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Hello Assalamulaikum, my lovely readers! ❤️

I hope you're all doing well. I'm so excited to share another beautiful book with you, and I truly hope you all enjoy reading it. 🥹❤️

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Thank you so much for your love and support. I hope you enjoy the story! 🥰📖❤️

       

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The Slim Finest

Hamdah's pov

"They still call me Slim Finest."

I hear it sometimes when I walk past. Sometimes whispered, sometimes loud enough to turn heads. "Slim Finest." Like a title I didn't ask for but was forced to carry.

I hate it.

I love it.

I don't even know anymore.

People have always seen my body before they saw me. I don't blame them—being slim in a society that loves "figure eight" women makes you stand out whether you want to or not. But it's not just that. There's something about being beautiful and quiet that makes people curious.

I've always been the quiet one. Not because I don't have anything to say, but because I never liked to shout over noise. I like silence. It's the only place where I can think clearly. Feel clearly. Be me.

My name is Hamdah.

I'm twenty-four.

A graduate of Public Administration.i live in shiroro Dam 

And I live inside my head more than I live outside of it. 

Not many people know me here, even though we've lived in the same compound for years. I'm not the type you hear before you see. I prefer the quiet. I live in it. I breathe better there.

My two best friends maimuna and Zulai  don't live here anymore. They left after NYSC. Zulai went to Zaria to learn fashion designing, and Maimuna  got married in Minna. We still talk, sometimes, but they don't understand what it's like to be alone in a town that feels too loud for someone like me.

Now, it's just me and my twin brothers, Hassan and Hussaini. They're eighteen, but tall enough to look twenty-three. People always assume they're older than me and that I'm their little sister. Sometimes they even scold them for letting "their baby sister" walk alone. I laugh inside. If only they knew.

I'm the eldest.

But I've always looked like the smallest.

Hassan is the louder one always cracking jokes and talking with his hands. Hussaini is more reserved, but sharp, always reading something or fixing something with wires. They fight like war, love like brothers, and protect me like bodyguards I never hired.

Today was a quiet day. The kind I like. The kind where I don't have to explain why I'm not talking, or why I prefer to sit alone, or why I don't go out much.

I had just finished washing the dishes when I stepped outside to hang the kitchen napkins. The sun was soft, just beginning to drop. Somewhere nearby, children were playing ten-ten, their laughter dancing in the air.

Then I saw him.

Not clearly. Just a glimpse.

Shuraim.

He lived a few houses away. The boy with the confident walk, the lazy smile, and the deep voice that always made people laugh.

He wasn't popular in an arrogant way. It was worse, he was effortlessly liked. The kind of boy that didn't need to try. And maybe that's what made him hard to forget.

I don't think he knows my name.

Sometimes, I catch myself thinking about him. Like today. Like now.

He was walking down the dusty path with a small polythene bag in one hand. Probably from the nearby provision store. He wasn't looking my way, but I felt my heart beat faster anyway.

I quickly looked away and focused on the cloth I was pinning to the line, pretending I hadn't noticed him.

I've liked him for months.

But I've never told a soul.

Not Zulai. Not Maimuna. Not even Mariam from the restaurant.

It's my own little secret.

It's not that I dream of marrying him or walking hand-in-hand through the market. I just like the way I feel when I see him. Quietly alive. Like a story only I can read.

"Hamdah!" Hassan's voice interrupted my thoughts. He appeared from inside the house, shirtless and barefoot, with a towel slung around his neck. "Give me that detergent. I want to wash my white today."

I handed it to him silently, and he nodded, already half-distracted.

"Thanks, baby sis," he teased.

I rolled my eyes. "I'm not your baby sister."

He grinned. "You are, whether you like it or not. You look like you just finished WAEC."

I didn't argue. What was the point?

I went back into the house and sat on the bed, hugging my knees.

They all think I'm too young for anything serious. Too small to feel deep things. But they don't know how loud my heart can be when it falls for someone I've never even spoken to.

I reached for my phone and opened my gallery. There it was. A blurry picture I once took of Shuraim at the masjid compound during Eid, when everyone was greeting each other.

He was smiling in it. That lazy, boyish smile.

I stared at it for a few seconds before locking my phone.

Pathetic, I know.

But somehow, it made me feel a little less lonely.