I See Fire

12 | Cash or Crash

"How are you finding the food?" Farouk forks down a sliced piece of sausage and sends it to his mouth.

"It's uh.. great." Aisha looks at him without smiling. She picks up a drumstick with her hand and bites.

This was supposed to be a reset for their relationship. Things hands been going so well for them since Zayda left and she was trying to make him feel better but she was also loosing sight of what their relationship was about again.

"Glad." He swallows and takes his phone from the table and holds the phone to his face to get it scanned so it can open.

"I'm sorry about Zayda." She looks at his phone and at him "I brought you out so you could try and be happy."

His sadness has been causing a rift in their relationship. He just goes to school and comes back. He refuses his friends and most especially his girlfriend. He'd just bought her a pair of sneakers for her birthday; it was only a matter of time before she ran away.

"No you're not!" He pushes his plate away "You're just sorry you can't help me go back to my old self.

Her eyes water and she points a finger at him "Stop right there." She sniffs "Are you seriously saying this?"

"Saying that you just want me to pretend Zayda isn't gone? Yes Aisha. That's what I'm saying."

"I can't believe this." She throws thigh bone of the chicken dramatically on the plate. "So I'm the bad guy for trying to make things better?"

He doesn't reply her question. His hands continue to scroll away his screen as he stops to sip from his glass of coke and continue.

"I'm talking to you babe." She rolls her eyes, hissing.

"Give it a break Aisha." He put the phone in his pocket. "Thank y..."

"Mutumina my guy, how far?" Mujaheed Farouk's friend strolls into the cafeteria to their table and slaps his palms against his friends palm in greeting, laughing loudly—making Aisha uncomfortable. "Where have you been?"

"I've just been busy."

"When have you been too busy for your boys?"

"Just forget it."

He opens his mouth to say something but refrains. It's not news that his older sister ran away from home but he expected him to at least share it with him. Zayda was an alumni of their school who was well known for participating in all kinds of fashion shows, money donations and school activities so a lot of her juniors kept track of her because they liked her; the females especially. It was evident to everyone that she was lonely except her family, all this was just done to feel like a part of something.

"Bros what's up?" The guy he came with says to Farouk, raising his chin slightly upwards and down immediately.

Aisha is silent, admiring the mixed race boy, imagining her friend Rabi as his girlfriend. She knew they'd be perfect. She didn't know him, had never seen him in school but knew he was a student since he was in their cafeteria and had his ID slung across his chest with the schools logo on it.

She pulls out her phone from her purse and texts her to come immediately since the library she was studying at wasn't far from where they were at all.

"So, this my friend here just resumed. His name is Zaheer."

"I transferred from Pan-Atlantic University after my parents moved from Lagos some mo this back."

Rabi opens the door of the cafeteria, breathless. She'd been running from the library for no apparent reason—actually there was—her ex. If she was seen with the new hot guy on campus then she could make him jealous especially if he was a man every girl was already in love with.