Chapter 4 - ISS (International Space Station)
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Sometimes people are beautiful. Not in looks. Not in what they say. Just in what they are.
~ Markus Zusak
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"No one recognized you?" Aunt Arisa asked, more surprised than relieved.

I flopped on the couch, my feet stretched out on the table in front. An actual high school was slightly exhausting in comparison to my homeschooling experience. Nonetheless, I had a more fun time making friends with people my own age. Let's just say, bodyguards don't gossip, act like Regina George, or give out hugs.

At least my bodyguards didn't.

Most of them didn't even like Shakespeare!

How do these people even survive?

"Noor!" Aunt Arisa's voice broke me out of my thoughts.

"Oh sorry, my mind flew out of the Milky Way Galaxy," I said apologetically. "It's back again. What were you saying? No one figured out who I was?" She nodded. "Considering that the President's daughter was a Hijabi Muslimah sporting a triple chin with hardly a trace of makeup . . . I don't look like her anymore."

The horrible, depressing past now seemed like a faint memory even though that was me a few months ago. It was almost laughable. I, the Great Noor Khan, broke the obesity scale. I mean when I stepped on a weighing machine, the little arrow might as well have landed on a "to be continued" sign.

Aunt Arisa and Uncle George were aware of the scenario with the binge eating, lazy-ing around, and falling into depression at the amount of hate I read on social media and newspapers and websites.

"Oh," she said softly, not bothering to inquire any further.

"Mind you, I think it was just the nerd glasses." I pushed the thick glasses off my nose for a moment to show her the difference, before putting them back on. "Everyone treated me as a regular student even the teachers," I said quite satisfied.

"Really?"

"Yup, the Study Skills teacher even gave me a warning that if I didn't stop chattering with my neighbors, she'd send me to ISS," I answered happily.

Her eyebrows furrowed. "What's ISS?"

"International Space Station, duh!" How could she not know?

"It's In-School Suspension, stupid." Both my aunt and I turned to the third voice--Miley--and stared at her. She was in her room upstairs the whole time. I didn't know why she chose to come down, now.

"You almost got suspended?" Aunt Arisa asked me horrified.

I waved my hand dismissively.

"It's International Space Station, Toby told me. Don't believe her," I said, correcting Miley. Why in the world would a teacher suspend a student for talking?

When did they start punishing students for their freedom of speech?

Such oppression!

It doesn't make the slightest bit of sense.

"Noor--" Aunt Arisa started.

"Is there food?" I asked, comprehending the scolding tone timely. Miley scoffed and left the living room. "I'm gonna get myself a snack. Is that alright?"

My aunt had no other option than to incline.

Miley was already in the kitchen, putting ice cream in a bowl.

"What flavor?" I asked.

"Mint chocolate--"

"That should be illegal," I interrupted, wrinkling my nose in disgust. "Whoever thought putting mint in ice cream should be brought to court for breaking the eighth amendment."

"Which is . . . ?" she asked, not seeming interested.

"Cruel and unusual punishments are prohibited."

"No one asked you to eat it." She finished dumping a truck load of ice cream in the bowl before stuffing the container back in the freezer. Her point was fair, though I never claimed to have a desire to eat that. As she searched for a spoon, I noticed she was still wearing Toby's hoodie. That one doomed article of clothing caught a lot of attention, today.

"Hey, do you like Toby?" I asked Miley. Her eyes grew wider than Santa's waist and her cheeks turned redder than Rudolph's nose. "That's why you wore the hoodie today, right?"

Otherwise, she'd have given it back to the owner.

"Mind your own business," Miley snapped.

I raised my hands, indicating my surrender. "Just saying. I could help hook you up, if you want. I'm quite the matchmaker."

"No, thanks."

"If you insist," I shrugged.

She stormed out of the kitchen and though I was tempted to nag her until she told me the truth, I resigned not to. What can I say? I was an extremely considerate person who had other things to worry about.

Like using a credit card Mom gave me to buy whatever I desired.

I had to go rose shopping and find a way to hide them somewhere neither Michael nor Miley could locate them. They both supported the enemy.

I quickly sent Babushka a text (we exchanged phone numbers in school) and waited for her reply. She was on her way to pick me up for rose shopping. I didn't bother changing my outfit because of the rush. Running upstairs, I grabbed my purse from the room I shared with Miley, finding my cousin watching a sappy romantic movie and eating her ice cream.

It had Leonardo DiCaprio, so at least, she had good taste in movies.

"Can you be any louder?" Miley groaned, when I came running down the steps of my bunk.

"Why indeed I can!" I said gleefully and then jumped all the way across the room using both of my feet, producing a loud thumping sound. "Don't you wish you were smart like me?" I wiggled my eyebrows.

"Go jump off a cliff!"

Miley gave me a murderous glare and I ran downstairs, meeting her stepmom on the way.

"What's the hurry?" Auny Arisa asked.

"Oh shoot, I forgot," I said, smacking the side of my head. "Can I go shopping with my new friend?"

"Who?" She frowned.

"Babushka. Michael's friend, Viktor's sister," I elaborated.

"Okay," she nodded. "But be back by six for dinner."

"As you wish, milady," I said grinning. "Heads up, I might not come back from war in full pieces."

She rolled her eyes laughing.

Fixing my hair slightly, I ran out of the house and was pleasantly surprised to find Babushka already there in her car. I got inside quickly and we headed our way towards the nearest nursery. It'd be difficult buying such a huge amount of roses from one place.

The first nursery we went to could only give us fifty one.

The shopkeeper said we could pick the flowers fresh in the morning to prevent any damages that might happen overnight.

Babushka said she'd sneak twenty roses from her old grandmother's garden, but I didn't want her to cheat her family like that. I had enough money to buy the rest of them. Therefore, it was my treat this first time.

The second place we went was a flower shop.

"One of our spies works here," Babushka told me.

"Spy?"

"Yup, he's on our team, but he pretends to be one of the Shakespeare haters," she explained.

That was clever!

"He's Severus Snape! Working for Dumbledore, but pretending to be Voldy's evil death eater!"

"Exactly."

As Babushka and I checked out the different types of roses, an employee (I think) shuffled around spraying some of the plants with water.

"Hey!" I called out. The light brown haired teenager glanced up and I met a pair of beautiful hazel-brown eyes. He had attractive features such as high cheekbones, a defined jawline, and plump lips. I narrowed my eyes at him, feeling like I had met him before. Oh yes! "You were in the library!"

He was the one who pushed me back behind the curtains during the club meet.

"Liam," Babushka introduced him.

He smiled sweetly and joined us.

"He-Hello, welcome t-to The Se-Secret Gar-Garden," Liam stuttered out.

"Thank you. It's the first time I'm stepping into a book," I joked, referring to the flower shop's name.

"Hope-f-fully not the last," he said.

"Never." I shook my head vigorously. "I never give up an opportunity to meet beautiful people. Especially, not the ones who live in books." He raised an eyebrows, almost as if he hadn't expected that from me.

"Enough with the flirting," Babushka said smiling slightly. "Liam, we need those roses I texted you about."

"I have them a-all read-ready for to-tomorrow," he stammered. "If y-you want, I c-can bring the-them to sch-school."

"We have to meet up early to avoid any conflicts," she replied. "The other team cannot know about your affiliation with us."

He nodded calmly.

"No one s-suspects the in-innocent one." He smirked. "I t-take advan-tage of my stutt-stuttering."

I chuckled. "Stutterting? I think your gorgeous face is distracting enough."

"N-not as m-much as yo-yours."

"Gee, thanks for forgetting me," Babushka huffed, flipping her hair over her shoulder dramatically.

"I don't compliment those better looking than me," I said, feigning snobbiness and mirroring her hair flip. "But if I had to choose between you and Liam, you're definitely my bae."

They burst out laughing.

I could've sworn I saw the word "bae" used everywhere on social media.

Prior to me coming to Delaware.

"Aw, you're my bae too. Shall we ditch the third wheel then?" Babusha suggested, offering me her arm. I hooked mine in hers and waved a goodbye to Liam.

"Hey!" He pretended to be offended.

I blew him a kiss. "Sorry, but sisters before misters."

"I'm hungry. How about food before dude?" Babusha said. I couldn't agree more. We bid a goodbye to a grinning Liam and strolled back to the car, dropping our arms. We headed our way back home. "Thanks, Noor," my companion said out of nowhere.

"Thanks? For what?" I asked baffled.

"You treated Liam like a regular teenager," she said softly. "Even those who have known him since middle school don't do that. Normally, they'd finish his sentences or tell him to relax and take a deep breath when speaking. You hardly even acknowledged he had a speech problem and let him talk. Furthermore, today was the first time I saw him smile so carefree."

"I tend to have that affect on people," I said. "Anyways, I didn't find any faults in Liam. The only problem is the one rooted in people's minds from their surroundings. There's a lot of stress on achieving perfection that people fail to realize that after all, we're humans."

"It's an ugly world," she said cynically.

"Depends on your perspective."

She didn't utter another word. Both of us knew that my statement was the truth.

A great therapist once said, "Like two sides to a coin, our perceptions are also two sided. One could either grieve at the ugliness of the world or admire its beauty. The choice belongs to the individual."

* *

"I hate him so much! How dare he cheat on me?!"

I offered the frustrated girl standing in the stairway a white rose. She and her friend blinked at me in confusion as to why a complete stranger just handed her a flower.

"What's this for?" she asked.

"I can't do anything else to make your day better, but I hope this rose does." I smiled innocently.

"Did Jackson send you?" she asked hopefully. I shook my head. "I don't want your rose, then!" She threw the flower into a nearby recycle bin and stormed out of there with her friend. Deflated by the lack of response high school students gave to roses, I adjusted my backpack over my shoulder and headed down to the cafeteria.

In my wildly wandering thoughts, I bumped into a random stranger, making a mini yellow cart toppled over and spill water all over the floor. I gasped and my eyes widened in horror. I couldn't believe it. The janitor's glaring eyes told me that if there weren't other students passing by, he'd use my face to mop the dirty floor.

"I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to." I apologized repeatedly.

"Keep moving," he said, turning away.

He rubbed his face and bent down to clean up the mess. I saw Toby walking past me, pretending not to notice me. I caught his elbow and told him to stop for a second.

"Hold my bag." I didn't wait to hear his response before tossing my backpack into his arms. Then, I crouched down next to the person and asked, "Do you want help with anything? I can bring you something or try to help clean up the mess." Although cleaning the floor wasn't something I did on a normal business, I could learn.

Besides, moping the floor didn't have any prerequisites.

Or did it?

"It's okay, I'll manage," the janitor said a little more kindly.

"No, I insist. I was so stupid for not looking where I was going. I doubled your work, didn't I?" Stupid Noor. "I can't do anything right."

He rolled his eyes. "It's okay, hun. This is my job. You go and have your lunch. I'll be fine."

"But--"

"Go on," he said more sternly.

"Are you sure?"

"Go!" he said sharply, but then laughed. I smiled and sheepishly nodded, standing up. As tempting as it was to run out of there quickly, I decided to first do one important thing. I took my bookbag from Toby, who had been just standing and watching the scene. Taking out the last white rose from my bag, I gave it to the man.

He was taken aback by the action.

"Sorry once again," I said sheepishly.

He didn't say anything, yet flashed me a million dollar smile. Smiling, I headed to the cafeteria, adjusting the heavy bag of mine over my shoulder.

"Why did you give him a flower?"

I didn't notice Toby following me.

"Why not?" I asked. "I've been taught sharing is caring."

"So have been many people, but hardly anyone shares." I shrugged in response. He surveyed my face as if searching for something.

"Stop staring at me! I might melt from all that fire burning out of your charcoal colored eyes." I gave him the same intense look he was giving me as if trying to look into my soul.

Unless he was a Dementor or God, it wasn't possible.

He let out an exaggerated sigh, though a hint of a smile tugged at his lips. "If you melt, I'm not volunteering to clean up the mess."

Rather than making a funny remark, I chuckled.

For the first time since we met, he was casually chatting with me.

We entered the overpopulated cafeteria, spent ten minutes in the lunch lines to receive a single pizza slice, a chocolate milk carton, and a rotten banana. Sucking it up, I made my way towards the loudest chattering group in the cafeteria.

"Hey, wrong way," Toby said behind me. "Mike, Viktor, and Babushka are on the right."

"You continue. I'm sitting with Regina George today," I said with a wicked face.

"Have you gone mad?"

"Only for you, Hottie."

He sighed in exasperation. "You don't even know Savannah's friends."

I stopped and faced him. "Why don't you be my escort? Please?" Batting my eyelashes and pouting, I waited for his decision. "Just for one lunch." He seemed to ponder over my request. "I'll be grateful until my last breath."

"Fine. Just one lunch."

"Thank you! You're the real MVP!"

"Shut up and let's go tackle some football players."

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A/N

Hi! How are you? How was your day?

What did you think of the chapter?

What is Noor planning by going to sit with the populars?

What do you think of her and her positivity?

Thank you lots for all the votes and comments and reads so far! Its amazing and I'm eternally grateful to you guys. <3<3<3<3

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