The Shape of Silence

A novel of restraint, reputation, and the quiet battles of the heart.

In the sprawling halls and hushed gardens of the largest university in northern Nigeria, final-year engineering student Muhammad isn't looking for love-until one ordinary evening, a quiet glance from a girl in a green veil rearranges everything he thought he knew about connection.

Asiya, a reserved biochemistry student, isn't interested in relationships. She's been betrayed before-and she's learned that silence is often safer than trust. But when Muhammad starts appearing in her world-measured, calm, and unlike any boy she's known-something begins to stir that she never expected.

Caught in the margins of this unfolding closeness is Mairo, Asiya's former schoolmate and Muhammad's unintended distraction, whose quiet hope curdles into something sharp when she realizes she's no longer part of the story she thought she was writing.

What follows is not a love triangle. It's a story of misunderstandings and unspoken truths. Of emotional debts. Of what we owe to the people we never meant to hurt-and what happens when we finally stop mistaking restraint for protection.

In a world of whispered reputations, ghosted feelings, and unseen consequences, can honesty come too late-or just in time?