I've lived in this apartment complex for nearly four years now. It's the kind of place where the walls are too thin, the floors creak at night, and people generally mind their own business. You hear arguments through the walls, smell the neighbor's cooking before you even unlock your front door, and every so often, you spot someone whose story you'll never know — someone like the boy next door.
His name is Daniel.
I don't know much about him, but I see him — often enough to know he doesn't see the world the way other kids do. He looks about fourteen or fifteen, thin and pale like someone grown in shadow, not sunlight. His eyes — large, always searching, almost too wise for his age — rarely meet yours. He wears the same pair of scuffed sneakers and carries himself like someone waiting for something to change, without really believing it ever will.
He lives with a couple — his adopted parents, I've come to learn. Mr. and Mrs. Owolabi. They seem decent enough. They water their plants every Saturday. They smile politely in the hallway. But there's a stiffness to them when they walk with Daniel, like they're not sure how to hold onto him — or whether they even can.
Sometimes I watch from my window as he sits alone on the steps of the stairwell, staring at the sky like it owes him an answer. He never plays with the other kids. Doesn't join them on their bikes or in the makeshift football games on the dusty compound. He doesn't seem unhappy exactly… just distant, like his body is here, but his mind — his heart — is somewhere far away.
I remember the first time I heard him speak. It wasn't to me, and it wasn't much. Just a quiet "Thank you" to an old woman who let him through the gate. But there was something in his voice — something soft and tired — that made me stop what I was doing. It wasn't just the words. It was the way they fell from his lips, like they'd had to travel a long way from somewhere deep inside.
I'd sometimes catch glimpses of his room when their curtain fluttered open — books, a lamp, a plain bed. No posters. No toys. Just silence.
The building's security guard once told me, in that casual way people talk when they have no idea what they're really saying, "That boy dey quiet too much. Him like spirit." I didn't say anything, but I knew what he meant.
There's something about Daniel — a stillness, a waiting — that unsettles you. And yet, it pulls you in.
They say children are like mirrors. They reflect what they've been shown. But Daniel's mirror seems cracked — not shattered, no — just broken in places where light doesn't reach. And I find myself wondering, who broke him?
I haven't spoken to him. Not properly, anyway. Just the occasional nod or smile when we pass each other in the hallway. But I've decided something — maybe foolish, maybe hopeful: I'm going to try.
Because no child should be made to feel invisible.
And maybe — just maybe — he's been waiting for someone to see him.