The common room, that tiny kingdom of faded cushions and secrets whispered into beanbags, had taken on a rare tranquility. No music. No arguments. Just the kind of peace that warns you something is brewing underneath like the quiet before market women clash over stolen tomatoes.
Even the walls seemed to be listening, holding their breath as if afraid to break the fragile quiet.
Luna was sprawled out on the floor, head propped on a cushion she'd stolen from Mary's bed. Her eyes were on the ceiling fan, watching it whirl like a lazy planet, while her mind spun faster.
Each slow rotation mirrored the thoughts orbiting in her head thoughts too heavy for words, too fast for stillness.
Why does this thing feel like a therapy room today? Ben asked, breaking the silence with his usual dramatic flair as he dropped into a chair.
Because therapy's expensive, Mary replied, sliding a bottle of groundnut toward him. And this is free.
She didn't smile, but her tone tried. It was the kind of joke you made when you needed one too.
They laughed softly. Not the kind of laughter that lifts roofs, but the kind that gently oils the hinges of a tired day.
It was enough not a cure, but a balm.
Luna reached for her water bottle, took a sip, and said, "Sometimes I wish I could pause time not to do more, but to catch my breath.
Her voice cracked slightly at the end, betraying how long she'd been holding it all in.
Ben snorted. You and me both. I need a pause button and maybe a fast-forward through heartbreaks.
Mary leaned her back against the wall, legs stretched out like she was sunbathing in a room with no sun. I think we're just tired of constantly climbing. It feels like climbing a rope that keeps growing longer.
Her words hung in the air like damp laundry real, wrung out, and unpretending.
Or like being on a treadmill where the only prize is more sweat, Luna added.
They went quiet again, but this time, it was the comfortable kind, the kind you can only share with people who know the version of you behind your brave face.
The silence didn't press on their chests; it wrapped around them, soft like a blanket passed between tired friends.
Then Mary rustled through her bag, pulled out a folded paper, and held it up like it was a court summons.
The room braced itself again the spell of peace breaking.
Oh — Luna, she said, her tone switching lanes. Don't forget, seminar project defenses start next week. I overheard someone say the schedule might be pushed forward.
Luna's brows climbed like mountain goats. "Forward? As in earlier?"
Her heartbeat quickened. No one liked surprises that wore the face of pressure.
Ben threw his hands in the air. Why do they treat us like onions? Always peeling us one layer at a time.
He didn't expect a solution — it was just a protest in poetry.
Mary leaned forward. You need to finish your second draft before the weekend. Nobody's going to read a rushed job and clap for you.
Her voice was firm, but not unkind. It carried the weight of someone who had learned the hard way.
Luna groaned, flopping back dramatically. "I'm constantly running a marathon I never signed up for."
And the finish line kept moving.
Well, stop running like your life's on fire, Mary said with a grin. Walk with purpose. Finish the draft, then we'll workshop it together."
It sounded like a promise. The kind that came with open doors and shared shoulders.
Luna looked at her — really looked — and felt something warm press against the glass wall of her tired heart.
Thanks, she said, voice low but clear.
It was just one word, but it carried the full weight of every battle she fought in silence.
She looked between them — her chaotic, wonderful group of unofficial lifelines — and held onto the calm they created, even when everything else felt like a storm.
Because some wars are won in quiet rooms, with people who remind you you're still standing.
I sat in that common room long after everyone had gone. The air had grown quieter, softer. There was no music, no voices, no clinking mugs or fast-paced arguments about ideas and inspiration. Just silence — and me.
I held my book tightly. Not the one I was reading earlier, but my own book. The empty one. The one I bought two months ago, hoping to fill it with ideas, sentences, metaphors — my heart. I hadn't written a single thing in it. Not because I didn't want to, but because I didn't know how to start. Everything I wanted to say felt too loud, too heavy, too angry.
But tonight, something shifted.
Maybe it was how that conversation made me feel invisible again, or maybe it was the way everyone had a strong opinion, and mine stayed trapped between my teeth. I thought of the project I wanted to work on — The Power of Communication: Don't Assume. A project born from the very place I grew up in.
In one of the poorest parts of Livewell City, people don't speak — not because they have nothing to say, but because they've been taught that their voices don't matter. Silence was survival. And assumptions? Assumptions were religion. They assumed you were lazy if you were poor. Assumed you were dangerous if you were quiet. Assumed you had no dreams because you were timid.
But me?
I wanted to challenge that. My pen wasn't just for stories. It was for war. It was for changing the narrative — for setting fire to the things that had burned us in silence.
I remember when I first got accepted into this university, how my mother smiled like the sun was returning to our house after years of rain. How my father said, "Don't let the city change you." But I wanted to change the city. Through words. Through truth.
I thought of that girl in my neighbourhood, Bola, who stopped going to school after being assaulted by her uncle, and nobody believed her because "he's family." I thought of how nobody spoke. Not even Bola. Because in our world, silence was safer than shame.
And yet here I was, afraid to even share a dream. A topic. A vision.
I pressed the pen into the first page of my book and wrote just five words:
"Don't Assume I'm Nothing."
That was my beginning.
I closed the book gently, as if it held something sacred now. Something mine. Not borrowed, not stolen, not doubted.
I didn't know how I'd execute the project yet. I didn't know what angle to start from or who would believe in it. But I knew this it was needed. Not just for me. For every girl like Bola. For every boy like my brother, who stopped talking because every time he cried, they called him weak. For everyone who's ever been judged without being asked, or silenced before they spoke.
And for myself.
Because this time, my voice wasn't going to shake.
This time, I'd be the one doing the assuming — assuming change is possible.
And writing like I believed it.
The sight of her rumpled, half-asleep, still trying tugged at something in me. We used to be so far apart, not just in age but in heart. That distance had once felt like a wall no one wanted to break. But something shifted after that talk the one I dared to start.
It still amazes me how one conversation, raw and messy, can begin to stitch a family back together. Maybe words really do carry power not just in pages, but in the spaces we live.
The project idea didn't just come to me. It was born from that night.
Sitting with my parents and siblings, hearing truths no one had ever said aloud.
We had assumed too much for too long who was angry, who didn't care, who wasn't listening.
But we were all hurting in silence.
I remember saying, "Let's stop assuming and start talking."
I didn't even mean it to be deep. But it stuck. That's when I knew this was the story I wanted to write. This was the fire I wanted to light in people.
If I could ignite a small change in my own home… maybe I could set a spark in a place like Livewell too.
Not through anger. Not through shouting. But through storytelling.
Through the kind of truth that sits with you and says, You don't have to stay this way.