The day after the orientation was when reality finally started. No more introductions, no more ice-breaking speeches. Just the beginning of training.
All the freshers were gathered in a hallway, waiting to be divided into groups. No one knew who would end up in group whom for the next month, and while everyone around me seemed interested in that, my mind was somewhere else entirely.
I wasn't thinking about groups. I wasn't thinking about friends. I was thinking about home, about my family, and about the future I was about to build in this company. Everything ahead of me suddenly felt huge, like a life I wasn't sure I was ready to live.
Luck—good or bad, I still don't know—put Ruth in my group. Which meant one thing: we would be in the same class for the entire training period.
The first day, I walked into the training room trying not to overthink it. New faces, new competition, new unknown variables. I found a seat and pretended to blend in, even though my mind was whispering the same old insecurity:
What if I'm not as smart as everyone else here?
The trainer didn't make things easier. His teaching was fast, his questions faster. People around me seemed to catch on immediately, nodding along, even answering confidently. I sat there, clueless. The terms were foreign, the examples unfamiliar. I didn't know the answers, and I hated how exposed that made me feel.
But strangely, beneath that anxiety, a small confidence was forming. Maybe not confidence in my ability, but confidence that I could learn. Somehow. Eventually.
I didn't even notice I was sitting beside one of her friends. Or her friend's friend — Felix. Honestly, it didn't matter. I wasn't concentrating on friendships or social circles. I barely looked in her direction the whole day. We didn't speak. Not even a greeting.
The second day I woke up late. The cab got stuck in traffic, and panic made the clock tick louder. Then my phone buzzed.
"Hey, haven't you reached yet?"
It was Ruth.
I stared at the screen for a second, surprised that she noticed.
"Yeah, in traffic." I replied.
Trying to sound professional, I asked:
"What's going on there?" "What's the trainer teaching?"
She replied:
"Topics from the planner."
"Hoo ok."
That was it.
When I finally reached, I waved at her because not waving would have felt rude. She waved back. We didn't talk after that, and honestly, it didn't bother me.
The next day, things flipped. I reached early. She didn't.
This time, I was the one who texted:
"Running late?"
Same kind of reply, same simple exchange. Nothing special. But something familiar.
Slowly, little conversations started building. Not many. Not deep. Just enough to acknowledge existence without crossing lines. That pattern continued for about a week.
Then the trainer announced an assignment. We had to build a small project and present it in class. I had zero knowledge about the topic. Not even a starting point.
So I asked her:
"Do you know what to do in this?"
She replied:
"I have kid knowledge in this area."
I smiled at that and said:
"At least you have kid knowledge. I know nothing."
She told me to just search on Google, copy something, and present it. Sound advice. Survival advice.
On presentation day, everyone went up one by one. When Ruth turn came, she walked to the front, nervous already. She presented what she had, and it was fine until the trainer started asking questions.
She froze.
Her hands trembled slightly, and her voice shrank. The trainer's patience didn't. He scolded her for copying the assignment and for not understanding what she submitted. She stood there quietly, nodding, trying not to break.
When she returned to her seat, I saw her eyes fill. She tried holding it in, but the tears slipped out, slow at first, then more freely. She wiped them quickly, but there was no hiding it.
My chest tightened.
I watched her get up and walk out of the room. I didn't move. Not because I didn't want to—but because we had never interacted offline. I didn't know if consoling her would be appropriate. I didn't know if I had the right.
The trainer asked if someone could go and check on her. Before my hand even thought of moving, the guy beside me — Felix — stood up and left to find her.
For a moment, I wished it was me. I genuinely wanted to console her. But I froze.
So instead, I did the only thing I could from where I was.
I messaged her:
"Don't cry. It's okay."
I don't know if she saw it. She never replied.
After that day, I didn't text her much. Just once, a few days later, I mentioned the crying incident jokingly, hoping it would make her feel lighter and not embarrassed. She laughed it off, or at least seemed to.
Slowly, a kind of friendship began forming. Not a close one. Not an intense one. Just a slow, cautious familiarity. Meanwhile, Ruth and her friend (Felix) were far more interactive than me. And at that time, I didn't feel bad about it.
I wasn't in that space yet. And maybe that was for the better.