The Two of Us

Chapter 6 - Shadows

Chapter Six - Shadows

Something was wrong. Khalid and Jamaal were seated in the library, working on a Chemistry assignment. Well, Jamaal was working; Khalid was too busy watching Sabrina who had been staring at the same page in her textbook for the last ten minutes. She looked uncharacteristically stiff and was so zoned out that she hadn't even bothered to make sure her book was right side up.

Khalid sighed and sat back, wondering for the millionth time just what in the world she was thinking of and if she even remembered that she had to make her decision before the next four days were up. Right now Khalid doubted that she even realized he existed. He sighed again, causing Jamaal to look up.

"Okay seriously bro, you need to stop staring at her." He said with a frown. "Why are you so worried anyway...do you really think she'll say no?"

Khalid bit the inside of his cheek and thought fast. This wasn't even about her saying no. This was about why she was so tense today but Khalid was afraid that if he let Jamaal know that, his masculinity would be stripped down to the bone. God, Khalid groaned mentally, her mood is beginning to affect my whole day.

Instead, he scowled at Jamaal and muttered a halfhearted "I dunno."

Jamaal fixed him with a glare and after about a minute of intense eye contact he looked back down at his textbook with a shake of his head. Khalid took the dismissal of his case as an opportunity to peek back at Sabrina and found her gaze fixed on him. His breath hitched and he stared at her from across the room. She looked slightly surprised to see him there, as if he hadn't been staring at her for the past hour. Sabrina's surprise vanished and her face transformed into the look of someone who had remembered at the last minute of a due assignment. She looked utterly unprepared - and even ashamed of it too. Khalid blinked and turned away.

So she hadn't decided yet. Fine, he thought grumpily, she needs more time.

He turned to his work, flipping pages of his textbook and typing in a hypothesis about his lame assignment. As he worked, he fought not to glance over at Sabrina and convinced himself that he didn't have to check up on her every three minutes. Unfortunately, that proved to be untrue (or more likely, impossible), for his eyes kept sliding back to her. Finally Jamaal looked up at him, interrupting his eye feast.

"Hey, wanna come to Jumah prayer with me?" He asked.

Khalid raised his eyebrows. Today's Friday?

"Oh...uh, wont we miss class?" He stammered, searching for an excuse.

"Not really. Lunch starts in ten minutes and the Kutbah is usually half an hour, plus a ten minute prayer...so we'll only be like twenty minutes late for the next class."

"Err...okay." Khalid sighed, looking away to hide his reluctance.

Jamaal beamed and launched into his explanation of the assignment they were working on while Khalid tried to concentrate, but failed miserably. He was thinking back to the last time he went to Jumah prayer. It was well over a year ago, because neither he nor his parents had ever set foot into a mosque since Zayn died. Khalid gulped, his thoughts taking a turn towards dangerous thoughts that didn't befit someone who was about to enter a place of worship. He reeled himself back into safer tides, away from images of Zayn and blood and guns. He sighed for the tenth time that day and squeezed his eyes shut, trying in vain to mentally prepare himself. 

He was going to Jumah prayer.

* * *

Zayn Fayad was the perfect Muslim. He would walk into the mosque, say his salaams and have them returned by everyone because they all knew who he was and they all loved him. That boy Zayn, they'd say. Such a wonderful young man. So thoughtful and pious. Truly an inspirational figure. And he was. He was probably the most active teenager in the Muslim community, always hosting events and raising money for Syria or Palestine or Somalia, always teaching the little kids some Quran or hadith. He was always moving, always reciting, always doing something productive and that was why everyone loved him.