Embraced (#2 Natives series) #ProjectNigeria

Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

           THE SUDDEN, SHARP SOUND OF a bell ringing pulled Fatiha from the trance she had indulged herself. She was seated under a Flamboyant tree not far from the school buildings where her close friend, Basmah worked. Fatiha turned to look at one of the classes with a red paint above the door that read Sss2 A. The bell rang again and the students spilled out of their classes in greens and creams even before their teachers did.

It took a while for Basmah to appear but Fatiha saw her friend, eventually. Clad in her usual work attire: a perfectly ironed black slacks paired with a light gray button down blouse, and a thigh length jacket. Basmah shuffled out of the class looking pissed and ready to claw out someone's eyes.

Knowing the teacher for more than a decade, Fatiha knew she wasn't pissed off at the students. Basmah loved her students, even though she avoided showing it. She was probably furious about something else. Something related to family.

After staring at the irate lady for a while, Fatiha finally pulled out her phone from the crocheted bag at her feet, typed down a text, then sent it to her friend.

From her seat under the tree, Fatiha watched as the very dark skinned lady in her late twenties dug her phone out from her pocket. Fatiha saw her friend's temple furrow as she read the text, then she looked up and give the school grounds a sweep of her eyes, stopping when they landed on her guest.

With a weak wave and a tight-lipped smile, Fatiha called her over. Basmah sighed but came over.

"What are you doing here?" She interrogated the moment she closed the distance between the two of them. She flung her attendance book to the sand littered with red dying petals and plopped herself down next to Fatiha on a sturdy root of the tree with another sigh. This one fatigued.

In all the years that Basmah had started teaching, Fatiha had never known the physics teacher to carry around a lesson note. Basmah was that smart that she had gone to study physics in the university just so she could be a good physics teacher.

Pulling her legs up, Fatiha wrapped her arms around her keens. "Asalamualaikum to you too," she said.

Basmah didn't seem to want to play around with words. She turned to look hard at her friend. "Why are you here?" She asked again.

Fatiha pursed her lips in slight hurt. "Can't a friend just come over to her friend's place of work to say hi?"

Basmah snorted. "If it were Noor asking me that question right now, right here, it would be a different case. But it's you, Fatiha."

"What does that mean?" Fatiha demanded with faux disbelief. She knew exactly what her friend meant.

Nooriya Adam Madaki did the strangest of things, and it wasn't just for her blog or YouTube channel. No. Noor was just like that. Noor was Noor. Dramatic. A ball of charged up energy. Positive energy. It probably was a good thing when one was in the line of business she was into, though.

Fatiha, however, was not. Reserved. Awkward. If it was up to Fatiha, which it wasn't when she had the sort of mother she did, she'd prefer to stay locked up with all that she needed close by. Books, chocolates and some yarns. She was putting herself down, she knew. But with what she had been through, Fatiha knew she had a long way to go before she became the sort of confident woman she wanted to be. The kind of confident women she had as friends.

"It means there's something wrong." Basmah disclosed. "I know Nooriya is around, so why didn't you go to her?"

Using her toes, Fatiha nudged at the sand underneath her feet until the grains coated her big toe. "I just wanted to see you. It's lunch break, let's go eat." It was a lie. She wasn't ready to go to Noor's house because going there meant seeing him. If it was possible, Fatiha wanted to avoid running into Munir as much as she could until he went back to wherever he'd come from.