An American Muslimah

Chapter 16

I stare at myself in the mirror analyzing my puffy eyes. I barely slept yesterday and all I remember doing was crying. I don't even bother wearing some eyeliner today so instead I wash up and wear a black abaya with leopard hijab. The weather is nice today so I only wear a light spring jacket and head downstairs for a quick breakfast. Suleiman is in the kitchen today finishing up breakfast. I look at him confused. Isn't he supposed to be gone by now? When he looks up from his cereal he gives me a sad look and gently asks,

"How are you holding up?"

"I'm fine," and take a seat next to him pouring some milk into the bowl and some corn flakes.

Neither mom nor I told anyone about how serious Laila's condition is keeping

Sara's promise. I was lost in thought when I remembered that I had to talk to Suleiman about Abdullah.

"Suleiman, I have to tell you something."

He nods and says, "Go on."

"Umm so recently Abdullah's been walking with me after school-"

Suleiman immediately stops eating. Uh-Oh. Bad sign.

"With me and my friends but I don't like it. Can you please tell him to stop?" I say under my breath.

"Of course Aisha. How long has this been going on for?" Suleiman asked.

"Umm only a few times...?" I replied.

He huffed in annoyance. "You should have told me before!" he said yelling at me. But he quickly calmed down. "No need to worry about him anymore sis." With that Suleiman gave me a kiss on the cheek and left for college.

On the way to school, Maryam caught up to me and was talking away about her classes. I wasn't in the mood for talking so I just nodded every once and then until we arrived to school. In gym class while we were sitting down and doing attendance, Abdullah mouthed an "are you ok?" I just nodded and looked away.

Today Anna was being more of a nuisance. She called Hilary ugly during the warm up and a slut during lunch. I am honestly so close to snapping at Anna. She really doesn't know who I am and it pisses me off. I'm just glad that Hillary nor Maryam have done anything to her yet, but she's really testing our patience. Hillary and Maryam had asked me several times if everything was alright but I reassured them that there's nothing to worry about but it was obvious they didn't buy it.

In family studies, Hillary and I were early and waiting for class to begin. Hillary was waiting for Connor to arrive. But when Abraham walked in and Hillary asked him if he knew where Connor was, Abraham was also unaware of why he was late for class. When the bell rang and he was still a no show despite being here in the morning; Hillary looked a little worried and texted him to see if he's ok. After 10 minutes I heard her phone vibrate. She placed her phone under her desk in order to read the text. If any of our teachers see us texting in class, they take our phones away from us and give it back us at the end of class. Sucks, I know. Hillary frowned. I nudged her and she whispered, "Connor wants me to meet him in the gym hallway."

"What? Why?" I asked perplexed.

"She just shrugged and said I better go see what's up."

"Ms. Mac can I go to the washroom?" Hillary asked.

"Sure." said Ms. Mac and with that Hillary dashed off.

HILLARY'S P.O.V

I was beyond confused. Why did Connor want me to meet him in the gym hallway? I mean all of his friends are in class and even Abraham was in class. So what's he up to? When I arrived at the gym hallway, the hallway was vacant. The class that had gym right now was probably already inside the gymnasium. I walked down the entire hall just to make sure I didn't miss him sitting around somewhere. Just then I decided to step out as the hallway lead to the back of school field. So I opened the door and quickly looked around. There were a few girls on the bleachers talking and laughing. By the way they looked, they were probably seniors on their spare. Other than them, there was no one else.