I've always known myself to be this quiet girl who people will see and say, "You are so quiet and calm." At this moment, I'd just shy away and pretend like I didn't hear them because that statement always sounded like a surprise to me. Then, when I start talking, they will be like, "Oh, so you can talk like this." Now, blame this part on the people around me who will always bring out my true colors when I'm comfortable around them.
So I'm not here to talk about myself because the topic prompt is very far from what I am: "I ain't quite."
Back in high school. I'm this girl who other students like hanging around with because of my loud nature. And teachers noticed that about me, but then there was this new girl that was transferred to my school and my class, to be precise, her name is Peace.
Peace was a very shy and introverted student. Often, other students would refer to her as the girl with few words. She rarely speaks in class except when being asked questions by teachers, and after that, she goes back into her shell of keeping to herself.
I, on the other hand, had been noticing peace because she looked different from me, or you could say she was the opposite of me. So often, I would find myself going to her desk pretending like I was looking at something, then one day she looked at me and was like.
"What are you looking for?"
"Nothing," I replied, wearing a wide smile on my face.
"Are you sure about that?" Peace asked with curiosity
"I'm sure" I replied
"I noticed you've been parading this place for some days now," Peace said, trying to stand up from her seat.
I didn't know peace can make a job like that with the word parade. Immediately, I wanted to be close to her, but she wasn't the type that really made friends, so it was a little difficult for me to invade her space.
I gave her some time, and at those periods, I would always ensure to speak to her before the day ran till peace and I started exchanging pleasantries on every other day.
One day, Mrs. Thompson came to the class, and before ending her lectures for that day, she paired the class into a group of two, and behold peace, and I was paired together to work on a literature project.
After Mrs Thompson left the class, my whole body began shaking because I hadn't really spoken in front of the whole class before, and this particular project required the team to come out and represent the group.
"Why are you vibrating," Peace asked
"I'm not vibrating," I replied, trying to calm myself down.
"Don't worry, I'll be the one to do the presentation aspect of the project," Peace said.
Knowing peace to be this quiet, deep down, I thought she lacked confidence and couldn't carry out the presentation but the moment she made that statement, I noticed there were more things I didn't know about peace.
Peace and I started working on the project; those moments, we started becoming close, and then I realized she was different. She wasn't who everyone thought she was. Peace made the whole project smooth and easy for me to work on. At those moments, I started wondering why Peace kept her exceptional problem-solving skills to herself and why she was isolating herself from the whole class.
Finally, that fateful day came and it was time for our presentation, peace and I started walking out to the front of the classroom holding our materials in our hands, the moment we stepped out, peace whispered to me and said "It's okay, breath" Immediately I heard that I closed my eyes and opened them again to build my confidence level.
Then peace started the presentation. After a while, the whole class became quiet and was listening to peace as she spoke. When she was done, she pointed to me and said I had something to contribute to everything she had said so far; after hearing those words, I held the material up in my hands, brought it down a bit, and started my part of the presentation. After speaking for a while I noticed my whole became calm like cold water.
When we were done with the presentation, the whole class stood up and started applauding, and then Mrs. Thompson turned to us and was like "You guys did exceptionally well"
"And peace, I didn't know you possessed this level of confidence; right now, I'm speechless; this was a brilliant presentation," Mrs. Thompson continued.
From that day, peace began participating more in class sharing her ideas and insights with me and the whole class. Everyone in the class was really amazed by how clever the peace was. And about our friendship, it grew stronger.
Thanks for reading 🧡