Chapter 3: Echoes in the Silence

The night after the abortion was impossibly quiet.

Not just around me—but within me.

I lay on my aunt’s guest bed, curled into myself, the blanket pulled up to my chin though I wasn’t cold. The fan turned lazily on the ceiling, humming a rhythm that didn’t match the chaos in my chest. I kept waiting to feel something. Relief. Peace. Closure.

But all I felt was numb.

My body was still sore. My mind, heavier than ever. I had made the choice. I believed it was the right one—for me, for my future. But that didn’t stop the guilt from seeping through the cracks. That didn’t silence the voice in my head asking if I had just erased a part of myself I’d never get back.

The next morning, my aunt brought me tea. She didn’t say much—just placed the tray on the bedside table and sat at the edge of the bed. Her hand rested gently on my ankle, as if that small contact could hold together everything threatening to fall apart inside me.

“You don’t have to talk,” she said softly. “But you also don’t have to carry it alone.”

I nodded. But I couldn’t speak. Not yet.

She gave my foot a gentle squeeze and left the room.

I stared at the tea until it went cold.

Over the next few days, I stayed indoors. Curtains drawn. Phone switched off. It was as though time had paused in that little room. My aunt let me be. She gave me space, but not distance. I could hear her moving through the house—cooking, humming hymns under her breath, answering quiet calls from my mother.

She was shielding me from the world, and maybe from myself, too.

When I finally spoke, it was late in the afternoon. I was sitting at the kitchen table, watching dust swirl in the golden light.

“I don’t feel better,” I said.

My aunt looked up from her cutting board. “I know.”

“I thought I would. But I don’t.”

“You won’t. Not yet.”

I blinked hard, pushing back the tears that stung my eyes. “What if I never do?”

She walked over and sat beside me. “You will. You’ll never forget. But one day, it won’t feel so heavy.”

I wanted to believe her.

My mother called that evening.

Her voice was cautious, like she was afraid I might hang up. “Layla?”

“Yes, ma.”

A pause. “Are you alright?”

I didn’t know how to answer that. But I said, “I’m okay.”

Another pause. Longer this time.

“I’ve been praying for you,” she said quietly. “Every night. I’m so sorry I didn’t see what you were going through.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“It feels like it was.”

I didn’t respond. We sat in silence for a while. But somehow, the silence didn’t feel like a wall anymore. It felt like a thread—fragile, but connecting us all the same.

Before hanging up, she said, “When you’re ready, come home.”

I wasn’t ready. Not yet.

Going home meant facing everything again—my room, my father, the neighbours who always seemed to know too much. It meant pretending to smile when nothing felt okay.

But staying away wasn’t healing me either. I was stuck somewhere between regret and recovery.

One night, I stood in front of the mirror. Not to check my hair or fix my face. I just wanted to see myself—really see the girl I’d become.

I looked the same.

But something was missing.

Innocence, maybe.

Or maybe it was just the version of me I used to know—the girl who still believed love couldn’t lie.

I touched my stomach without meaning to.

Nothing was there now.

But the ache lingered.

The next morning, I told my aunt I wanted to go back to school. Exams were coming. I had missed too much already. I couldn’t afford to fall further behind.

She looked surprised, then proud. “You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“Alright,” she said. “Let’s take it one day at a time.”

And so we did.