Faith and The Vampire ✔️

Chapter Fourteen

On the next day, after classes, I was in my room doing homework. Losing track of my work, I stared off into space, trying to get a more detailed understanding of what was happening to me. I didn't realize until now how badly I did want to learn, how I wanted to prove myself to the board, to Aisha, to Mr.Amar, and to everyone else. Frowning, I tried to think what normally college students did on Friday night, since I was off duty the whole weekend. Usually I had to work, then do my homework ; I always sort of kept myself busy. I steadied my breathing and cleared my mind. I'd rarely done anything like this before. Then I remembered about the party that Gina and Carly told me. The party would just be Psychology students. I hesitated, if I came would that broke my probation with Mrs.Padma?

When the party came that weekend, I decided I really didn't want to go. It had sounded stupid to begin with. Instead, I holed up in my room, trying—and failing—to do some homework. About ten minutes after the dance's start time, I decided to clean up and take a shower. When I came back down the hall from the bathroom, I saw Aisha standing outside our room.

"I'm going to midtown, do you want anything?" she asked

"Alone?"

"No, I'm with the other Turkish-awardees. Annual gathering." She answered.

Turkish-awardees were not the only one who held annual gathering. Awardees from other countries also had their own yearly gathering. Annual gatherings were a wonderful opportunity to reconnect with other awardees from our home country, kinda healed our homesick too. Later, her answer hit me. Turkish-awardees, so Tuba Avci would be there too.

Aisha burst out laughing. "Uh-oh. I know what you're thinking." Her tone was softer now.

"Aisha, Tuba's dangerous. I don't like her. Please be careful."

She touched my arm. "I am. I'm the cautious one, remember? You're the reckless one."

I hoped that was still true. And the she left. I was about to put on my pajamas when I heard a knock at my door.

"Mel?" It was Andrei.

"Just a sec," I called back. I put on my hijab, then opened the door. Andrei wasn't exactly dressed up, but he also wasn't wearing jeans. It was a start.

"There you are. I was about ready to give up."

"Did you sleep-walk? No guys allowed in this hall."

"Whatever. You've got to get ready."

It took me a minute to realize what he meant. "No. I'm not going."

"Come on," he prodded " No reason for you to stay here all night. All of our classmates will be there. It's gonna be lit tonight."

My old, fun-loving spirit perked its head up just a bit. "Yeah?"

"It'll just be Psychology students," Andrei continued, oblivious to my thoughts. "Our seniors will be there, I bet they'll give us good advice."

I smiled.

"Hurry up and get dressed. I know you aren't wearing that."

I looked down at my sweater and loose running pants. Yeah. Definitely not wearing this.

Fifteen minutes later, we cut across the parking lot, laughing as we recounted how a particularly clumsy classmate of ours had given himself a black eye in cafetaria this week. Moving quickly over the frozen ground wasn't easy in abaya, and I kept grabbing asking him to slow down to prevent me from falling over. It made us laugh that much more. A happy feeling started to well up in me.

Maybe I didn't have much of friends, but I had my own friends. It was also very likely that I was finally going to socialize tonight, which, while not a great way to solve my probation problem, would at least be really fun. Yeah. My life could be worse.