Malika Bashir had a darkened view of the world. Ibrahim Ahmad refused to see anything but the light.
Soon, a friend from the past appears at Ibrahim's doorstep and a mysterious set of letters are left in his bedroom. Old conflicts are raised and ne...
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... You're annoying. You're annoying when you touch your hair every time it tickles your forehead. You're annoying when you smile at random kids in restaurants. You're annoyingly nice all the time.
Did I mention that I hate you? ...
The next morning, Malika stepped into the classroom to be greeted with haughty faces and stone cold eyes of Umaira and the girls.
The night before, right after she left Imran and his friends without a proper goodbye, she had a raging fight with her boyfriend over the phone. He was furious over her measly crush over Aryan Malik years ago. She told him to get over it. Then he started the name callings.
She simply hung up the phone on his face. Malika might have tolerated this when she was younger, but she no longer had the patience for this kind of behavior.
Malika found Umaira and the girls already in their designated seats. The girls had fixed seats for every class since the beginning of the year, and no one was allowed to question it. Since Malika started dating Imran, she got a seat with the popular girls as well, but this morning it was occupied by Natasha's Chanel tote.
Malika resisted the urge to roll her eyes. There has been a subtle power struggle between her and the girls since day one. Umaira constantly competed over petty things. But this was silly, even compared to her standards.
The girl's gazes followed her as her Manolos clicked across the classroom floor. Malika halted briefly in front of them.
"Sorry, seat's occupied," Safiya snorted under her breath.
"That's what you get for breaking the girl code," Natasha hissed.
Malika snorted and continued to make her way to the back of the class. After her fight with Imran, she had no more patience left to deal with this petty drama. It wasn't like she was dying to sit with them anyways. The popular kids were where Malika was at, she decided.
Malika made sure to lean down next to Natasha on the way and put her lips close to the girl's ear. "The bag looks like it belongs in my grandmother's closet," Malika slipped under her breath as she walked past them.
Natasha's jaw dropped as she whipped her head up. "That's Chanel!" she cried. "You can't insult Chanel. It's a classic!"
Malika knew the comment would come to bite her in the rear later, but the mortification that colored Natasha's face was worth it. She simply took her seat at the backbench with a smug smile attached to her lips. Natasha was right, the purse was a classic, but the bearer of it possessed no class; and accessories could only mask so much.
Malika spent the rest of her day away from the crowd. As much as she enjoyed giving Umaira and the girls a taste of their own medicine, she knew the girls could be vengeful. So for the sake of her own safety, Malika kept her head down, ate lunch on the bleachers, and spent her free periods on the hollow space behind the bleachers.
