Chapter 5: When Hopes Hurt
727 Words
Chapter 5: When Hope Hurts
Time is funny.
It doesn’t always heal you the way people say.
Sometimes, it just teaches you how to hide the pain better… until something—or someone—makes you forget why you were hurting in the first place.
Alexander was finally getting better.
It was in the way he started dressing up again. The way he laughed more. The way his eyes didn’t carry that same tired sadness whenever someone mentioned Sandra’s name.
He was healing.
And I was proud of him.
But I was also scared.
Because every step he took forward felt like he was walking farther away from me.
Still, I stayed. Like I always had. The quiet friend in the background. The one who knew everything but said nothing. The one who saw the real him before the world did.
So when he started talking about some girl in his new GNS class… I tried not to panic.
At first, it was casual.
“She asked for my note today. She’s so quiet, sha.”
Then it became familiar.
“She’s always on her own, doesn’t talk to anyone.”
And then, it became frequent.
“Zaynab this…”
“Zaynab that…”
Zaynab.
A 100-level fresher.
A Muslim girl.
The more he spoke about her, the more I felt like I was watching a movie I’d already seen — except this time, I knew how it ended.
I asked him one day, jokingly, “Are you developing a crush on this Zaynab girl?”
He laughed at first.
Then he paused.
“I don’t know… maybe.”
That single word — maybe — hit me like thunder.
---
I began to notice the changes.
He started leaving early for classes again — ones I didn’t share with him.
He was on his phone more, smiling at texts I wasn’t receiving.
He seemed distracted, like his mind was somewhere else even when we were together.
And when I asked him to study with me one evening, he texted:
> “I promised to help Zaynab with her assignment. Maybe tomorrow?”
I dropped my phone on the bed and stared at the ceiling.
The pain came back. The kind that sat in your chest like something heavy pressing down on your lungs.
After everything…
After all the moments I stayed beside him…
After the lies I told…
Zaynab was the one taking his heart now.
---
I saw her once.
Outside the mosque on campus.
She wore a soft lilac hijab, glasses too big for her face, and a shy smile that looked like it had never said a bad word in its life.
She was beautiful.
Not in the loud, confident way Sandra was… but in the gentle, modest way that made you want to protect her.
I stood from afar, watching her laugh at something Alexander said as they walked out together.
I wanted to hate her.
But I couldn’t.
Because it wasn’t her fault.
She didn’t know the history.
She didn’t know the boy beside her used to mean the world to someone else.
She didn’t know I had spent years loving someone who couldn’t see me beyond the word “friend.”
---
That night, I couldn’t sleep.
Mariam asked if I was okay.
I said yes.
But deep down, I knew the truth.
I had destroyed one love… hoping mine would bloom.
But now… another love was growing — and again, it wasn’t mine.
I remembered what he told me once after Sandra left:
> “Not everyone who says they love you actually means it.”
And now, I was the one who had loved deeply… but was left standing alone.
Again.
---
The next day, I bumped into him at the library.
He smiled like everything was perfect. Like the world hadn’t shifted beneath my feet.
“Guess what,” he said.
“What?”
“I’m thinking of asking her to lunch. Just casual.”
I nodded slowly.
“That’s nice.”
“You think she’ll say yes?”
I forced a smile. “Probably. You’re you.”
He grinned, completely unaware of the silent war in my heart.
And as I watched him walk away, I whispered to myself:
“Maybe loving someone means letting them go…
Even if they never knew you were holding on.”
- Writer
