CHAPTER 4

Lagos, Nigeria.

The smile on Maliya's face gradually thinned the more the cold dark orbs stared at her icily.

The moment, even though brief, seemed to stretch on for eternity, and the feeling of normalty seemed strange in the next moment.

An ice cold impulse ran down the length of her spine, goosepimples erupting all over her body.

That look.

It depicted an emotion, rather lack thereof.

It was an unreadable look, but at the same time spoke volumes, an oxymoronous look one could call it.

His lips parted as the pearly whites which used to gleam at her peeked out, his lips rounded and flattened, his pink tongue running over the length of his lower lip.

It took a couple of seconds for Maliya to register that he had indeed been saying something while she  deriliously scrutinized his face.

She was pulled back to reality just in time to hear him order them to get on their knees.

The sound of furniture scraping filled the whole class as people made space for themselves in between their desks and chairs.

Maliya's eyes never left Rayyan's throughout the time her knees lowered to the hard concrete ground beneath her.

Once on the ground like everyone else, Maliya closed her eyes, overly conscious of a gaze that threatened to penetrate through her skin.

Her heart clenched painfully beat after beat, and tears met the inside of her eyelids.

Taking a deep breath, she tried to swallow the sob that threatened to escape her mouth.

Even without knowing she realized, Maliya had been hoping to meet him again, anticipating seeing him at least once before he would leave for the university.

She could feel her heart thumping wildly in her chest, painfully palpitating in a way one would assume it wanted to be free of its cage.

Maliya lost track of time soon after her thighs began shaking. The miniscule atoms of the crushed cement had penetrated into her skin.

Trying to balance her weight equally on her two knees (which she later concluded was probably the worst thing to have done), she ended up embedding the stones deeper into her knees.

She squeezed her shut eye tighter trying to get rid of the images that had begun to resurface.

A tap on her shoulder snapped her out from the mental prison she was stuck in, and for the second time that week everyone's gaze was on her.

Everytime she read a book and the characters 'seemed to have disappeared to another world where only they existed ' she would roll her eyes, sighing at their absurdity.

It was no wonder she felt stupid when she fell into the same trance.

She slowly got up from the floor which was now dotted with patches of crimson.

She cleaned her knees while getting up, forcing herself not to look up, the sob that threatened to escape her mouth fought till it eventually did.

And in the next few moments, she was full out crying, the tears she had tried to suppress rolled down her cheeks, and the more she tried to keep them in, the more her heart pained.

She cried not because of the punishment, but because of the person that had inflicted it on her.

She couldn't bring her self to look up into his eyes, but she desperately wanted to confirm that he was the one who caused her pain.

In that moment, she knew the true meaning of disappointment, she couldn't bring her self to be angry, or even sad.

She was just....hurt.

Laughter ricocheted through out the room, and even without looking up she knew she was their source of amusement.

Obviously, being in a military school, seeing someone crying was amusing to these kids.

In a micro second of anger, Maliya raised her eyes to meet his.

Nothing.

There was no single emotion etched in those impassive orbs, and it tore at her heart to see how unresponsive he was towards the pain she so desperately wanted to get rid of.

It was foreign.

It was a feeling she had never seen him show....it was just so...inexpressive.

It was like he was looking through her, like he was seeing her but not recognising her, like he was unperceptive.

Maliya could see his sister from the corner of her eyes, see the look in the girl's eyes as she watched her elder brother inflict punishment on her.

She could see the frustration in Rumaysa's eyes as she watched the brother who had been there for her subject her to pain.

Rumaysa knew there was something wrong with her brother ever since the incident that happened last year, she knew it had ripped off a huge chunk of him, it had affected her too but with Rayyan, it was simply....more.

She might act like she didn't, but no one cared for her brother more than she did.

Hearing the muffled sobs from the human she had grown to despise over the years, she scowled.

She could sense the shift in her brother's eyes, the internal fight to care for Maliya but she hoped.

It might be cruel, wicked, freaking heartless even, but she wanted her brother to hate the girl.

To hate her with twice as much passion as he had cared for her. To realize that she cared for him more than Maliya ever would.

*********

"Twenty-first?!....twenty-first?!" Mom screamed, discarding her scarf on the three seater.

Rumaysa fiddled with the hem of her purple sundress as her mother screamed at her.

"How many heads does the person who came first have?! Answer me now!!" Rumaysa bent her head down, unable to look into her mother's blazing eyes.

She knew from the moment she checked the contents of the brown envelope her teacher had given her that she was going to be in this situation.

But even with that information, she couldn't prepare herself for the scalding insults her mother hurled at her.

Her teacher had emphasized on not opening the envelope until they got home, but once she stepped out the school gates she knew that she had to.

'She would rather prepare herself mentally' Rumaysa had thought.

She walked under the mango tree, a little distance away from the school gates.

She had drawn out the paper, hands trembling. She swallowed, hearing the sound of her saliva smoothly glide over the inside of her throat.

Hands still shaking, she opened the paper her eyes slowly digesting the contents of the paper, though unable to look at the spot where her rank was.

A sob got stuck in her throat when she saw red on her paper, that colour was never a good sign. She hated it.

The commentary below read ' She needs to be more focused in class'.

She scoffed out loud.

'What does that idiotic teacher know about me, she hardly knows half her student's names, she's always playing candy crush in class' she took a deep breath, a tear rolling down her right cheek, shortly followed by another on her left.

'.....and the has the audacity to tell ME that I'm unfocused?!'.

She wanted to scream out loud but she held it in, transferring all her energy into squeezing the paper that lay crumpled in her hands.

A hand on her shoulder snapped her out of her reverie, and she met the searching eyes of her brother.

"Rayyan?" She questioned, feeling a little bit more comfortable when her brother smiled at her.

He stretched his hands foward as he handed her a twix chocolate bar, she cracked a smile knowing he was purposely being cliché.

She had always ranted about how her husband would feed her favourite chocolate to her, teasing her with each bite.

It felt nicer than she would ever admit to anyone to have someone remember her favourite things and be there for her.

She didn't bother asking what he ranked, he was always the top student at every school he went to.

It had it's disadvantages though, the worst being that she had a lot of friends who were only interested in being friends of 'THE' Rayyan's sister.

She hadn't noticed it at first, but when her father had asked why her friends upon visiting would subtly leave her room to sit with Rayyan in the sitting room under the guise of watching television, she realized how big of a fool she must have been.

She had to admire their persistence though, because every single time he saw them coming, he would immediately leave the room, but they just didn't stop coming.

She had only one friend she could count on...Maliya Jamil.

Although younger than her by two years, Maliya had been her friend since early childhood, further more she was the sister of Rayyan's best friend, Zaharadeen.

She had met Maliya a few days before she turned four.

Rayyan had walked into the house with a bruise on the left side of his cheek, and their mum had fretted over it, flailing her hands in the air dramatically.

Not more than a minute later, the trio had heard a knock on the door.

The distressed mother would absolutely not be separated from her injured son, and so the oh-so glorious duty of opening the door fell upon Rumaysa.

Rumaysa dragged her feet, mumbling the worst curses she knew.

"Fuzzy rabbits" she mumbled, eyeing her mother evilly.

However, on opening the door she got drowned in chocolate syrup.

The person at the other end of the door lowered his eyes after some time, he was just soooo.....cute.

"Who's there, Ruma?" Her mother's voice snapped her out of her trance.

She looked at the boy again and then answered.

"I don't know mama".

Maman Rayyan, as their mum was often called, reluctantly moved away from her son to the door.

She looked at the boy, trying to remember where she had seen him.

"Ahh, Zaharadeen!" She beamed at the little boy, letting him into the house.

She'd had attended his naming ceremony six years ago, ten months after her bruised son had been birthed.

"Good afternoon ma'am" the boy had greeted, bending his back slightly in a display of respect.

It was clear from the suprised look on Zaharadeen's face that he was surprised that the woman knew him. But nevertheless, he answered her when she asked about his mother's well-being.

"She's fine ma'am" he answered.

Rumaysa was sure he attended a private school due to the nature of his response.

An average six year old would have replied with a 'fine'.

"Did your mother send you on an errand?" Maman Rayyan asked him.

"Uh..No ma" Zaharadeen stuttered, nervously scratching his nape, all too aware however of the little girl in the pink hijaab.

"I actually came to thank that boy....Rasheed I think?"

The glare Rayyan sent his way was hot enough to melt ice, but it made Zaharadeen chuckle instead.

"Ohh ..you mean Rayyan?" The woman asked, the look of confusion, morphing to realisation, and back to confusion.

She wore a look that could only be described as 'hero worship' when she gazed upon her little boy.

"Hmm...you don't say, and for what do you want to thank him?" She said with a smile that just wouldn't leave her face.

"My younger sister, Maliya got lost while wandering around school since my mum wasn't around to pick her and she was crying" Rumaysa noticed how Zaharadeen clenched his fist at the mention of his mother, another truth she didn't fail to notice however was the way her elder brother's lips quirked upwards at the mention of the girl.

"....Rash...Rayyan I mean, happened to be passing by and picked her up while she was crying, I saw them in that position and thought he beat her, but after he left, Maliya told me what happened so I came to thank him as well as apologize for saying some hurtful things to him" he said, and in four steps he had engulfed a shocked Rayyan in a hug.

Rayyan stood there frozen as the boy hastily excused himself and left the house.

It didn't take long to see him again, because that night he came to Rayyan's house with his family.

Rumaysa's attention was evoked when she found out that Zaharadeen had a sister nearly her age.

"Hi, my name's Rumaysa, but you can call me Ruma" she told the girl in a blue hijaab and pink gown.

"Hi Wuma, my name's Maliya" the girl answered, and Rumaysa couldn't help but find the way she mispronounced the letter 'R' funny.

Another thing that captivated her about the girl was her eye colour, her eyes were really light grey, hazel actually.

It was a lot lighter than Zaharadeen's though.

She watched the two year old girl walk up to Rayyan.

"Thank uu" Maliya told Rayyan.

The seven year old smiled at the little baby, ruffling the exposed part of her curly black locks.

Giggling, Maliya ran to her mum, almost missing her steps.

Everyone cooed at her, sighing about how cute she was and praising her beauty.

Then, she partook in the admiration, the girl really was an angel.

Who knew that day would end up being the reason why four lives were disentangled.

Even though she hated the girl with a passion, she wouldn't change anything that had happened over the years for anything.

Well...

Most of it anyway.

If you exclude the death that happened a year back.