Tuesday was, quite possibly, Zafira's least favorite day of the week. It was the night that she forced Noor to study for speech and debate with her - meaning a night full of complaining, griping, and off-key warbling that would only cease when Noor was given a honey stick and would resume the instant she was finished. Often, Noor arrived at their dorm room on Tuesday nights with the unmistakable smell of alcohol on her breath. She insisted several times that it was only cider, before refusing to comment on it ever again. Zafira, for her part, was never in a good mood on Tuesdays. She had a useless class on Tuesdays for mythology that her mother had insisted she sign up for. Zafira was not much of a fan of mythology. Sure, she could be caught occasionally reading a tropey teenage love story. Sure, she had her guilty pleasures of reading fanfiction. But never would she read mythology of her own free will.
Noor, on the other hand, adored mythology. She loved all types of it, and was very proud of her vast knowledge. She was in Zafira's mythology class, and she made it into a living hell. It would've been torture enough to sit through a dull, hour long lecture on Roman gods, but Noor had to interrupt every few seconds with some bizarre fact that would take the lecturer off on a tangent about trees in Ireland or a river in South America. It was awful. And it was even more awful when Noor's puppy-dog follower, Worm, joined the class, too.
Zafira had begun privately calling the boy "Worm" when she had first seen Noor and Worm together. Of course, by now she had forgotten his actual name, and had really no choice but to refer to him as the slimy creature that was his namesake. Worm was pinkish and thin, with skin that perpetually was covered in a thin sheen of sweat. (Thus the name.) And worst of all, he was head over heels in love with Noor. He wasn't bad looking, really, Zafira was just picking out his flaws and his faults in the pessimistic way that she always did. And if she was looking deeper for flaws in Worm than she did in the average person, then that was only because she hated Noor and didn't believe that Noor could snag someone, well, normal.
Noor shouted something about the erasure of some romance in Greek mythology now, shocking Zafira back to reality. She had begun to snooze off. Worm watched Noor with a mix of eagerness and admiration in his watery blue eyes. Zafira made a face. Yuck. Noor turned to him when she was done with her tirade and gave a glorious smile. Zafira felt a scowl rise to her lips. Noor's reciprocation of Worm's infatuation had to be even yuckier.
Her next period was study hall, and she spent it wishing that she had noise cancelling headphones to block out Noor's incessant stream of chatter and Worm's one-word replies. Someone slid into the seat beside her, and she looked up to see Vincent.
"You look stressed. Have a cookie," Vincent said, opening the box he had brought with him and offering Zafira one.
Zafira could feel Noor's gaze on her. It sent a prickly feeling up her spine. "I'm not a fan of snickerdoodles," Zafira told Vincent.
"You ungrateful brat," Noor exclaimed, leaning across the table and snatching the cookie from Vincent's hand. She shoved it into her mouth whole, pale crumbs falling to dot the front of her dark green sweater. Noor mumbled something incoherent around the cookie.
"What?" Zafira asked.
"I said," Noor replied, swallowing, "this cookie is great and you're crazy."
"Ditto," Vincent said, popping half a cookie into his mouth too. Zafira rolled her eyes.
---
snickerdoodles are amazing
while i have fallen into romantic love with zafira, we disagree on almost all opinions relating to food
YOU ARE READING
Noor & Zafira
Romance[gxg] Noor hates Zafira, and Zafira hates Noor; They're content to keep it that way. But there's a fine line between hate and love, and when a speech-and-debate competition thrusts them into a world of late-night donut runs and studying to Noor's ba...
