The Things We Never Said

Episode 2: The Things We Never Said

I think the first time I realized I liked Lila was because of a hug.

Which sounds stupid now.

But when we opened school again after break, she hugged me and something inside me shifted so suddenly I didn’t know what to do with myself afterward.

It wasn’t even a dramatic hug.

Just her arms around me for a few seconds too long.

But it felt safe.

And at that age, safety can feel dangerously close to love without you realizing it.

At the queer event years later, I saw two girls holding hands near the entrance.

And suddenly I was back in school again.

Back when Lila used to ask me to hold her hand like it was the most normal thing in the world.

“Hold my hand.”

Simple words.

But every single time she said them, my heart reacted like she had confessed something bigger.

She was slightly shorter than me, and I still remember how small her hand felt in mine the first few times.

I tried acting normal about it.

But inside?

I was collapsing.

The first time our hands touched in church, I genuinely thought people around us could hear my heartbeat.

And somehow it got worse after that because then we kept finding reasons to touch each other casually.

Walking together.

Sitting too close.

Brushing hands accidentally on purpose.

The kind of things that seem innocent until they aren’t.

I don’t know if Lila knew how badly she affected me.

Maybe she did.

Sometimes I think she enjoyed watching me become nervous around her.

Especially when she flirted.

One day the keys to the dorm I stayed in went missing, and I remember wondering loudly where they could’ve gone.

And without missing a beat, she looked at me and said:

“I don’t have the keys… but I have the kiss.”

It was a joke.

At least I think it was.

But the way she looked at me after saying it nearly destroyed me.

I remember feeling my entire body go weak while trying to act unaffected.

And I think that’s the dangerous thing about girls like us back then.

Nothing was ever direct enough to survive being questioned later.

Everything had to hide behind jokes.

People definitely suspected us.

My friends used to ship us openly sometimes, and even though nobody fully said it out loud, there was always this feeling that people were watching us too carefully.

Like they noticed something we were still trying to avoid naming ourselves.

And maybe that’s why the rumors eventually started.

At first, it was just whispers.

Then distance.

Then fear.

Lila told me we should stop talking for a while because people were saying things.

I acted like I understood.

But secretly, I hated every second of it.

Because suddenly the person I wanted most was the person I had to avoid publicly.

What made it worse was how jealous I became during that time.

Lila spent a lot of time with the seniors, and every time I saw her laughing with them while we weren’t talking, I felt angry in a way I couldn’t explain properly.

Not angry at her.

Just hurt.

Like I wanted more of her time than I had the right to ask for.

And the stupid part is that even when we stopped talking, she still found ways to matter to me.

She’d still ask how I was.

Still look at me differently from everyone else.

Still come say goodnight to me even though we stayed in different dorms.

I think one of the moments that affected me most was when the friend she originally told me was looking for me posted me on her WhatsApp status.

Lila immediately told her I was her shawty and warned her not to try making moves on me.

At the time, I laughed it off.

But secretly?

I replayed that moment in my head for days.

Because maybe that was the closest thing we ever had to claiming each other.

Eventually, we reconciled after the rumors calmed down.

And outwardly, everything went back to normal.

But internally, nothing felt normal anymore.

Because now every moment with her felt like spending time with a crush instead of just a friend.

And I think she felt it too.

One time she asked me how I was doing while we weren’t talking.

I told her it wasn’t easy.

And after a quiet pause, she admitted it made her sad too.

That moment stayed with me for years.

Because it was the first time I realized maybe I wasn’t suffering alone.

I almost confessed once.

After the school strike started.

After everything became tense and chaotic and frightening.

Teachers investigating girls.

Names being written down.

People whispering about lesbian cases like we were criminals instead of teenagers trying to understand ourselves.

I kept thinking:

just tell her before it’s too late.

But fear always arrived before courage did.

And then suddenly, it was over.

Lila got expelled.

I escaped by an inch because they never found evidence against me.

And before the rest of the school officially left, I was sent home early because of fees.

Which meant I never got to say goodbye to her.

No final conversation.

No closure.

Nothing.

And I think that’s the memory that hurts the most now.

Not losing her.

But not knowing I was losing her while it was happening.

If I had known that was our last day together, maybe I would’ve looked at her longer.

Maybe I would’ve hugged her tighter.

Maybe I would’ve finally told her the truth.

Back at the queer event years later, I looked at her again across the room.

Older now.

Softer somehow.

Different.

And for one dangerous second, I felt exactly the way I felt the first time I held her hand.

Except this time my legs actually became weak.

I had to stand still because walking suddenly felt impossible.

But the strangest part wasn’t the feelings returning.

It was realizing we would never be those girls again.

The girls who maybe loved each other but didn’t know how to say it.

The girls who hid emotions inside church songs, jokes, hand holding, and goodnight visits.

Time had already moved us somewhere else.

And maybe that’s why I left the event early.

Not because Lila was cruel.

Not because she treated me badly.

But because seeing her again forced me to finally understand something I spent years avoiding:

Some love stories don’t end with heartbreak.

Some end with silence.

And the terrifying realization that you can never return to who you were when the love first existed.