Chapter 27
Inflation gripped the country like a fist around our throats.
Everything—food, transport, handouts, even sachet water—seemed to double in price overnight. What used to be enough for a week couldn't carry me through two days. The government made announcements like they cared, but nothing changed. Policies came and went like seasonal winds—loud, chaotic, but empty. And in the middle of it all, the people at the bottom, like me, kept shrinking, folding into themselves just to survive.
The little I earned from typing and helping out on campus had lost its value. What used to stretch was now snapping. I started skipping meals just to save enough for data or printing. Nights were colder, not just because of the weather, but because hopelessness had a way of freezing you from the inside out.
The second semester exams were approaching fast, and I could barely afford to eat, not to talk of paying my tuition. The fear sat on my chest like a boulder. I wasn't sure how to tell my course mates I might not write the exams. I wasn't sure how to tell myself that this might be the end of school for me.
But in the midst of that storm, my heart started whispering a name I hadn't spoken in months—Beth.
It wasn't about money. It wasn't about rescue.
It was the silence that was killing me.
The quiet way she vanished from my life and made it look so easy. The way she moved on while I was stuck here, half-drowning. I had tried to be strong. I had swallowed the pain, tucked it deep beneath lectures, handouts, and fake smiles. But now that everything around me was crumbling, I couldn't ignore it anymore.
So I texted her.
"Hey… hope you're okay. Just thinking about you."
Simple. Innocent. Weak.
I stared at the message for minutes before I hit send. My hands were shaking, not from fear of her response, but from the realization that I still hadn't healed. I was still carrying pieces of her inside me like broken glass.
She didn't reply that night.
Or the next.
But that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was the way I waited—checking my phone after every vibration, holding on to a kind of hope I didn't want to admit I still had.
I hated how much power she still had over me.
I hated that in the middle of hunger, fear, and academic pressure, it was her absence that hurt the most.
But maybe, deep down, I just needed to feel connected to something. To someone. Maybe I just needed to remember a version of myself that wasn't so lost.
That week, I didn't find money.
I didn't find help.
But I found a mirror.
And in it, I saw a boy who had come far, but still had far to go. A boy who wanted to be strong, but still needed to grieve. Not just Beth. Not just love. But the life he thought he was supposed to have by now.
I didn't know what tomorrow held. I didn't even know if I'd write those exams.
But I knew one thing—I had to keep going.
Even if no one was clapping.
Even if Beth never replied.
Even if I had to crawl.
Because this journey wasn't just about making it.
It was about not giving up.