HAZE

CHAPTER 12

LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP

The squad was in the café celebrating Nana's reunion with the real world. They all had coffee in their hand, and everyone was focused on Rick, who had turned to face the window. The window was ajar, and it looked like he was listening to the rain as it continued to drip with a muffled softness. Amara walked in as Rick was speaking. She was late as she had extended her stay in school, trying to finalize her group project. The urge to go home had been strong, but the idea of the distraction from her friends was too appealing.

"Politeness. Now that is a poor man's virtue if ever there was one." Rick said.

"How?" Nana asked

"What is so admirable about inoffensiveness, I should like to know. After all, it is easily achieved. One needs no particular talent to be polite. On the contrary, being nice is what's left when you have failed at everything else. People with ambition don't give a damn what other people think about them. I hardly suppose Elon Musk or Bill Gates have lost sleep worrying whether they'd hurt someone's feelings."

"You know they say people whose lives are not balanced by a healthy love of money suffer an obsession with personal integrity, but you, my friend, suffer from both but in reverse," Amara said with evident disgust in her tone.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Rick asked while turning to face her eye to eye.

"It is supposed to mean you are a rich brat with no idea what personal integrity is. Engulfed in a web of high sense of self-justification." She said while maintaining eye contact.

"Are you accusing me of something?"

"If the shoe fits."

"Slow down. What is going on?" Griff asked.

"Ask her she is the one who's bringing it all up."

"Ha-ha! Bringing it all up, I didn't realize I was that imaginative."

"Rick, Amara! Stop it. I thought you guys were okay the last time you came to visit me. What happened between then and now?"

"It happened way before that. Some of us are just better at being human beings and do not judge others based on their clothing, behavior or level of poverty."

"You are talking about what happened back home?"

"What happened?" Everyone else found themselves asking at the same time.

"But that wasn't me Amara. It was my dad, and that's the way he is."

"And I took myself to him? And finally, you have the balls to defend someone; I didn't know you possessed that trait."

With that said, she picked up her umbrella and stomped out. Rick stayed put for a few seconds before realizing what had happened and tried to go after her, but everyone else remaining blocked him. It was clear that they expected some sort of explanation, and he did so willingly. By the time he was done, there was an array of different expressions, one harsh, particularly from Griff, who punched him and walked out in a similar fashion Amara had.

"Have you at least apologized?" Nine reasoned questionably.

"No," Rick replied while dropping his head in shame.

"Why?" It was Norbert who added to the first question.

"Because....because ...because...."

"Now you stammer?"

"It never came up."

"Bro! Girls don't forget things like that. Especially if they mostly believe that the main role of any man around them is to protect them. That's what she needed from you then,"