Don't Remind Me

Chapter 9: The Closed Door

"Fall semester draws to an end, and students are resembling chickens with their heads cut off....and on fire, juggling spiked eggs with maimed claws. Assignments, reports and business surveys that they should have done approximately two months ago, are coming back to haunt them. Nadeem Bhai (resident photocopier) is currently making enough cash to put his kids through Harvard. And have money left over for a golf course ownership..."--Nitty Gritty (Issue 654, December '14)  

A B-minus.

A freaking B-minus.

I blinked again and again at my phone screen. This is impossible. I refresh the ERP screen to check out my Term Report marks for management.

12/20.

Damnation!

I angrily bit on my tongue, to keep from crying. My term report on Phillip Morris was a graduate-level analysis. Professor Ghani was reportedly an easy-grader, so it didn't make any sense, that he was screwing up my CGPA for no reason.

I was quiet and upset during our usual break-time hangout at the campus cricket ground.

Yes. I said Our Hangout, because, I have a crew now. A group of friends. Of actual human beings. It used to be bigger, but it seems that during university, groups of friends usually dwindle down to select few. Mine includes, Shay, Daniyal, Syra, and Priha. We are often joined by Azaan, Asadomer (Read: Asad AND Omer-They are so inseparable, that we're used to picturing/calling them as one unit). Faris rarely makes an appearance.

Today, nobody comments on my silence, because most everyone has some sort of deadline they were supposed to meet weeks ago. Shay is feverishly copying out a Math assignment. Azaan and Daniyal are armed with open laptops and calculators. Asadomer are quizzing each other for a French course. Syra is begging us to participate in a five-hour focus group about "Microwave Users". 

"Daniyaaal! You have to do this for me! We're going out for God's sake! I'm doing something Haraam because of you. The least you could do is sit during this!" She looks sleep-deprived without her customary slash of eye-liner.

"Nope. Let's break up instead." Daniyal says from behind his laptop, frowning at his techie stuff, headphones hanging from his neck.

"Dick." She mutters back, eyeing me hopefully. "Layla...Remember I gave you a certain feminine product the other day, because you were out of them, and it was your time of the month?"

I blushed to my hair roots at that, when Azaan started choking on some MnMs he had stolen from Pareeshae's bag. 

"I hate you. And NO I WON'T SIT FOR FIVE HOURS AND TALK ABOUT MY BLEEPING MICROWAVE!"

Azaan was still howling with laughter and rolling around in the grass. "That's...*snort* that's why you nearly bit my head off when I asked to share your KitKat last week?" He wheezed to me.

"No. I will always bite your head off when it concerns chocolate."

Just then, I received a text from The Real Khizer Butt AKA Ghani's Teaching Assistant. 'Those of you who have issues with Term report marks can seek individual consulting time with Professor Ghani. At time XX...'

"Hey, will you meet Ghani soon?" I worriedly ask Shay. She shakes her head, shooting me a puzzled look over her notebook.

"Why would I meet him? I got decent grades."

I tried not to feel jealous when she told me her grades. She was rocking a B-plus, which I'm sure, she could bump up to an A-minus, after the final grades. Not being a bitch or anything, but if Pareeshae could wrestle a B-plus, then I sure as heck deserved an A on my report.