Parallel Lines

Chapter 1

JANUARY 2019

"Mashafi-eeeeeeee," someone called out my name in a singsong tune but I ignored it, enjoying the warmth that only my blue blanket could provide.

"Get up, Sweety," followed by the sound of pushing the curtains apart behind me but I chose to curl into a ball. Who cares even if a bomb drops?

"Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise." I groaned pulling my knees to my chest and covered my face with my blanket. Couldn't anyone have stabbed that poet who wrote this poem? I'm sick of this poem and dad doesn't understand reciting this poem makes me determine to sleep more.

"Hey, Moutopi. Get up, get up, get up. Dear, life is not a bed of roses." But my bed is made of rose and I'm sleeping right now. Make yourself one too.

Suddenly an eerie silence fell down and I hummed in satisfaction. Uh, peace! But my peace pigeon was strangled by my mom when she shirked,

"It's already seven! WAKE THE f**k UP, SHITHEAD," I shot up to sitting position, eyes wide open with accelerated heartbeats.

Good morning to you too. This is how I wake up on days I have early classes. When I was in school, it used to be every single day except the weekends, dad trying to wake me up in a civilized way but for me not caring and mom getting all Godzilla.

I sat there on my bed for five minutes more, contemplating if I should miss this morning class or sleep for an hour more. But I've to attend this class or the faculty will deduct my numbers on the class performance in my final mark submission. Eventually, my sleep lost the gamble to my final marks. Stretching my arms, I yawned and scratch my eyes. Did I glue them before sleeping?

"You still didn't get up from that GOD DAMN BED!" I frowned, crawling to the edge of my platform bed and put my flip flops on before standing up. As soon as I stood up, warmth had left me and shivers ran down my body, covering my arms with goosebumps. I hate waking up before nine am. I was never a morning person, didn't intend to be one in future too. Thirty-six alarm clocks had been broken till now and my mobile alarm was always been tapped to snooze. Now, it feels like my mornings are incomplete if mom doesn't scream at me to wake me up in time. Neh, I don't hate her, though I used to get upset for calling me names. It's just her way or she found out waking me up in this way is more effective. You think I haven't tried to record my mom's voice and put it in as my alarm tone? Blah...nothing worked.

With slumped shoulders, I dragged myself to the bathroom, closing the door little too loud to notify mom that I'd woken up already. I didn't miss to check the wall clock hanging on the opposite wall of our living room across the bathroom door and to say, I was late as always.

I finished my morning routine and took a shower as fast as I could. It was the shortest time ever I took for my morning routine but when I came out, my eyes almost fell out off their socket, checking the time again. Ten minutes remained before it was eight am. Dad was already putting on socks and mom was glaring at me, sitting on the dining table.

"Hun, you aren't dressed, yet. " Dad told while checking his hand watch before looking at me.

My eyes averted toward mom and I quickly looked away when her glare met my timid glance.

"It will take only seven minutes to get ready. Please, wait for me." I called out to dad while speeding into our closet. I changed into a pair of jeggings and a hoodie. I ran out of the closet and went to my room crossing my mom who was still glaring at me. Ticking time bomb will explode at any time! I still had four minutes in hand, so I put on some foundation and mascara, not forgetting my lipstick. I left my shoulder length wet straight black hair low to get dry on their own because I had no time to blow-dry. Finally, I was ready.

A knock was heard on my door already. "Your dad had already pushed the elevator button!" Mom shirked again. She never liked people who are not punctual. I sighed and took my bag pack before leaving. Mom was filling a glass of water when I reached the door. I sat down on one of the armchairs to put on my sneakers. I was about to leave when mom stopped me.

"Drink this water before leaving and here is your jacket." I smiled before gulping down the water from the glass and put on the jacket.

"It's eight-five already! Do it fast, hun." Dad grumbled, pushing the elevator button nth time, showing his disquieting for not getting the bus on time. Our apartment had an only single elevator which why most of the time we needed to wait for it. Mom kissed my cheek and I got inside the elevator with dad, no sooner had the doors opened. Before the doors closed, mom bade us goodbye. The wall of the elevator was covered with reflector glass. I stroked my hair by my fingers, trying to tame the messiness, following my reflection. Dad was going through his phone, checking his emails, I guess? When my eyes met with my reflection's eyes, I noticed I had protruding and brown to almost black eyes. Why my eyes are always puffy? I frowned at my reflection and turned around when there sounded a ding, signaling we reached the ground floor.

"How you doing, Mr. Black?" dad asked our security guard as we were practically running toward the gate.

"I'm doing good, Mr. Diaz," Mr. Black chimed in behind us. I smiled in return before we got out of the gate.

*

We got onto the last bus that left for Barrington Residential Area. After a failed attempt at seat-hunting, we resorted to standing and got hold of one of the handles hanging down the roof.

"You should have gotten up earlier," dad shook his head in dismay. I sighed and looked around me, calming my heartbeat from all the running I had from our apartment building to the bus stand. The seats and windows shook with every small bump in the ragged pavement, jostling the passengers back and forth. As the world slid by the window, there were small movements from amongst the passengers. Someone shifted in their seat, there was a little cough and a mild 'bless you'. Far at the back of the bus was a boy in his teens, with headphones on. He looked out the window through his huge glasses, clearly avoiding any human interaction in the saturated bus. I looked out too; there was traffic both inside and outside the bus. After a few stops, we got seats in the middle row of the left column and I huffed in relief. Barrington Residential Area was about eleven point seven kilometers away from my area and standing the whole way to there was laborsome. As I looked outside the window, the city passed like movies I'd seen too many times before. I put my earphones on, playing random music on my phone. Wiping the condensation from the window with mittened hand, I pressed my button nose to the glass.

The lyrics swam through my cerebral cortex like a wakeful dream, the notes relaxing me, enabling the song to call to my entire being. Music could never be something superfluous to me, it was medicine delivered in the most divine way. This song was suggested by Auriv. All my thoughts swarmed around him as the song played in the background, taking me to another place. The emotions that the words and the lyrics of this song held always make me wonder why this was his favorite one.

We left the Rivertown bridge behind a long time ago and now the cold, the bumps of these roads and Billie Eilish's songs were lulling me into an uneasy sleep. I couldn't think how long I'd been on this bus. When I saw the residential area gate two blocks ahead, I started looking for a way to the nearest door, in order to avoid pushing and panicking at the last moment. The bus stopped with a jerk again. The engine sighed, and so did I. I got off with dad, thanking the driver, who smiled at me, his teeth red from chewing tobacco. His reaction was one of a kind, and it seemed like he'd heard those words for the first time.

*

"Dad, we'll reach the versity gate number one in no time." I huffed behind dad who was running like we would miss our train.

Dad looked behind with a frown. "Two minutes left to verify my presence before it strikes nine o'clock."

We reached University Gate in the next 30 seconds as I said. As we reach the gate, we got separated. A gateman greeted dad when he entered by the admin building entrance. My dad was an assistant mechanical engineer of the O&M department. He was there from the beginning of North South University campus project. That's why everyone including the janitors even knew him. I used to admire this but now I feel annoying. Because after getting admitted here, dad introduced me to every single person and now if I even breathed, my dad got a report of this.

I was about to step on the pavement that leads to the entrance of the South Academic Building which was beside the admin building, another gateman stopped me by holding his hand before me.

"ID Card, please." He asked with harshness seeping in his voice. I clenched my jaw and pull out my card to show him. After checking my card, he let me go. I stormed toward the entrance cussing under my breath. I don't f*****g like it when someone disrespects me. Moreover, he sees me every morning. Like why I would go to someone else's University at nine am in the morning in this cold?

My CSE115 course's class was on the ninth floor of the North Academic Building at nine-forty o'clock and it was only nine-five. So, I decided to get some coffee from the cafeteria after getting inside the campus. Getting a cup of espresso, I turned to look for a vacant bench to sit down when someone hit the back off my head.

I looked behind me glaring at who dared to do it to find Joy grinning like a cat and waving. My eyes softened as I began to hit him nth time.

"Don't do that again, you Dambo. This time I literally thought my head got detached from my neck." Joy laughed and lead me to somewhere in the middle of the cafeteria.

"I didn't hit that hard." We sat down on one of the small benches.

Joy was one of my first good friends I got here. We, both are majoring in EEE and had completed our very first core course together. That's how we met. But at the beginning, I used to hate this six feet one-inch tall guy for being one of the best students in our section. A total nerd, with glasses and long dark hair. How we clicked after that, I don't know. We just did.

After chatting about random s**t, we went to catch one of the elevators of the North Academic Building. There were two sets of elevators on each side of the entrance of NAC, short for North Academic Building, in total four. Among each set, one elevator is designed to stop on even nth floors, another one odd nth floors. We chose to get on the line of the odd number on the left side of the entrance gate of NAC, beside the girl's lounge. The chatter of bitches could be heard from far.

After five boring minutes, the elevator arrived, vomiting folks of NAC. We got into the elevator quickly and the doors were just about to shut when one big, strong and pale hand skimmed through the slit.

The skimmed hand had a few nicks and scars and had jagged fingernails which told, the hand belonged to the person had a habit of biting his nails every now and then. Whoever it was, his hands were the ones that girls die for, which obviously includes hot veins climbing toward his bicep and the roughness.

Slowly the doors opened and my eyes traveled from the hand to a clothed broad adjoint shoulder, then to a face that left me gasping.