A Part of My Memory

Zara

This was a whole other party in itself. There were couches throughout the room, tables with bowls of chocolates—including my favourites—and sweets, an unnecessary amount of flat-screen TVs, and a literal vending machine. There was even a bar counter, a pool table and a shelf of books.

"Can I call my friends down here?"

****

I ate my fill of my favourite chocolates and got to know a lot about Kyle. He loved chocolates almost as much as I did and he was actually pretty funny. I laughed so hard one time that chocolate came out of my nose, and he laughed twice as hard while he went to fetch me a tissue. He was surprisingly kind, sporty and extremely competitive. In wanting to know whether I was only good at soccer in real life, he challenged me to a game of Fifa. He must have underestimated my capabilities because I scored against him in the first few minutes.

He smirked, "lucky shot."

When I scored for the second time he whipped his head in my direction, pure surprise written on his face. When I was about to score for the third time he purposefully leaned against me to disrupt my shot, but it still went in.

"Nice try, sore loser," I teased.

"I was going easy on you."

"Ha! As if."

"Alright, I'll prove it," he said before dramatically clicking his fingers.

The second half came and he proved it. He scored goal after goal despite my efforts to disrupt him. The final score was 3-6 to him. I demanded a rematch but he defeated me even then.

"I am unbeatable, Zara," Kyle grinned, and with that, I decided to call my secret weapon and decided to add a bet to the game.

"Alright," Kyle agreed. "If I beat your 'secret weapon,' you go on a date with me, a proper one."

"And if you don't," I countered, "you buy me a plastic bag full of chocolates."

That got a laugh out of him but he agreed.

I went to the shelf of books and unsurprisingly, there stood Faizah. I grabbed her by the hand and didn't give her any explanation until she was seated on the couch beside Kyle. "Beat him for me, please."

Faizah may have been book obsessed and extremely responsible, but she had a skill not many people knew of. She was a killer when it came to video games.

Faizah only sighed but grabbed the console, chose her team and they began the game. Kyle scored the first goal, then the second and then gave me a look that said: hope you're looking forward to that date.

"Come on, Faiz," I encouraged. "If you win, he buys me a plastic bag full of chocolate and I'll share half with you."

Faizah only looked at me before saying, "you could have told me that before."

Kyle scored the third goal but by the time the second half came, Faizah completely turned the game around and brought the score to 3-3. There were only a couple of minutes left but just before time was up Faizah scored again.

"Yeah!!" I cheered. "Take that Kyle, hope your credit card is ready to buy us a bag full of chocolate."

Kyle laughed and opened his mouth to say something when we suddenly heard a loud commotion coming from upstairs.

"I said no!" A familiar voice shouted. "Just let it go, Jonah!"

Ally.

Faizah and I blasted up the stairs to the upper level and as soon as we spotted Ally through the crowd we rushed to her just as Serena entered and joined us too. Our faces immediately fell when we saw Jonah clasping Ally's arm, her face red and tear-streaked.