The Wedding

Chapter 20

Wednesday (night)

10 days to the wedding

"Now what happened?"

Laila looked to her side to look at the person who'd spoken to her. Yaseer too rested his back on the red brick wall behind her. She had been standing at the wall behind the school; all her friends too busy to notice her.

"Nothing happened" Laila answered defiantly. She didn't need one more person hearing about this and laughing at her. Considering her as 'weak' Well she wasn't weak!

"Let me guess; that girl said something to you again" Yaseer spoke "I really need to teach you how to stop being so sensitive. You can't get upset over every little-"

"She said I couldn't climb a tree if my life depended on it!" She said in an outburst.

There was this tree behind the school; it was closest to the most senior classes of the school, primary five and six; his and Laila's classes. Both classes commonly snuck out to the tree to get it's fruits. They all had no idea as to the correct name of the fruit so everyone called it... wait for it... 'Fruit'

(Creative right?)

It was red, sometimes yellow, it was sour but most importantly, it was the epitome of chivalry in the school. Because most girls 'couldn't' climb the tree; it was left to the boys they liked or the boys who liked them to climb up and get the fruits for them. The more friends or crushes a girl has, the more fruits she gets.

Laila always got the most.

But on that day; Fadila got tired of getting less fruits than Laila and decided to challenge all the girls to get on the tree themselves which was terrible for Laila because she really couldn't climb the tree to save her life. She horribly discovered that all the other girls could in fact climb a tree, she was the only one.

"Can you?" Yaseer asked

"Of course not!" She snapped at him "Doesn't give her the right to say it!"

Yaseer tried to not roll his eyes at her antics. "Let's go"

"Where?" she asked him

"To the tree. I'll get you fruits so you can stop sulking"

"If you do; they'll continue to call me weak"

"They won't say anything in my presence" he reassured her "Let's go"

"They might not say it, but they will think it!"

"Who cares what they think?" Yaseer asked annoyed

"I do!" she whisper yelled "I have to climb that tree today if it's the last thing I do"

The bell rung as she was talking signalling the end of break. Yaseer had never been so grateful to hear that stupid sound. Now the crazy girl could go back to class and this fruit episode would be over. "Well you can't today. Break is over"

"It's what I've been waiting for" she said running towards the tree as soon as her classmates cleared it. They were ahead of her, on their way to class.

Yaseer hurried after her. He got there to see her place her leg on the part of the trunk where it was never supposed to be. She would fall the minute she put her weight on the spot. "You're going to fall!" he warned her

"I'll be fine" she replied over her shoulder and continued to awkwardly try to hoist herself up.

"Laila stop it" he continued to watch; caught between the need to laugh at her struggle and the fear that she was going to break her leg in the coming seconds. "Come down"