R_Sarki
"Next time don't roam the school grounds without a proper covering for your hair."
Some girls cross oceans for adventure. Rashida Fintiri crossed one for a boy.
Leaving behind the polished halls of her Swiss boarding school, Rashida Fintiri arrives in Abuja with one thing on her mind. Alim. Her cousin, her closest friend, and the boy she has quietly loved for as long as she can remember. She traded Switzerland for this, for him, certain that proximity would finally tip the scales in her favour.
It does not.
Alim only has eyes for Tahira, the soft-spoken, effortlessly beautiful girl every boy in school seems to notice and every girl cannot help but resent. For Rashida, the sight of it is unbearable. Humiliating. And when Rashida hurts, she does not cry quietly in corners. She strikes.
Tahira becomes her target. A campaign of cold shoulders, cutting words and calculated cruelty that Rashida tells herself is deserved. That she tells herself is nothing.
But nothing has a way of becoming everything.
Because someone is watching. Senior Babangana, Alhaji Baba to those who know better than to test him, the most feared and sought after boy in school, son of old money and a name that opens doors, has noticed. Not Tahira. Not the girl everyone expects him to look at.
He is watching Rashida.
And in a school where everyone is performing for someone, Rashida is about to find out what it means to be truly seen by someone who sees far too much.
"I don't know how to play basketball senior"
Babangana' gaze drifts over her and she could feel a pinch from how dismissive he is. "You'll learn come here.