PRECIOUS POV
By the time I turned fifteen, I had learned how to stay quiet with my feelings.
It no longer startled me. It no longer arrived with that sudden tightness in my chest, that sense of being caught off guard by something I hadn't prepared for. Whatever it was that had started at thirteen whatever had once made Sundays feel unfamiliar it had softened with time. I learned my routine. It has adjusted itself to my life.
It stayed where it had been growing all along, tucked carefully beneath habit and explanation.
I called it neutral.
Neutral felt responsible.
Neutral felt controlled.
Neutral felt like something that wouldn't embarrass me later.
At fifteen, I was learning how to survive by not making things complicated. I was learning how to keep my world manageable by flattening my emotions into shapes I could explain away.
Jamal was still part of my Sundays until he wasn't.
I don't remember the exact Sunday he disappeared. There was no announcement, no sudden realization. One Sunday he simply wasn't there. I noticed, but not in a way that alarmed me. People missed church sometimes. Families traveled. Life happened.
The next Sunday, he wasn't there again.
By the third, his absence had started to feel… noticeable. But even then, I told myself it didn't mean anything. This was how things went. People drifted in and out of routines all the time.
One Sunday became two.
Two became many.
And somewhere along the line, without marking the moment or naming the feeling, Jamal stopped being part of church.
Life changed quietly around that time the way it often does when you're young. No one sat me down and said, This is a turning point. Things just shifted, rearranged themselves without asking for my opinion.
I traveled to my aunt's side of the family for a while. What was supposed to be a short stay stretched longer than expected. Long enough to develop its own rhythm. Long enough to become normal.
Long enough to matter.
I told myself it didn't.
At my aunt's place, Sundays looked different. Church services were unfamiliar. The rooms sounded different. The people spoke differently. I noticed everything, but none of it anchored itself in me the way my old Sundays had.
Jamal existed only as a vague thought there a name that came and went without demanding attention. I didn't ask about him. I didn't wonder what he was doing.
At least, that's how I remember telling myself the story.
I focused on school. On adjusting. On being polite. On not appearing unsettled.
I was very good at that.
Then one afternoon, ordinary, slow, forgettable in every other way I was lying on my bed, scrolling through Facebook with no real intention. Just movement. Just noise filling space.
And there it was.
Jamal A. sent you a friend request.
My thumb stopped.
I didn't expect my body to react the way it did. The moment stretched longer than it should have. I hadn't noticed how quiet my day had been until then, how little I had felt before his name appeared on my screen.
I stared at it longer than necessary.
The realization irritated me.
I didn't like discovering feelings through surprise. I didn't like that his name could still do something to me without warning. I didn't like that my chest felt warmer, fuller, like something had been acknowledged.
I told myself not to overthink it.
I accepted the request.
Minutes later, a message appeared.
Hey. I've been wondering why I haven't been seeing you in church.
The simplicity of it caught me off guard. No drama. No accusation. Just wondering.
I stared at the screen, my mouth curving into a faint smile before I noticed it was there.
I" traveled to my aunt's place", I typed. "I've been there for a while."
A response came quickly.
"That makes sense", he said. "I was wondering."
Wondering.
The word lingered longer than it should have. It followed me even after I put my phone down. I thought about how casually he said it like it was normal to notice someone's absence, like it was normal to carry a quiet curiosity about someone who wasn't around anymore.
I told myself it didn't mean anything.
We started talking after that.
Slowly. Carefully.
There was no rush, no sudden closeness. It felt intentional, like we were both testing the edges of something without wanting to disturb it. Jamal asked about where I was staying. I asked questions about church, whether the children's class was still held in the same room, or whether the teacher still told the same jokes.
Small questions. Easy answers.
Nothing heavy.
I liked that.
Our conversations didn't feel like they were going anywhere. They just were. They existed comfortably in the space between obligation and interest.
This felt safe.
Days passed. Then weeks. Messages stretched across afternoons and evenings. Sometimes there were long pauses between replies. Sometimes we talked late into the night without noticing time passing.
His name appearing on my screen slowly stopped startling me.
It started to comfort me.
I didn't examine why.
I told myself this was normal. This was what happened when two people knew each other for a long time. When you share history, even a small, half-forgotten history, it made conversation easy.
Along the way, during one of those casual stretches of conversation where neither of us seemed to be in a hurry, he asked:
"Can I get your number? It's easier to talk there."
I stared at the message longer than necessary.
Not because I didn't want to.
But because saying yes felt… natural.
Too natural.
There was no debate in my mind, no list of reasons weighing against each other. It felt like the obvious next step, and that scared me a little.
I hesitated not to deny him, but to interrupt myself.
Then I sent it.
Sure.
That single word settled something I hadn't realized was unsettled.
From there, our conversations shifted without changing. Talking on the phone felt easier, more immediate. Messages arrived faster. Replies felt more instinctive.
His name on my phone became familiar enough not to register as an event. It was just there another part of my daily rhythm.
I refused to question why.
Friends do this, I told myself.
Friends talk often.
Friends check in.
Friends remember details.
Friends care.
When my heart felt lighter after talking to him, I called it a habit.
When I smiled at my phone without realizing it, I called it a distraction.
When I checked my messages too often, I called it boredom.
Neutral.
That word became my refuge.
Neutral didn't ask questions.
Neutral didn't make promises.
Neutrality didn't require courage.
At fifteen, I believed that as long as I didn't name a feeling, it couldn't grow teeth. That it couldn't turn around and demand something from me later.
I didn't know then that some feelings don't need permission to deepen.
They only need proximity.
They only need consistency.
They only need time.
Jamal became part of my days in ways that felt too ordinary to resist. He remembered things I mentioned casually. He asked about my exams. He noticed when I sounded tired or distant.
He never pressed. Never crossed lines I hadn't drawn.
That made it easier to let him stay.
Sometimes he'd tell me about his day at school, about random frustrations or moments that amused him. Sometimes we'd sit in shared silence, phones on, conversation paused without tension.
I liked that most of all.
I liked that I didn't have to perform anything for him.
And that should have warned me.
Instead, I leaned into the safety of it.
Weeks turned into months.
By the time I returned from my aunt's place, Jamal was already woven into my daily life in a way I hadn't noticed happening. The church felt familiar again, but different. I found myself wondering if he'd be there not anxiously, just… curiously.
The first Sunday I walked back into children's class and saw him sitting two rows away, something in my chest reacted before my mind caught up.
It was subtle.
But it was there.
He looked up. Smiled. The same gentle smile I remembered.
"Hi," he said after class, easy and familiar.
"Hi," I replied, just as naturally.
Everything looked the same.
Everything felt different.
I told myself it was nostalgia. That seeing anyone after time apart would feel strange. That my body was confusing memory with emotion.
Neutral.
I held onto that word tightly.
But that Sunday, as I sat through the lesson and felt my attention drift toward his presence without effort, something uncomfortable settled in me.
Not fear.
Not excitement.
Recognition.
I realized I had been carrying him with me even when he wasn't physically there. That my life had made space for him without asking me first.
And for the first time since I was thirteen, the explanation I relied on didn't feel sturdy anymore.
Neutral started to feel thin.
That night, lying in bed and scrolling through our messages, I caught myself rereading parts of the conversation not to respond, but to feel something again.
I closed the app quickly, unsettled.
I told myself it was nothing.
But the quiet certainty I'd built my safety on had begun to crack.
And I didn't yet know what I would do when it finally broke.
A message notification lit up my screen.
Jamal:
"Can I ask you something?"
I stared at it longer than I should have.