CHOOSING.

5. Show some faith.

The following week was quite uneventful, if you don't count long boring lecture. Cathy and I did not talk about Ombachi again. Well, until Wednesday during a statistics class when Ombachi texted. Seeing his long text comprising of symbolic emoji my face lit up into a grin and I cold help the little giggle that escaped. The guy just knew how to lighten up my mood. However, Cathy did not seem very pleased when she realised why I was suddenly happy yet I had been two seconds away from falling asleep before. Like the good friend she was, she at least waited until the class ended before breaching the topic.

"So now you are texting with that nonbeliever during class time," she stated with a raised eyebrow.

"Must you call him that?" I huffed in annoyance.

"He is a nonbeliever, isn't he? Anyway, that's besides the point. I don't think its a good idea you're getting this close with him. You do know bad company corrupts good morals." She insisted.

"He is not like that. He understands our religious difference and respects it." I defence vehemently.

"Wow. You're already too far gone. How did you end up..." She was cut off by Ruth, a choir member from church.

"Hello," Ruth chirped excitedly. The girl always had an excessive reserve of energy. "Wait, why do you look like you're about to fight? Aren't you supposed to be best friends or something? Are you fighting over a guy?" She went on barely pausing to breath. I rolled my eyes and was about to tell her nothing like that happened when Cathy beat me to it.

"Soni here is fraternising with the enemy," Cathy said.

"What?!!" Ruth shouted. Just a background story. Ruth is known to have absolute no tolerance to nonbelievers. She feels that no worthy Christian should even be within arms length distance with a nonbeliever. So Cathy telling her that was basically a death sentence to me.

"Look, its not like that" I said.

"Explain," Ruth replied while crossing her arms a stern look on her face.

"I made a new friend. He is not a believer but he is not a bad person. He..."

"Stop right there young woman. You did what? I thought you were more sensible than this, Soni. How can you stand there and tell me that he is not a bad person? A person who cannot believe in a deity higher than them is more than a bad person. I thought you shared my view. You aren't falling for this guy, are you?" Ruth rambled. I was quite angry at this point. Simply because we shared a religion did give Ruth the right to reprimand me on my choice of friends.

"I can choose my own friends, you two should stop meddling in my life," I said bravely before walking away. I had never be angrier. I resolved to myself that this was the last time I was going to let Cathy walk all over my life. She even had the nerve to bring Ruth in the matter. I decided that that was it and our friendship was over for good. She did not deserve to be my friend if she couldn't support me.

When I got home Matt was leaning on the wall next to my door gazing into space. That guy is a strange one. The minute he saw me his face lit up into an ear to ear grin. Wow, someone was excited. However, his grin fell as soon as he saw the look on my face. Am not a particularly cheerful person but right at that moment I was more than livid and must have had a really mean scowl on my face.

"Wait up, what happened to you honey?" He asked with genuine concern. "Is it boy trouble?" He asked, with a mischievous smile crawling onto his face. I should have known. Matt couldn't stay serious for more than a second. The mention of boy trouble only made me scowl harder and he didn't miss the reaction. "Oh no!" He exclaimed dramatically. "My little girl is finally growing up," he said as he jumped up and down and clapped like an excited child. The glare I sent his way did nothing to dampen his mood at all. "Who is it? Is he handsome? Is he from church? Are you in love with him? Tell me, tell me," he said with too much enthusiasm. Involuntarily my eyes flickered towards Ombachi's door. Matt's eyes widened comically in exaggerated disbelief. He looked at me with this shocked expression for far longer than he'd ever held a single look. He then sighed and slid down the wall to sit right there in the hallway. He held his head in his arms shaking it all the while. He looked up at me with clear disappointment and said, " you uphold this your Christian beliefs for so long but you can't resist simple bad boy charm. This is not you Soni." He then pulled himself to his feet and left me there, my mouth hanging open in surprise.

'Did Matt just insinuate what I thought he did?' I wondered in silence. I opened my door and dragged myself to my living space where I flopped down on my couch. I was caught in between being angry and being bewildered. What was it with everybody going against my friendship with Ombachi? It was not like it was a big deal. We just had the same free spirit and we shared a similar disinterest in studies. He was the only person who took no effort to bring a smile on my face. He knew me pretty well and our religious difference did not affect anything.

Never had I ever been known to make rash decisions but the one time I made a new friend who was not a Christian everyone was at my neck for it. I felt that my judgement was still really good and I would know a bad person when I saw one. Too bad nobody else did. I wished they could show a little more faith in me.