WHERE THE LOST ARE FOUND: CHAPTER 2

The Weight of Breathing

Before the silence, before the stares and the shame, before Malik and the rumors and the prayers meant to fix me—I was just a child.

I wasn't always afraid of myself.

In fact, there was a time I was... happy.

I was seven when people started calling me "special." Not because I could do something incredible. Not because I was louder or faster or better than the other kids. No—I was called special because I was quiet. Because I obeyed without being told twice. Because I sat still in church and learned memory verses by heart. Because I cried when people prayed hard and raised their voices.

At Sunday school, the teachers used to hold my hand when we walked into the sanctuary, as if I were some little prophet in training. They'd ask me to pray out loud because they said my prayers sounded grown-up. I didn't even understand half the things I was saying—I was just repeating the words I'd heard my mother say. But still, they called me chosen.

At home, my mother would smile when visitors praised me. "He's not like the others," she'd say proudly. "So obedient. He even helps with dishes without being asked."

And that's what I became: the helper, the singer, the "yes, Mum," "yes, Dad," always-smiling boy. The perfect son.

But I wonder now—was that ever really me?

Or was I just learning early how to earn love?

The first time I ever felt different, I was nine. It was subtle. Nothing dramatic. Just a moment—fleeting, quiet, and terrifying.

I remember I was playing with two older boys from the neighborhood, both in upper primary. We were building something with sticks and stones behind one of the unfinished houses down the road. One of them took his shirt off because it was hot. The other did too. And for some reason I didn't understand, my chest tightened.

It wasn't desire. Not yet. It was something else. A kind of curiosity that felt dangerous.

I looked away immediately. But I felt it.

A shift inside me.

Like something had turned on—and I didn't know how to turn it off.

That night, I prayed harder than I'd ever prayed before.

"God, please take this away. I don't want to be like this."

It was the first time I ever cried about something I couldn't name.

The first time I felt shame that didn't belong to anything I had done—just something I had felt.

The years after that became a quiet war inside me.

I doubled down on goodness.

I sang louder in church.

I volunteered to clean the sanctuary.

I made friends with girls—never too close, but just enough to seem normal.

And I watched myself carefully—every glance, every gesture, every word. I learned how to talk like the other boys. I learned how to laugh at the right jokes, even when they hurt me. I learned how to shrink the truth into something no one would suspect.

That's how the mask formed.

It didn't happen all at once. It built itself slowly—like a second skin.

By the time I got to Form One, I was the golden boy everyone wanted me to be. I was disciplined. I was composed. I even led morning prayers at school when the teacher on duty asked. People trusted me.

But I couldn't trust myself.

Because every time I got too comfortable, too close, too curious... the shame came roaring back.

Every time a boy brushed past me and my stomach fluttered, I felt like a fraud in my own skin.

Every time I imagined someone finding out, I could almost hear the sermons already forming: "That spirit must be cast out."

So, I buried it.

And buried it.

And buried it again.

Until the night when Malik dug it all up...

There was a boy.

His name was Eli.

He came into my life like a breeze—soft, unannounced, and gone too soon.

We were both ten. He had just moved to our neighborhood from Nakuru. His family lived in the two-storey flats with the broken satellite dish on the roof. The first time I saw him, he was standing outside their gate, licking a mango like it was a secret. He had a scar across his eyebrow, the kind that made him look brave, even though he was shorter than me.

He looked at me once. Just once.

And smiled.

That was it.

That smile—easy, wide, careless. It sat somewhere deep inside me for days. I didn't understand it, not really. All I knew was that something about it made the world quieter.

We became friends quickly. After school, we'd sit under the tree by the corner shop, scraping sticks into the dirt, inventing names for birds, counting cars, laughing at nothing. He liked to talk about animals—snakes, mostly. I liked to listen.

He was the first boy I was ever completely unguarded around.

With Eli, I didn't worry about how I sat, or how I spoke, or whether I looked "right." I forgot to pretend. And in those afternoons, something strange happened—I felt like me.

Not the golden boy. Not the choir child. Just Noah. Just a boy.

But sweetness never lasts, does it?

One afternoon, we were playing with bottle tops when he leaned back against the wall, looked at me, and said, "Do you think people stay friends forever?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe."

He looked at me for a while—longer than usual. His eyes were soft in that way that makes you hold your breath. "I think I'd like to," he said.

I didn't answer. My hands were shaking, and I didn't know why.

He smiled again, stood up, and dusted his shorts. "My mum says we might move again. Maybe even next month."

And just like that, the breeze turned.

I didn't sleep that night. I couldn't. Something was breaking open in me—something I didn't have words for yet. I thought about Eli's smile, and it made my chest feel warm and sick at the same time. I felt like I was betraying something sacred. But I didn't even know what.

The next day, I avoided him.

And the day after that.

He called my name as I crossed the field. I pretended not to hear.

He knocked once on our gate. I watched from the curtain and didn't move.

The silence between us grew until one day, he was gone.

No goodbye. No warning. Just... gone.

I told myself I was doing the right thing. That God had helped me escape something sinful. But the truth?

I missed him. Badly.

For weeks after he left, I would walk past his empty flat and hope to hear his laugh again. I would pick up sticks like we used to and draw in the dirt, alone. I would write his name in the corners of my notebooks, then scribble it out before anyone could see.

That was the first time I understood that I could love someone in a way I wasn't supposed to.

And also, the first time I learned how to lose them without a sound.

That memory stayed buried for years.

Until Malik.

Until the headmaster's office.

Until my mother's silence and the chaplain's prayers.

And now, lying here, in this room that feels smaller every day, I realize something:

I never got to say goodbye to Eli.

Just like no one said goodbye to me...

I don't know what time it is.
Maybe two. Maybe three.
The ceiling above me is just darkness now—thicker than before, pressing down like a heavy blanket I can't throw off. My room is quiet except for the soft hum of the fridge outside and the occasional creak from the wind against my window frame. But inside me?
It's loud.

The silence doesn't soothe me anymore. It scratches. Echoes. Repeats the same sentence again and again:
You left him.

I hadn't thought of Eli in years. Not really. Not like this. But tonight, out of nowhere, the memory of him came back like a ghost—so soft and clear, it felt like he'd been sitting in this room with me all along.

Maybe that's what guilt is. Not a monster hiding in the dark, but a memory you didn't give a proper goodbye. A name you scratched out too soon. A smile that returns when everything else has been taken.

I didn't even do anything with Eli. Nothing ever happened. But what we shared—the way I felt when I was near him—it cracked something in me that never really healed.

Now I lie here in a bed that no longer feels mine, in a house where people speak in hushed tones, praying for deliverance, hoping their son will "come back to himself."
They don't understand.
They never saw me leave.

My mother thinks I sleep too much. She doesn't realize that sleep is the only place where I still feel free. She wakes me early now, even when there's nothing to do. Hands me books. Scriptures. Tells me to read them aloud so "the Word will fill the air."

I do as she says.
Because saying no takes energy I don't have anymore.

Today, she left a new devotional on my bed. One with a blue cover and gold lettering. Finding Your True Self in Christ.

The irony almost made me laugh.

I flipped it open, let the pages fall randomly. Somewhere in the middle, a sentence caught my eye:
"When the prodigal son returned, the father ran to him with open arms. Not because of who he had been, but because of who he still was."

I closed the book.
And just sat there.

If only it were that simple. If only someone would run to me. Not with oil and scripture and prayers to cast things out—but with arms. Real ones. With warmth. With forgiveness. With the willingness to listen before fixing.

But maybe that's asking for too much.

Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever go back to school.
Not because I want to—but because it was the only place where I could pretend to be normal. I hated it, but at least I knew the script: say your lines, smile in the hallway, avoid eye contact in the dorm, get through the day.

Here at home, the pretending is harder.
Here, there are no crowds to hide in. No noise to blur the silence. No bells to mark the end of a class, or the start of a meal, or the shift from one version of myself to the next.

Here, I'm just Noah.
And I don't know what that even means anymore.

This evening, my father called me outside.

It was the first time he'd spoken directly to me in over a week.

He stood on the veranda, arms crossed, staring into the orange-pink sky. He didn't ask me to sit. Just nodded toward the plastic chair beside him. I sat without saying a word.

There was a long pause.

Then he said, "You know what you did was wrong."

Not a question. A declaration.

I nodded. What else could I do?

Another pause. Longer this time.

He sighed. "You've brought shame to this family."

The words didn't sting like I expected. I think I'd already said worse things to myself.

Still, I looked at him. For the first time, I looked at his face—at the lines around his eyes, at the mouth that used to smile at me during Sunday service, the voice that once called me my boy.

That man was gone now.

In his place stood a stranger who carried my name like a burden.

"Dad..." I said, before I could stop myself. "Do you think God still loves me?"

He turned sharply.

His face didn't twist in anger. It didn't soften either.

He just stared. Then said, "God loves you. But He hates sin."

I looked down at my hands.

I wanted to ask, What if the sin is the only part of me I didn't choose?

But I didn't. I just nodded again. The moment had already closed.

Later, back in my room, I wrote down three words in the corner of my journal:
Still. Here. Hurting.

Not for attention. Not even for God. Just for me.

A reminder that even in the wreckage, I hadn't disappeared.

I was still here.
Hurting.
Still.
Here.

And sometimes... maybe that's enough.

The day after my father spoke to me, something inside me began to pulse.

It wasn't anger. Not the kind that explodes. No, this was quieter. Thicker. Slower.

Like heat rising from coals that never quite died.

Maybe I had spent so much time apologizing for being alive that I had forgotten what it felt like to resist. To not fold. To not play dead.

That morning, as I sat at the table eating porridge in silence, I caught my reflection in the window: thin, tired, a shadow of a boy I used to know. My hands were trembling, and for once, I didn't hide them.

Let them see, I thought.
Let them feel the mess they made.

That afternoon, while no one was home, I found myself pulling open my bottom drawer—the one where I kept old books, photos, things my mother never looked through anymore.

At the very bottom, under a pile of hymn booklets and old school reports, I found it.

My music journal.

A blue-covered notebook with a few torn pages, some song lyrics I had scribbled in Form One, and one unfinished melody titled "Half of Me."

I stared at it for a long time.

Then I picked up my pen and, with hands still shaking, I wrote:

"I used to be golden—
Polished and prayed for.
But no one ever asked
If I was made of fire."

It wasn't perfect. It wasn't even finished.

But it was mine.

That evening, I sat on my bed, notebook on my lap, lips moving silently through the lines I'd written. And then, like muscle memory, I hummed the melody. Low. Barely audible. But enough.

The air shifted.
The walls leaned in.

And just as I let the last note float into the room, I heard the door creak.

I froze.

It was Zoe—my sister. She must've come in without me hearing. She stood in the doorway, half-hidden by the curtain, her head tilted slightly.

"You're singing again," she said softly.

I opened my mouth, ready to deny it. But something stopped me.

I looked at her. She wasn't angry. She wasn't afraid. She just looked... curious. And a little sad.

"I thought you didn't talk to me anymore," I whispered.

"I didn't know what to say," she answered.

Silence again. But not the heavy kind this time. This one felt like possibility.

She walked in slowly and sat on the edge of my bed.

"What's it about?" she asked, nodding toward the notebook.

I hesitated. Then shrugged. "About being... cut in half. And still breathing."

Zoe nodded, as if that made perfect sense.

She didn't preach. She didn't quote scripture. She just sat there, next to me, her feet not even touching the floor.

And for the first time in weeks, I didn't feel completely alone.

Later that night, I wrote another verse.

"You can't pray out what you never cast in,
I didn't choose the flame—I just lived in the sin.
But even sinners deserve a sunrise."

I read it over and over.

Even sinners deserve a sunrise.

And that's when I felt it.

The fire.

Not rage. Not rebellion.

But a small, stubborn heat that whispered:

"You are not finished."

The next morning, I did something dangerous.

I sang in the shower.

Softly. Barely. But I let the melody rise like steam. I didn't care who heard. Not today.

Not when I finally felt the burn of my own voice again.

And somewhere, beneath the ash and silence, I could almost hear a whisper:

This is just the beginning.