An American Muslimah

Chapter 9

"Salam Aisha. Heyy Hillary. Did you bring our geo project?"

"Yes of course. Suleiman drove me to school today and he carried our project to class for me. He's so sweet. Its sitting in geography class right now." I said.

"Suleiman was here in the morning?" Maryam asked.

"Yeah...why?" I asked confused.

"No reason." And then she blushed.

Okay that's weird. I wonder what's up with-

"Ooh can I see you city!?" Hillary asked breaking my trance of thought.

"Sure let's go see if the classroom is still open." Maryam said. And with that we scurried off to geo class.

After we had finished lunch Maryam and I had to go pray so Hillary decided to tag along as she didn't want to be alone. When we arrived at the library to my dismay Abraham was there probably doing last minute research for this big science project Maryam told me about. When he saw us he just stared at us and we just ignored him and go to our corner. Hillary sat leaning against a bookshelf occupying herself with a book. When we were done and about to leave, Abraham asked us, "Why do you pray?'

That took us back a bit.

"Umm because our purpose of life is to live to worship and please God. So when God tells us to pray 5 times a day, we do it humbly and submitting ourselves only to him." Maryam replied.

"But how do you know if he's listening to your prayer. I mean you two probably don't have the best of lives and look at all the poverty and war. Why is evil still happening if God is there?" Abraham asked.

I decided to answer this one. "Tell me did God tell us to kill each other? Did God tell us to hoard all the money we've been blessed with and not give to the less fortunate ones? No if we all obeyed God's laws and live our lives in obedience to him, I guarantee you the world would be much different and better. And as for if God listens to us or not, he does. Just because life is hard doesn't mean he isn't hearing and watching us. God is the All-Knowing and he is simply testing us to see if we still believe even in the hardest of times. Besides if this life was easy and good, then what would be the difference between this life and heaven? We need God as we are nothing without Him."

Abraham seemed to be in deep thought and just nodded. With that we left and headed to our lockers to get our books for next class. There were empty lockers beside mine so we had decided to ask to office if Maryam and Hillary can move lockers and take the ones near mine and they had kindly accepted. So now my locker neighbors were Hillary and Maryam. The bell rang indicating that lunch break was over and that we had 5 minutes to get to class. Just as were about to go Hillary bumped into Connor. She immediately turned tomato red as she backed up and realized who she had bumped into. Maryam and I gave each other a look. Okay so I guess Hillary had a huge crush on Connor.

"Oh my God. I'm so sorry" Squeaked Hillary.

Connor just smiled and said, "It's okay. Here I think this belongs to you." And he handed her one of her books.

"Thanks." She mumbled and walked away (more like ran away).

We had to run a bit to catch up to her.

"Hillary wait up!" We yelled. She didn't stop until she was a safe distance from them.

"I forgot his locker was near ours." She said more to herself.

By now a smile was playing on Maryam's lips. "Hillary has a crush on Connor. Hillary has a crush on Connor." She chanted in the quietest voice as possible.

Hillary blushed in response and said, "I do. He's so handsome."

"Be careful Hillary. I know those guys and they're trouble." I warned her.