The First Choice.

The First Choice

Zafirah Abdullahi has never had trouble finding her place in a room. Charismatic, bold, and impossibly herself, she moves through life the way she moves through a crowd - effortlessly, and always at the center of it. At Air Force Comprehensive School, she is known by everyone and loved by most, and that has always been enough.

Final year was supposed to be simple. Study, survive exams, attend prom, go home.

It is not simple.

There is Ajmal - calm, patient, and quietly certain about her in a way that is both flattering and terrifying. There is Jawad - her cousin, her person, her most complicated relationship, whose feelings neither of them have found the courage to examine too closely. And then there is someone else entirely. Someone who doesn't fit neatly into any category she has, who looks at her without softening what he sees, and whose indifference bothers her far more than it should.

Three people. Three different kinds of attention she wasn't looking for.

And Zafirah, who has always known exactly who she is, slowly discovering that knowing yourself and understanding yourself are not the same thing at all.

Some choices are easy.

The first one never is.