Take off your Hijab #wattys2019

somewhere around the world

"i was here even when you didn't want me around"

Third person's POV

Zachary watches as Azad takes a seat next to him.

"She was nervous and was about to run away from her speech" Azad says making him let out a stray of chuckles, because yes that sounds like something Amal would do alright. Zach's train of thoughts got cut short by Amal's name being announced.
Zach's eyes searched for her...he hadn't seen her since he left but he heard about it, he heard about how she couldn't graduate along with Sam and others due to her grades but now she is graduating as valedictorian and that's all matter's he is proud of his friend.

He watched as a girl stood up and he saw it the lavender headscarf, he watched as she started to make her way towards the stage, he watched her climb up and collect her certificate he clapped loudly ignoring the looks his body guards where sending to their boss, who never got excited about anything but right now, they can see him grinning and clapping like a proud father or in his case a proud friend.

"Hi,my name is Amal Abnan and First of All I would like say we should give a round of applause to my fellow students who are graduating today because, they have gone through the struggle of highschool and they have survived!" She says making the crowd to go wild while Zach rolls his eyes in amusement she was being dramatic again...typical Amal.

"Highschool isn't just a place where you and learn about books but, it is a place where you learn about a lot of thing like the ways of life, it is a place where you find your identity, it is a place where you are breaking and putting yourself back together as you find out the reality about life, and at the same time by which you are trying to keep your grades up,
see why I said you should clap you see why I said you survived!" Amal states making the crowd to cheer she waits for the cheer to go down before continuing her speech and Zach is intrigued with where this speech is going.

"So if your kid wasn't that good in academics still be proud of him or her because while they were here they were stuck in a war between no one but themselves." Amal purses making Zach heart to drop to his stomach was she really about to talk about IT in public.

"I mean for me highschool was like a war front or a battle field with me who had no source of protection no armors,no swords,no bulletproof nothing to protect me from racism and bullying i mean i even I got sent to the hospital twice"

"Yes, that bad" Amal says with a dry laugh that made Zach cringe

"I lost my friends,I had trust issues while in the normal world I was already dealing with another struggle from losing My dad in Syria, he was a soldier, he was fighting to save his country but instead he got killed so we migrated, me and my mom from Syria all the way to America by foot" Zach suddenly feels like a fool his heart skips a beat, he didn't know about this one, she never told him about anything about her dad, wait how is she even related to Azad?, he looks to the side to see Azad wiping at her eyes, she looks up and catches his eyes, she can see the question in his eyes so she nods and Zach gets it.

"Can you imagine the tumor by which a child to go through?, just because I wear a head scarf doesn't mean that I am a member of ISIS, i mean my dad was killed by this same people that you speak off and my dad he was also a Muslim too, first of all, what does this terrorism mean in general?"Amal pauses to look at the crowd to see that no one was saying anything they were all just staring she takes a deep breath.

"The word terrorism means " the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes" trust me I didn't just make that definition up I found it in a dictionary, does it state that a certain religion is the only terrorist out there?, no!, that's because terrorist have no religion!, if you look at all of the cases of terrorist attacks that has taken place you will see that in this incidents Muslims also get hurt in it so why stereotype I have been told to kill myself"Amal states making the crowd gasp in horror she could see her mom