Chapter Fourteen: Names We Didn't Choose
By Wednesday, the door was cleaned.
No Bible verses.
No collage.
Just smooth wood and a small laminated sign from administration that read:
"Respectful expression only. Hate speech will be investigated."
No one knew what that meant.
No one really asked.
The hallway had simply moved on.
But Kira hadn't.
And neither had Mina.
The first half of the school day passed in a blur of dissonance.
Smiles that didn't reach eyes.
People who used to wave now only nodded, if at all.
Even Mr. Nguyen, usually the warmest staff member in the building, had gone quiet when he passed them by the vending machines.
"They're scared," Mina muttered, biting into a granola bar like it had insulted her.
Kira watched her, then stared out the window. "Of what?"
"Of seeing something they don't have the words for."
There were moments like this when Mina spoke with a sharpness that cut right through Kira's doubts. A fire inside her. Something untamed. Something aching to be heard.
But fire alone wasn't enough to keep a person warm.
At lunch, they sat beneath the staircase in the east wing—their unofficial hideaway since the week before. Only a few stragglers ever wandered through, mostly kids trying to skip gym.
Mina picked at her sandwich. Kira filled the quiet by drawing—nothing specific. Just lines. Light, rhythmic. A hand reaching. A match flickering. A shadow standing still.
Mina watched. "Are you okay?"
Kira's pencil paused. "Why does everyone keep asking that?"
"Because we're not. Not really."
Kira didn't answer. Not with words. But she turned the sketchbook around and showed her the drawing anyway.
A girl with wings folded so tight they looked like armor. Her eyes were open. Her hands weren't raised.
"She looks like she's waiting for something," Mina said.
"She's hoping the world softens," Kira replied.
Mina looked down. "And if it doesn't?"
Kira hesitated, then whispered, "Then we learn to carry each other through it."
Sixth period: history.
The teacher's voice droned about revolutions, about the people who first stood up and got burned for it.
And Kira thought about how Mina had flinched when she told her that her mom was "praying it away."
How Mina had said, in the smallest voice, I think part of her believes I'm possessed.
Kira tapped her pen twice against the desk.
When Mina looked over, Kira mouthed, You okay?
Mina blinked twice.
It meant Yes—but barely.
After school, Mina didn't go home.
She didn't say why.
Kira didn't ask.
They ended up walking toward the old skate park—half-abandoned, concrete cracked and tagged with neon graffiti. Kids still hung out there sometimes, especially when they wanted to be somewhere no adult would bother with.
Mina dropped onto one of the low ramps, arms folded tight across her knees.
"She went through my phone," she said. "Read our texts. The one where you said you'd hold the door open."
Kira sat beside her. Cold concrete under denim. "What did she say?"
"She said love shouldn't sound like rebellion."
Kira shook her head. "It doesn't. It sounds like survival."
"She said I embarrassed her."
Kira turned to her. "You didn't."
"I didn't mean to make everything worse," Mina whispered. "I just wanted—"
She stopped.
Kira waited.
Then gently said, "You just wanted to feel like yourself and not have it punished."
Mina's mouth twisted. Her eyes filled. "I'm so tired of begging people not to be disappointed."
A silence fell between them. Not heavy. Not empty.
Just real.
Then Kira took her hand.
Held it in both of hers.
"You don't have to apologize for existing."
"But I keep doing it."
"I know." Kira's voice cracked. "So do I."
That night, Kira sat cross-legged on her bed, blanket wrapped around her like a barrier against the world. Her sketchbook lay open beside her, but she couldn't draw. Not yet.
She stared at her phone.
At Mina's name on the screen.
Then typed.
Kira (10:41 PM)
What if we stopped asking them for permission to be whole?
The reply came minutes later.
Mina (10:46 PM)
Then they'd call us selfish.
Kira (10:47 PM)
Then I'd rather be selfish than small.
There was no response right away.
But twenty minutes later, Kira's phone buzzed again.
Mina (11:08 PM)
I love the girl in your drawings.
Kira (11:09 PM)
She's you.
Another buzz.
Mina (11:10 PM)
Then I think I might love her too.
The next day was Thursday.
And something changed.
Not outside. Not in the halls or in the whispers.
But inside.
Inside Kira.
She didn't flinch when she walked past the senior who had shouldered her last week.
She didn't lower her eyes when the basketball team made snide comments under their breath.
She didn't hide.
Mina met her at her locker.
And for the first time, Kira didn't look around before hugging her.
She just did it.
Quick. Honest. Like breathing.
That afternoon, they met again in the darkroom.
Not to paint.
Not to hide.
Just to be.
Kira leaned against the wall while Mina sat cross-legged on the counter.
Mina picked up a loose scrap of paper and a pen. "Let's make a list," she said.
Kira looked up. "Of what?"
"Things no one ever taught us but we had to learn anyway."
Kira smiled. "Like survival lessons?"
"Exactly."
Mina started writing:
How to breathe when it feels like the room hates you.
How to hold your own hand.
How to laugh when you're scared someone's watching.
Kira reached for the pen.
How to be soft without being sorry.
Mina added:
How to fall in love and not apologize for it.
Then, together:
How to stay.
Outside, the rain had stopped.
But the clouds never left.
And maybe they wouldn't, not for a while.
But in the quiet of the darkroom, beneath red light and black ceilings, Mina leaned into Kira's side and whispered:
"You make me feel like I'm not something to be fixed."
And Kira, holding her sketchbook like a heart she was no longer afraid to open, whispered back:
"You make me feel like I'm not something to be hidden."
They didn't kiss.
They didn't need to.
Sometimes love was the space you left open for someone to breathe.
Sometimes it was choosing each other in small, relentless ways.
And they chose.
Again and again.
Even when it hurt.
Even when it felt like standing in the eye of a storm with nothing but each other.
They chose.
Because even though the world hadn't given them a name…
They were becoming one together.
And that was enough.
For now.