then she placed a folded piece of paper on my open book.

"I think we need to talk."

I looked at the paper.

There was a date written across it.

The same date I had found inside the envelope in my schoolbag.

My face remained still.

Inside, something cold began to unfold.

Nessa leaned closer.

"Before you ask, no, I don't know how you got that letter."

I looked at her.

She smiled again.

"But I know the girl who sent it."

For the first time since arriving at university, I forgot what I had planned to say.

Zara had stopped smiling.

Nessa glanced towards the library entrance, then back at me.

"And if you value your new life," she whispered, "you'll stop asking questions about Amara."

I stared at her.

Three years ago, Amara had disappeared from my life.

Now strangers were warning me not to ask about her.

A photograph had appeared on the news.

Someone had been inside my bedroom.

And a girl I had met less than a week ago was sitting across from me, speaking as if my past belonged to her.

I folded the paper and slipped it into my notebook.

"Who sent the letter?"

Nessa stood.

"I told you. I know the girl who sent it."

"Then tell me her name."

She hesitated.

For a fraction of a second, the confidence left her face.

Then she looked at Zara.

And Zara looked away.

That was when I understood something.

They knew each other.

Perhaps they had known each other before I arrived.

Perhaps the meeting wasn't accidental.

Nessa adjusted her bag.

"Not here."

She walked towards the exit.

I remained seated.

Zara cleared her throat.

"Look, Mony—"

"How long have you known her?"

Zara went quiet.

I looked at her.

"How long?"

She rubbed her thumb against the edge of her phone.

"Since last year."

"And you didn't think to mention that?"

"You never asked."

I laughed once.

There was no humour in it.

"Of course."

I packed my books.

Zara reached across the table, then stopped before touching my wrist.

That small hesitation caught my attention.

She had noticed my boundaries.

Or someone had warned her about them.

"I wasn't trying to deceive you," she said.

I stood.

"People rarely describe their lies that way."

I left the library before she could answer.

Outside, the campus was full of students heading to their hostels and lecture halls. Somebody was playing music from a portable speaker. A group of girls took photographs beside the faculty sign. Two boys argued over a football match.

Ordinary life.

Again.

I walked towards my hostel, thinking about Nessa, Zara, and the letter.

I had come to university believing that distance would give me a fresh start.

I had been wrong.

The past hadn't followed me because I remembered it.

It had followed me because somebody else did.

When I reached my room, I opened my notebook and removed the folded paper.

The date stared back at me.

Beneath it, in handwriting I didn't recognise, was a sentence I hadn't noticed in the library.

SHE DIDN'T DISAPPEAR THE FIRST TIME.

I read it slowly.

Then I read it again.

My phone vibrated.

An unknown number.

One message.

Welcome to campus, Mony.

A second message arrived before I could respond.

Now let's see how long you last.

I sat on the edge of my bed.

For the first time since leaving home, I considered calling my mother.

Not because I missed her.

Not because I wanted to go back.

But because I was beginning to suspect that the people waiting for me outside my family home were not the only ones who knew how to keep secrets.

And I had a terrible feeling that university was not where my new life would begin.

It was where somebody had decided to finish the old one.

---

END OF CHAPTER FIVE