Aeipathy ➳ Normani ✓

three

C H A P T E R T H R E E
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An entire week passed and on Friday, Normani had just exited the apartment -- on her way to skit down the stairs to catch the bus that passed by campus on time -- when she heard Anika calling her from the front door. Normani spun on her heels and faced her best friend.

"You forgot this." Anika gestured to the battered white iPhone 5s dangling between her fingers.

"Wow." Normani whispered to herself. "I'm such a ditz sometimes."

"You said it babe, not me." Anika replied with a cheeky smile.

"Thanks, Nika." Normani said gratefully and took her weathered phone in her hand. She really needed a new phone but she hadn't quite put aside enough money to get one yet. She was adamant on buying her own phone -- rather than her parents doing it for her.

"Remember, I'm going out tonight so don't wait up on me." Normani reminded her.

"Ahh yes, you're meeting your new boo thang." Anika said with the same cheeky smile that she'd been sporting for the past minute.

Normani felt a smile plant itself against her lips and she couldn't contain it as it spread.

"Look -- you're even blushing awwww!" Anika cooed and pinched Normani's cheeks

"Shut up." Normani said and slapped her hands off of her face. "I gotta go."

"Text me, okay?" Anika said.

"I will."

"Okay, love you."

"Love you too Nika."

Keith had asked Normani out on a date and she was set to meet him after dance practice. Keith had said that the restaurant he was taking her to was a bit more on the 'upperscale' side of grandiose and therefore they'd have to dress to the nines. Normani was a little nervous but she was mostly excited at the prospect of meeting up with Keith again. They'd been texting back and forth for the past week and every time his name popped up on her notifications, her stomach filled with butterflies. Keith was funny and sweet in his texts to her and she often looked forward to the end of the day, where she'd come home from classes and he'd be home from work and they'd get a chance to communicate without the obligations and responsibities of the day demanding their attention.

Normani planned to take a cab back to their apartment and take a quick shower and get ready for her date after dance practice. Keith was going to pick her up at 19:30 and she planned to be home from dance by 18:30. Anika had a night class and would only be home after Normani had gone on her date.

It was difficult to focus on her classes that day because she kept on thinking to the evening that lay ahead. Classes passed by in a blur and before she knew it, she was on her way to her dance class, hosted in the private studio she was a member of. It was a subway ride away from campus, on 36th street in Midtown Manhattan. Monica's School of Dance was a black-owned dance studio that boasted the status of being one of the best hip-hop intensive studios in the tristate area. Normani had been dancing there for a year and she loved every moment of it. Her specialty was hip hop but she also did lyrical. The studio also offered ballet lessons but Normani wasn't fond of the art form.