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Chapter Five: Becoming Her

Author: Crankyswan
last update Huling Na-update: 2025-06-20 00:26:17

College was nothing like I imagined when I was fourteen.

Back then, it felt like a distant dream—like something girls like me didn’t get to have. But here I was, standing on the edge of graduation, scholarship in hand, with job interviews lined up and a world that was, finally, beginning to open.

Four years ago, I arrived on campus with a suitcase full of second-hand clothes and a heart full of doubt. I was quiet, guarded. I didn’t know how to explain where I came from or why I sometimes flinched at loud voices. I just wanted to blend in, to rebuild, to forget.

And maybe I did, for a while.

But forgetting is never really forgetting. It’s just placing memories in quieter corners of your mind.

Now, I walk through this campus like I own it. Not loudly—but with a quiet kind of pride. The kind that comes from knowing what it cost to get here.

Every late-night study session. Every anxiety-fueled exam. Every time I looked in the mirror and whispered, You’re not broken. You’re just healing.

M
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