Brenda wanted a normal school year. Instead her mom died.
Salma needed space from her sister and terrible ex. Or else she'd lose her mind.
Delilah didn't think she'd have any more problems after moving far from her hometown. That was until she becam...
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❝Man is the cruelest animal.❞
― Friedrich Nietzsche
✋SALMA✋
"I'm done. I can't do this anymore," Ziyan declared, throwing his hand into the air. He got up from where he sat on the rug. Pointing his index finger at Delilah, he shouted, "You are the worst teammate anyone could ask for! I explain the rules, over and over again, but you can't listen, can you?"
"I've never played Rani!" Delilah whimpered. "You can't blame me."
"The concept of the game is in the title," he roared, "you can't possible keep forgetting that the queen is the most powerful card. You don't want to get it, and if you have it in your hand, you don't just throw it away at the beginning! It's the biggest move you can make."
My idea on lightening up the mood between Jaxon and I with a friendly card game was not going as smoothly as I had planned. Inviting Ziyan and Delilah backfired. What was I thinking to make them teammates? Ziyan swore to be nice to her when she refused to be paired with him, but after having caused their team to lose for a third time, his patience was running thin.
Ziyan was the one who suggested to play the card game Rani. He said his father played it a lot during his years in Pakistan, learning the rules from him. Whenever family came over, they played a game of Rani after dinner. It was the queen of spades that had the power you wanted to avoid.
Ziyan advertised the game as fun and easy, convincing us to play a new game none of us had heard of. But after playing for just an hour, I was getting flashbacks of the Uno matches with my family. Things got so bad at the Hasan household that it inevitably ended with us banning the card game from entering our home ever again. Do you know how bad things have to get for Uno to be banned? It was embarrassing, if not disappointing.
"Rani, repeat after me, rani," he said, talking with his hands as he elongated the sound of the word. "If you can't get that through your head, then I'm not sitting back down to play another round."
"C'mon," I sighed, "Don't be like that."
"No, I'm not playing in teams. I'd rather play on my own. Then at least I can beat you guys without having to carry so much dead weight."
"Hey," Delilah snapped. "I'm going to get the hang of it."
"By losing every damn time?"
"Fine, I'll leave. You three can play."
"We can't play with three people," he exhaled, "it works best with at least four players."
Delilah used the couch to get off the floor, holding the armrest. "I'm not interest in being screamed at for another hour. I'll take that as a hint."
