My Principal Loves Me
It had been a month since the last time my father's anger filled the house. A month since the walls learned our names by heart. I don't like talking about him. Some days I hate him so much it scares me. Other days I try to understand how my mother ended up with a man like that, and then I stop myself because understanding doesn't rewind time. It doesn't soften bruises. It doesn't erase the sound of a door slamming like a verdict.
So I endured. Like everyone else in that house. Quietly. Waiting for the next explosion, or the final one. Sometimes I thought death would be the only punishment that fit him, and then I hated myself for thinking that too.
But this story is not about him. It's about me. And at that time, I was still learning that my life had a plot.
I was in JSS 2 when I realized I could write. Not essays. Not notes copied from the board. Stories.
Words that stayed.
My first book was called Gossips Are Less Thinkers. The title sounded smarter than the story itself. The plot stumbled. The characters didn't always make sense. But something in it breathed. Something honest enough to make people keep turning pages.
I wrote it in exercise books with dog-eared corners. I gave the only hard copy to my friends—the ones who loved books the way some people love secrets. They passed it around like contraband, whispering about scenes, arguing about endings.
They clapped for me. They called me gifted.
And somehow, it landed on my principal's desk.
That was where everything shifted.
I was naïve then. Pain hadn't sharpened me yet.
I didn't think about boys. I didn't imagine hands where they didn't belong. In my mind, having a boyfriend was illegal—one of those sins adults warned you about with narrowed eyes and unfinished sentences. I hated the idea of it. I hated how it distracted people. I thought love was something that waited.
Looking back, I think that was what made me visible.
Puberty had arrived quietly, rearranging my body without asking permission. People noticed before I did. I was still learning how to exist inside my skin when others had already started interpreting it.
I didn't know that innocence can be loud.
The day my principal called me to his office, I walked in smiling.
He asked me if I had written the book myself. "Yes," I said, proud. My chest felt warm, full.
He smiled.
At the time, I thought it was admiration. I didn't know smiles could mean other things.
He told me to come back the next morning with a fresh copy of my book. He said he wanted to review it. He said he knew a publishing company. He said I could become the first student in the school to publish a book.
I didn't sleep that night.
Joy is loud when you're young. It doesn't know how to whisper yet.
I told my friends. They screamed. They jumped. They already imagined interviews and photographs and my name printed in bold letters. Only Agatha didn't smile properly. Her congratulations were cold, careful, like they were wrapped in something sharp.
I didn't notice.
I went home and rewrote everything I had written so far. My fingers cramped. My back ached. My head floated somewhere between fear and excitement. My parents came back. We cooked. We ate. The house pretended to be normal for a few hours. I kept writing until sleep dragged me under.
When I woke up, the story was unfinished.
Panic sat heavy in my stomach.
I dressed quickly. Walked to school with my siblings. Wrote during devotion. Wrote during breaks. When classes started, I tried to listen, but my mind kept running back to unfinished sentences.
At break time, I went to his office with the half-finished manuscript.
I explained.
He said it was fine. He told me to take my time.
Relief washed over me so fast I didn't question why he sounded disappointed and pleased at the same time.
When school closed, he asked me to wait behind.
I did.
Obedience came easily to me then.
He said I should follow him to his house. He said he had a book that would guide me, teach me how to write professionally. His voice was calm, generous. Like someone offering water to a thirsty child.
I thanked him.
His house was neat. Quiet. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that presses against your ears.
He invited me into his room while he searched for the book.
I stood there, holding my bag, my hands slightly sweaty. The room smelled like cologne and something older. Something settled.
He spoke without facing me at first.
"I've always wanted to tell you this," he said, like he was confessing a harmless secret. "I admire your creativity. Your talent."
I nodded.
Then he added words I didn't know what to do with.
"Your beauty. Your innocence."
My body went still. Not fear. Not yet. Just confusion.
He turned toward me, the book in his hand, and stepped closer. I didn't move. I didn't know I was supposed to.
Then he knelt.
The room shrank.
"I love you," he said.
The words didn't sound like love. They sounded heavy. Final. Like something being placed on me without my consent.
I didn't say anything.
I didn't know how.
Silence sat between us, thick and breathing, and for the first time in my life, I felt something crack inside me that I wouldn't understand until much later.
Not everything breaks loudly. Some things break so quietly you keep standing there, pretending you're still whole.