Chapter Two: Truth Doesn’t Wait Forever

A few weeks later, the illusion I had so carefully built began to crack.

It was the festive season—a time that should’ve been filled with laughter, preparation, and joy. My mother and I were headed to the market, arms linked, shopping bags swinging. We had a long list of items for the celebrations ahead. Meat, rice, spices, drinks, gifts. Hosting guests during the holidays was tradition, and the market was bustling with noise, color, and people bartering with loud voices.

One minute, I was beside her at a stall, helping to choose fresh tomatoes.

The next, the world spun violently—and everything went dark.

I collapsed.

I heard her voice before I saw her face—frantic, desperate.

“Please! Somebody help! My daughter—she's not breathing!”

When I came to, I was lying on the market floor, my head cradled in her lap. Her eyes were wet, her composure shattered.

“Why didn’t you eat before we left the house?” she cried, brushing the hair from my face, her voice quivering. “You know you have ulcer—why would you do this to yourself?”

I wanted to answer. But I couldn’t. I was too weak. Too shocked. A strange fever surged through me, like my body had finally given up its battle to keep pretending.

She didn’t waste another moment. She rushed me to the hospital.

The doctor ran tests. Bloodwork. Questions I barely remember. I was shivering under the fluorescent lights, a thin blanket pulled up to my chin. I avoided my mother’s gaze the whole time.

Hours later, the doctor returned with a file in his hand, his expression unreadable.

He glanced at me, then at my mother.

“Madam, may I speak to you privately?”

But my mother insisted, “Say it here.”

The doctor sighed. He looked down, then back up.

“She’s pregnant.”

The silence that followed was louder than any scream.

My mother’s face froze.

She stared at me like she didn’t recognize the girl lying in that hospital bed. Her hand went to her mouth. Her body trembled.

“No…” she whispered. “No, that can’t be right. She’s just a girl…”

I closed my eyes. I wanted the bed to swallow me whole. I wanted to disappear from her disappointment, her shock, her heartbreak. From the truth.

The lie I had fought so hard to hold together had unraveled in one moment. And everything—everything—came crashing down.

I had never seen my mother this dejected and disappointed. After the doctor spoke those words—she’s pregnant—her entire face crumbled. It was like something inside her gave up. She didn’t shout. She didn’t question him.

She just looked at me with the kind of sorrow that begged for this to be a mistake. Her eyes were pleading, like she needed someone to wake her up from the worst kind of dream.

But it wasn’t a dream.

This was real. I was fourteen. Pregnant. And every hope she had ever spoken over my life—university, scholarships, becoming the first girl in our family to travel abroad—felt dashed. I had no partner, no future I could see clearly, and no words to defend myself.

She had so many questions. I saw them all over her face—How did this happen? When? Where? Why? But the words couldn’t come. She just stood there in silence, her mind racing, her body still. I think part of her wanted to disappear.

And a bigger part of her wanted me to disappear too, just for a moment, so she could breathe without this shame clinging to her skin.

Then she sighed.

A long, tired sigh that sounded like defeat.

“Let’s go home,” she said quietly. “We’ll find a way to get you out of this mess.”

At home, she didn’t even sit down. She dropped her handbag on the table, pulled off her headscarf, and turned to me with swollen eyes.

“Layla,” she said, her voice trembling. “What happened?”

The tears came before the words did. My mouth opened, but only gasps and sobs came out. I dropped to the floor and knelt in front of her like a child begging not to be punished. And in scattered, broken pieces, I told her everything.

The first time. The messages. The confusion. The fear. The silence. How I tried to keep it in. How I hated myself every single day for letting it happen. How I thought it would go away. How I just wanted it all to stop.

She cried. Loud and uncontrollably. She screamed like someone had stolen her child. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked over and over again. “Why didn’t you trust me?”

“I wanted to,” I choked out. “But I couldn’t. I felt so ashamed. I didn’t know how to look you in the eye.”

She sat on the edge of the chair, rocking slightly, the way she did when overwhelmed. Then she grabbed her phone and called my aunt.

“You have to come,” she said, barely holding herself together. “Now. She can’t stay here.”

It wasn’t out of hatred. It was fear. Fear that my father would find out too soon. That he would explode. That the house would become a battlefield.

Before I could even process what was happening, a bag was packed and waiting at the door. My mother didn’t say much, just kissed my forehead and told me, “You’re going to your aunt’s. I need time to think. And your father… he must not find out. Not yet.”

My aunt's house felt like a world away. No noise. No tension. Just silence and second-hand furniture. She offered me a drink I didn’t want, and then sat me down.

“Layla, what do you want to do?” she asked.

The answer came without thinking. “I can’t keep it. I can’t have this baby. I don’t want to carry this memory for the rest of my life.”

She didn’t judge me. She didn’t argue. She simply nodded and picked up her phone.

“She’s made her decision,” she told my mom. “She says she can’t keep it. She’s thinking about her future. And honestly, it’s probably the best thing.”

There was a long pause.

“Yes, we’ll keep it from him. You know what this would do to him. If this goes public, those boys will be charged. But what about Layla? The shame, the stares, the whispers… it won’t go away.”

That night, we went to a clinic tucked between old buildings, where no one asked too many questions. The lights were dim. The walls were peeling. The nurse barely looked at me.

I lay on a narrow bed, clutching my aunt’s scarf.

In a twinkle of an eye, it was over.

A chapter of my life ended that night. Quietly.

Without drama. Without a single word said on the drive home.

But the silence afterward was heavier than anything I had ever known.

I thought that by erasing what had happened, I could forget it. That I could step back into my life and pretend nothing had changed.

But life doesn’t work that way.

Some things stay with you—even after they’re gone.