If there's one thing, I'm good at, it's being loud.
My voice bounces off the walls of the campus quad, joining the chorus of chants, megaphones, and poorly tuned guitars. I'm standing on a bench, one sneaker on the wood, one on the metal rail, phone in one hand and a cardboard sign in the other.
"Tuition hikes are theft!" I yell, and the crowd screams it back like it's a chorus to their favorite song.
The winter air bites my cheeks, but the adrenaline is better than any heater. I can feel it: that fizz in my blood, that rush that comes when you know you're being heard, or at least noticed.
A notification pops on my phone as I record a quick story, my face flushed and grinning.
@ariacollins
This is what democracy looks like 💥✊ #CampusProtest #LoudAndProud
I fling my braids over my shoulder, adding a little spin for the camera before hopping down. I should probably be in class. Instead, I'm holding a sign drawn at 2 a.m. with a half-dried marker and too much caffeine.
"Aria! You're gonna lose your scholarship if you keep cutting classes!" my best friend Zara shouts over the noise, shivering in her denim jacket.
I link arms with her. "Don't worry. I'll charm the dean with my big innocent eyes."
"You don't have innocent anything," she mutters, but she's smiling.
She's right, though. I'm not here because I've read every legal clause or policy proposal. I'm here because when people chant, when cars honk in solidarity, when someone hands me a megaphone and tells me to speak… it feels like plugging my soul into a socket.
And I like it.
That day is the first of many protests. Tuition hikes, climate marches, anti-corruption rallies—if there's a crowd, a chant, and a hashtag, I'm probably there.
I tell myself it's for justice. For change. For being on the right side of history.
But deep down, I know there's another reason too.
I love the chaos.
I love the way my heart slams in my chest when we block a street, the way my wrists tingle when we link arms, the way my voice goes hoarse from yelling over police sirens.
First year in college, major in cyber security and AI intelligence. I had no intention of making myself the address for attention when I first joined but I was always a fireball. A lose canon. I had this connection to loud noises and the reverberations it results in my veins.
As long as I remember I loved to sing on the top of my lungs in my room, blasting music on full volume. Attending fests and carnivals where you can be anything you want. That's my kind of life. I'm not a party freak or an addict. I'm just addicted to the adrenalin it produces and that makes me feel alive. In a fun and happy way.
My first protest was at the premises of our Uni. Our seniors were protesting against the detention of a student who went off the rails while bullying a fellow student. Who committed suicide but fortunately survived. They were demanding for strict rules and anti-bullying conduct inside the campus. I was dragged by some unknown person into the crowd accidently but I participated. It ended rather disappointedly but I loved being a part of something big and being heard.
If they don't want to hear our problems then we'll scream so loud, you cannot escape it if you tried.
And my followers on Insta proves me right and validated every post at a time.
Sometimes, these rallies go so wrong, some asshole decides to attend drunk and step a line or the topic is too silly, too political or meant for the chaos.
But hey it is not just my life okay. My mother is a nurse in ER and my father, well they got divorced when I was in school and he now lives with his family. I don't know what we are. Family? But he calls them his family. So, I guess, me and my mom is my family. He is just the person who contributed to bring me on to the Earth. But we meet sometimes, he enquires about my studies and encourages me to do what I dream.
I don't hate him intentionally or targeted but watching someone else receiving the love and warmth I was supposed to deserve, it didn't leave a great place for him in my life either.
We don't get everything we dream in life, I suppose. Perhaps, that's one of the reasons I chose this path for my life. I wanted to protest when they decided to separate ways, explain them it was hurting me, scream at them for taking this ridiculous decision without any concern about me but I was too little and had no knowledge about how to express my opinions. Now that I'm educated enough and gained enough knowledge, I'm putting it into work.
I understand it now anyway, why they wanted to leave each other, why two people want to cut all ties and become a familiar-strangers, who once couldn't live without each other. So, I don't pry their personal decisions and respect their choices.
It's too late to fight for what I wanted but not for the things that are happening around me.
And I have no idea that, a year from now, that same love for chaos will put a target on my back.
Or that it will lead me straight to him.