The next morning Ahmed was so determined to tell Lynda about his feelings. He even got Samir involved in his plan. Samir was supposed to wait for Lynda outside the school and take her to the parc where Ahmed made the preparations and then give them half an hour alone and come back to celebrate the new couple if everything goes right. On their way to the park, Lynda said she has some important news that will have big effects on her life but she prefers to keep them until they meet Ahmed as usual. The first thought that came to Samir's mind was to prevent Ahmed from confessing until they know what those news are.
When they first came to the park, Samir gave a sign to Ahmed to hide whatever preparations he had and so he did. After teasing them for few minutes, Lynda finally told them that her father managed to do all the needed paperwork to settle down in London and bring his family along. He even found a good job that would help them have a normal life there. But he decided to let Lynda finish her high school in Tunisia and then move to London. She only had two years left anyway.
That was really bad news for Ahmed. Now he can't build a whole relationship when he can see a dead end two years away. Maybe a distant relationship is an option, but not a good option. It would eventually lose its magic. However, a good friendship can survive some distance and some eventual blackouts, no matter how long they would be. So he had no choice other than to keep things the way they are.
The next year, the year of her graduation from high school, Lynda decided to wear hijab. That was highly forbidden in Tunisia at that time because, to the police and the ruling party, hijab was rather a political opinion than a religious practice. In their minds, it's linked to “Ennahdha party”. Despite all her family members’ opinions, including her father’s, Lynda never accepted any debate or discussion about what she thought it's “a direct order from Allah”.
To stick to that decision was not so easy. She had to wear all kinds of hats to hide it in the streets to avoid policemen, she had to sneak in to school sometimes when there's a campaign against hijab and she even had to miss some exams rather than take it off and sit for them. Ahmed and Samir tried to convince her to delay the hijab thing till next year. "It will be much easier in London" they said. But she said that, in that case, she would meet Allah as a sinner if she dies before next year and that she can't afford that. So they were obliged to support her from that moment. And they did it perfectly by walking her from and to school when they suspected a campaign and telling her where and how to run or hide when the police is around.
On the day of the last baccalaureate exam, Ahmed went to pick Lynda up from her school and meet Samir in the park. They were talking about how easy the exams were for Lynda and hard for Ahmed. They were so excited about never coming back to high school that they didn't see the policeman coming. The officer first asked for their IDs and then asked Lynda to follow him to the police station. That’s when Ahmed objected and tried to convince him friendly. But the officer was so determined that he left no choice to ahmed then to take Lynda's ID from his hand by surprise, give it to her and ask her to run. The policeman held Ahmed's hand and tried to arrest him, so Ahmed had to punch him in the face and escape. Unfortunately there was another officer nearby that Ahmed didn’t see so he got beaten up very violently and then arrested.
Here are the links for the previous parts of the story in case you missed them:
-Part 1
-Part 2
-Part 3
-Part 4
-Part5
-Part6
Since I'm still writing it, I'll be open to any suggestions or requests from the readers to make it a fun experience for everybody. Of course I have my own ideas about the big events so I'll be the one who decides how the story goes but I'll do my best not to be too dictator :D
Part 8 will be out next Wednesday.