True
5252;
Score | 9
Nimmat Nigeria
Writer. @ University of Abuja
In Literature, Writing and Blogging 3 min read
Life Of Salma Muhammad
<p><br/></p><h4 style="text-align: center;">Episode Two: sweet sweet Jennifer</h4><p><br/></p><p>Dear Diary,<br/></p><p>After everything I wrote in Episode One, I kept thinking about how weird it is that life just keeps moving no matter what’s going on inside you.</p><p>Like, nothing pauses for you. Nothing waits.</p><p>Anyway, this is Episode Two.</p><p>School in my senior year wasn’t anything special. It was just noise, people, and routines I followed because I had to, not because I wanted to.</p><p>That was also when I got my phone.</p><p>That sounds small, but it changed a lot.</p><p>That was how I met the internet properly. Not the filtered version adults talk about, but the real one—messy, endless, and kind of addictive in a way I didn’t expect.</p><p>At first, I wasn’t even that interested. I still preferred staying in my head or watching cartoons and Indian movies when I could. That felt safer. Predictable.</p><p>But then I started reading more online.</p><p>Not the small stuff I used to read when I was younger, like Wimpy Kid or Dork Diaries. I’m talking about long romance novels—hundreds and hundreds of chapters.</p><p>And I got addicted fast.</p><p>I would read until my eyes hurt. Then I’d rest, and start another one immediately after. It was like I couldn’t stop myself even when I wanted to.</p><p>Somewhere in that cycle, my head started building its own stories too. Not just reading anymore—imagining. Adding things. Changing endings. Creating people that didn’t exist.</p><p>That’s when I started writing properly.</p><p>I wrote a lot. Over ten books if I’m honest. Two of them were actually finished. People read them and said they were good, which confused me more than anything.</p><p>Because I didn’t really think I knew what I was doing.</p><p>But I liked it.</p><p>And for a while, it felt like I had something that was mine.</p><p>Then there was Jennifer.</p><p>Jennifer was in my class. She wasn’t loud or dramatic or anything like that. She was just… there. The kind of person people naturally noticed without trying.</p><p>I don’t even know when I started liking her. It wasn’t a big moment. It just slowly happened.</p><p>She used to talk to me sometimes. Small conversations. Nothing deep. But for some reason, I remembered everything she said.</p><p>The way she said my name. The way she laughed at things that weren’t even that funny. The way she acted like I was normal.</p><p>I think that was the part that stayed with me the most.</p><p>Because I never really felt normal around people.</p><p>With Jennifer, I almost did.</p><p>Almost.</p><p>But I never told her anything. Not how I felt. Not how my head works. Not anything real.</p><p>I just stayed quiet and acted like I was fine.</p><p>That’s what I usually do anyway.</p><p>There were also the hospital days.</p><p>I didn’t really talk about that part before, but it’s a big part of my life.</p><p>I’ve spent a lot of time around hospitals and medication, not because I wanted to, but because I have a health condition. It comes with pain episodes sometimes, and those days are… complicated.</p><p>People think hospitals are just scary or boring. For me, it was both. But also familiar.</p><p>There was one medication they gave me during those episodes that made everything feel distant. Like my body wasn’t as heavy as usual. I can’t even explain it properly without it sounding weird, so I won’t try to romanticise it.</p><p>But I will say this: I didn’t like the pain. Nobody would.</p><p>The relief afterwards just made everything feel different by comparison.</p><p>That’s all.</p><p>Most of the time, I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel about my life.</p><p>Sometimes I think I’m just someone trying to understand herself after the fact.</p><p>Other times I think I already know, I just don’t like the answer.</p><p>Jennifer doesn’t know any of this.</p><p>No one really does.</p><p><br/></p>

More from this series
More insights from Nimmat

Referral Earning

Points-to-Coupons


Insights for you.
What is TwoCents? ×