Tiana began to notice the silence differently.
It was no longer just Joshua's absence—it was the way his presence felt incomplete, borrowed, as though pieces of him existed elsewhere. His phone never rested in one place. It followed him everywhere, even into the bathroom, even into sleep. And when it rang, his voice changed.
"She's just a course mate," he said easily one afternoon when she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
"We're talking about notes. You won't understand until you enter school."
The words stung more than she expected.
She nodded anyway.
Joshua invited her over more often now. His hands were familiar, confident, greedy. He touched her like ownership, like proof. And she allowed it, mistaking desire for affection, mistaking attraction for love.
When he held her close afterward, she searched his face for tenderness. She looked for reassurance in the quiet moments, for something that said this means more. But his eyes were distant, his attention already drifting back to the phone.
Sometimes, when she was alone, she replayed conversations in her mind. His excuses sounded rehearsed. His sweetness came on command. And yet, when doubt tried to rise, she crushed it.
Love does not accuse, she reminded herself.
Love waits.
Still, the world kept whispering.
Pictures appeared online—blurry, suggestive, easily dismissed if you wanted to dismiss them. When she asked, Joshua laughed.
"You trust strangers over me now?" he said.
"Don't let people poison what we have."
And she apologized.
That was the moment she almost found out.
She stood at the edge of truth, staring into it, afraid of what it would demand of her. Afraid that seeing clearly would mean leaving. And leaving meant admitting she had been wrong.
So she chose blindness again.
She told herself love was endurance. That sacrifice was proof. That staying made her strong.
But somewhere beneath the lies she repeated, a quiet voice whispered:
This is not love.
And that voice refused to disappear.