Playing With Fate

1. Summer Surprises

"Zo, would you stop being such a wuss and get on with it?" I groaned, irritated, insisting on her for possibly the tenth time now as she adjusted her already well-fit helmet. 

She turned around with a slight glare in her eyes directed towards me. "I'm sorry if I don't seem eager enough to get myself injured," she retorted with a weak reply to hide the fact that she was actually scared. "I cannot believe I let you talk me into doing this shit."

I had been begging Zoya to let me teach her how to skate. I loved skating, always had. I had been practising all life and had mastered it, without a doubt. So, the natural and impatient teacher in me couldn't wait to train her in the specific sport as well.

It had been two years since I had started calling this town my home. It wasn't where I had lived all my life. On the contrary, I had very few memories here but some significant ones. Zoya lived on the other side of the town, and the distance between our houses was very inconvenient if we ever desired to call an emergency meeting or something as such. She didn't even attend the same high school as me. Our friendship didn't start as the primary kind.

I met Zoya at a movie theatre that I had spontaneously decided to go to the next evening after I moved into this town and call it fate, but both of us ended up sitting right next to each other, and we talked a little during the movie and a lot after. It had been two years since that little meeting, and although we lived far, we made sure to keep up the contact very well. Fortunately, Zoya had moved a lot closer to my house just last month, and for the last year of high school that we were going to be starting next week, she had taken admission into the same school that I went to.

Zoya Carleton was a badass, to put it simply. She was a perfect and equal combination of leather jacket and martial arts. Even though she was very different than me, we had found some common ground. She was amazing in every way. Zoya's dad was French, and her mum was a Muslim who had always lived in London, yet she ended up here, in this insignificant little town in the States. Her culture never ceased to amaze me. She had accepted both of the familial identities of her parents perfectly equally. 

Her parents were the most generous set of people I had ever met; they possessed so much of the said quality; it was unbelievable. Zoya had an older sister who was married and lived in London, I had only ever conversed with her over video calls, but we had come to call ourselves friends as well. Both the sisters had a striking resemblance to each other, and yet they were polar opposites.

She stood tall and confident at the height of 5'10. Much to my dismay, she was an inch or maybe two taller than me, and she knew how much it annoyed, so she never let me hear the end of it. She had thick, brown, and shiny hair that I would sell my soul for. Her hair fell a little below her shoulders because of the recent stunt she had pulled. She had chopped off all her Rapunzel-like hair in one swift go, making every person in her life shout at her, including me. But she rocked this look as well, so there was very little any of us could tell her that would truly convince her that it was a bad decision. The colour of her eyes had synchronized themselves with that of her hair.

Her long legs were now staggering to keep themselves intact as she tried to step onto my skateboard, tightening her hold on my hands so much that I wouldn't be surprised if all the blood supply stopped. "Zo, I got you; I won't let you fall," I assured her, standing in front of her and making sure her form was steady. I had pulled her to the nearest park from our house, which was a place that I spent a great deal of my time at. For some reason, I knew that our first lesson would turn out to be the last one as well. She wasn't enjoying this one bit.

"Hailey, I swear on Thor, if I fall, you're setting yourself up for an early grave," she threatened me. Oh, and did I mention? The movie we both ended up watching together was Avengers: Endgame. I laughed off her warning because I knew she would fall at least once, but she was more than protected for it anyway. She was up for the most adventurous activities, and she was scared of a little skating is what humoured me the most.