The Heartbreak
Life at Gait High had started to feel like a movie full of plot twists, spotlight moments, and now… a romance brewing I wasn't ready for.
After the school play, Tunde and I grew closer. We stayed back after rehearsals, laughed during lunch, and texted late into the night. Everyone started noticing. Even Dara teased me endlessly.
But not everyone was happy, especially Amaka.
One day, while I was walking to class, she pulled me aside.
"You think you've won, right? Just wait."
I didn't understand what she meant until it happened.
It was a rainy Friday. I got to school late and noticed whispers following me through the hallway. People stared. Some snickered. A few avoided my gaze.
I met Dara at our lockers. "What's going on?" I asked.
She hesitated, then showed me her phone.
There it was a blurry photo of me and Tunde sitting together during rehearsal. The caption?
*"When the new girl can't keep her hands to herself."
It was posted on a fake gossip page for Gait High students.
I felt my heart sink.
Tunde found me behind the science block. I expected him to comfort me, defend me. But instead, he said something I didn't see coming.
"Oyin, maybe we should stop talking for now."
I blinked. "What?"
"I just don't want more drama," he mumbled. "I didn't ask for all this."
So he walked away. Just like that.
That night, I cried. It wasn't about the post. It wasn't about Amaka. It was the fact that Tunde, the person I trusted, backed out the moment it got hard.
I wanted to quit everything. Drama club. School events. Even coming to school.
But then Dara knocked on my gate the next morning with a bag of chin chin and said, "We don't hide. We show them what we're made of."
And she was right.
So I walked into school that Monday with my head high. I joined the inter-house debate team, started writing for the school magazine, and kept shining with or without anyone's approval.
I didn't need a boy to make me special.
Because I had already discovered who I was.
And this heartbreak? It wasn't my ending.
It was my beginning.