That October Night

Chapter 19

                                      "WHAT DO YOU CALL a cow that watches scary movies?" Kat grinned.

Here we were; Kat, Hakeem, Malik, and I, sitting at our regular spot. Lola hadn't come to school for the rest of the week. Her phone was off and she was never home when we went to check on her.

Kat and I exchanged lame jokes out of boredom. Malik was less quiet than usual as he kept spinning his basketball on his index finger and transferring it on the other which he did effortlessly. Time to time he would even roll the ball on his shoulders.

The stress from this unfortunate love triangle was clearly evident on Hakeem. And the fact that we were a few days to Valentine's day didn't help either. The school was decorated from the lockers down to the bathrooms with anything that was about Cupid, his arrow, and romance.

Hakeem had on a Yankees baseball hat which covered his eyes as he hung his head low. This morning when he picked me up, my parents were still home and mom and I avoided each other like a plaque.

Dad was a smart man, so I figured he noticed it when I hugged him and told mum morning with clenched teeth. Mom barely answered me, and Chris started talking about his basketball game on Friday as a way to lessen the tension. After breakfast which was cereal and orange juice, Chris left with Ray and I left with Hakeem.

On our way to Kat's place, Hakeem told me that his beginning to something amazing ended before it even really started. Apparently, Lola referred to him as an itch that she needed to scratch.

I wondered then if I was a bad person for not trying to talk him out of ignoring his feelings for Lola. It wasn't like I was a love expert. As a matter of fact, I knew nothing about love.

The first guy I thought I was in love with left me emotionally scarred, but I knew that if I had a friend who was interested in my boyfriend I would've felt betrayed. Then I tried putting myself in Hakeem's shoes, and I didn't know what to say to him anymore. 

I looked down at Hakeem and felt heartbroken for him.

"How are you?" I nudged him when Kat left to answer her phone call. From the way she was smiling I had a feeling that it was her boyfriend.

"I'm awesome," he faked a smiled.

We developed this thing where we would ask each other how the other was doing and would answer positively, but Hakeem was terrible at it. I pulled on his ear until he was closer to me. "Then act like it."

"But you know I'm bad at acting." He looked so vulnerable.

I sighed. "Just stop looking like this." I did invisible circles in front of him.

"Like how?"

"A coward?" I shook my head at him and responded to Kat's joke when she returned with a smile.

"No silly. A milkshake," Kat replied.

"What?" Hakeem and I asked in unison.

"You know how cow makes milk and they shake because of the scary movie."

I snickered. "Oh. Ohhhhhhhhh. That's dumb. Okay, okay, okay my turn. There are five birds in a nest. One fly in the bin. How many birds are there?"

From the look on Kat's face, she looked confident that she was going to answer correctly. "4." I shook my head at her answer as I fiddled with the hair on the back of Hakeem's neck. "What do you mean no? One flew in the bin."

"No, she said one fly in the bin, meaning that there still are five birds in the nest," Hakeem replied slowly and smiled at what he had just discovered.