Chapter 9 - The Secrets We Carry
Chapter 9: The Secrets We Carry
ABIX had always been loud.
Their friendship was built on noise—on smashes across the badminton court, overlapping voices at food stalls, group chats full of memes and typos and accidental voice notes at 2AM.
So when things started to go quiet, nobody noticed at first.
It was a rainy Thursday when Aleem skipped a badminton session.
“Bro tired lah,” he texted.
Fair enough. It had been a heavy week. Assignments stacking up like a game of Tetris. He was still juggling final-year project meetings, part-time tutoring gigs, and the constant mental chess match that was Computer Engineering.
But then he missed the next one too.
And the group dinner after that.
And slowly, subtly, the tone in the chat shifted:
[ABIX Chat]
Crystal: Aleem where you hiding sia
Ivan: Ghosted. I call foul.
Isabelle: Should we check in with him?
Crystal: He probably just needs space. Let’s not overwhelm him.
And so they waited.
And waited.
Aleem’s Silence
Behind the silence, Aleem wasn’t okay.
He wasn’t sleeping well. Assignments blurred into deadlines, deadlines into missed emails, and missed emails into guilt. He hadn’t talked to his supervisor in days. Every time he opened his inbox, his chest tightened.
His laptop wallpaper—once a bright, dumb picture of ABIX posing in JB with fried chicken—now felt like a guilt trip.
He knew they’d notice. Knew someone would reach out. But the idea of explaining himself felt… heavy. Like trying to describe fog with a calculator.
It wasn’t a breakdown. It was more subtle. He still went to class. Still submitted things—barely. Still smiled in passing. But inside, he was sinking. Quietly. Unnoticeably.
Until Crystal noticed.
Intervention
“Okay,” she said one afternoon, slamming her bubble tea on the table at North Spine. “I’m tired of this passive ‘give him space’ thing. We’re going to his room.”
Isabelle blinked. “Are you sure he’s okay with that?”
“He didn’t say don’t come.”
“That’s not—”
“Too late, I’ve already texted his housemate.”
Ivan raised a brow. “Wow. Subtlety.”
“I majored in linguistics, not espionage.”
They showed up at his hall with curry puffs, kopi peng, and a shared sense of worry.
Aleem opened the door in a hoodie, eye bags prominent. His room smelled faintly of instant noodles and deadlines.
“Oh,” he said. “You guys—uh—”
“We come bearing snacks,” Crystal said brightly, pushing past him.
Ivan followed, dropping onto the beanbag like it belonged to him. Isabelle lingered at the door.
There was a moment of silence. Then:
“You okay?” Isabelle asked softly.
Aleem hesitated.
Then he cracked.
“I don’t know.”
Unpacking the Fog
It came out in pieces.
How he felt like he was falling behind. How imposter syndrome crept in during lectures and whispered that everyone else was smarter. How the pressure to “have it together” was crushing him quietly.
Crystal sat cross-legged on his bed, hugging a pillow. Ivan didn’t say much—just handed him a curry puff every time he paused.
Isabelle listened. Then spoke.
“You don’t have to carry all that alone. We joke a lot, but if you’re drowning… tell us. We’re your lifebuoy.”
Aleem chuckled weakly. “You guys are a very noisy lifebuoy.”
“Damn right,” Crystal said, throwing a pillow at him.
That night, they stayed until past midnight.
They didn’t solve his problems. They didn’t drop pearls of wisdom or offer five-step plans.
They just sat. Ate. Talked. Stayed.
And sometimes, that’s enough.
The Days That Followed
Aleem slowly started rejoining things—first badminton, then group dinners. Not always talkative. Not always okay. But showing up.
The others adjusted, too.
Crystal stopped spamming the group chat when he went quiet. Ivan started sharing study tips and schedules unprompted. Isabelle kept checking in without making it obvious.
They didn’t need him to be fine.
They just needed him to know: He didn’t have to pretend around them.
Because that’s what ABIX was built for.
Not just the fun.
But the heavy stuff too.