All I Want is YOU.

Chapter 13

Hiba’s POV

It’s been two weeks after my encounter with Ahmed Bhai at the cafeteria and it seemed all normal after that and things kept on going as they were meant to go on. Hamza, Jannet and I would attend classes get together at cafeteria for some time and then on our ways.

Everything seemed perfectly fine but there definitely was something troublesome going to happen. I had an intuition. It seemed like it was the silence before a storm. And there was definitely something gonna happen Ahmed bhai had also warned of it. I just prayed that it is not as big and Allah help me out in the difficult situation.

It was a Monday morning and today we would be given partners for the Business Law project. How much I hated talking to other people. But I had to do this, the marks given for the project held 20% of my final’s marks. I just prayed that somehow Jannet becomes my partner and no one else.

So here we were sitting in the class waiting for our professor Miss.Veena to announce who the partners are.

“So class are you ready for this?” she asked all so very excited.

“Yes mam.!” Everybody replied with same excitement in their tones and with happy faces. I wondered what made them so happy about doing such an interesting project with a ‘partner’ (note the sarcasm)

“so what do you guys think should I just allow you to choose your partners or I decide who is going to be whose partner.?” Miss.Veena asked smiling at everybody.

“we’ll choose our partners” answered some and some kept quite like me.

“ok then if you guys want to choose your partners…” she wiggled her eyebrows mischievously “ let us play this game” she ended.

“you choose your partners, but your partner’s name and your name should start with the same alphabet”  she finished beaming in happiness. By then, some of the student’s face fell while some started looking out for their alphabetical match.

“so you guys have 5minutes to get me your names with your partner’s and then I will give you your project topics.” Miss.Veena instructed and sat down on her chair while students started hunting for their partners.

I had heard in the roll calls that there were about 4 to 5 names starting with ‘H’. So I thought I would go out finding a girl first. I asked Jannet…

“Whose Harminder.? I heard her name in the roll calls..”

“oh. She is the girl right there” she pointed out to the first bench. By the time I could make up to her she was already shaking hands with another girl whose name I suppose was Harini. Darn I lost her as my partner. The hunt begins again….

“why don’t you check out with Harsh or Harry.?” Jannet suggested pointing towards the window seats of the class. Jannet did not have an issue finding a partner as Joseph and Jannet were the only names starting with a ‘J’ in the class.

“Yeah I will. Thanks.” I said smiling and started walking towards the boys. As I reached their desk, their heads snapped up at me. I kept my gaze low.

“um….i-i…I wanted to know if any…any one of you could be my…my  partner?” I asked stuttering. You see I am not good at socializing with complete starngers. Who is?

“hmmm…so your name starts with ‘H’ as well? What a bad luck, my name starts with ‘H’ too… but you see Miss. H we would definitely…. “Not” like to do a project with you...” I was shocked at the rudeness in his voice. He could have straight away said no but then why all these hurtful words. I think it was the Harsh guy speaking as I had noticed while coming that one guy had a big tilak on his forehead from a temple. And the voice was from his direction. I kept quiet and turned back thinking of walking away.