#Any bets on whether Arwa will be diagnosed with ADHD at some point in her life?

[mirasmirages]

Making Friends

For the @julybreakbingo squares "Collection" and "Engage"

Ao3

Arwa was bored. 

She had finished her pancakes and sat swinging her legs while Mom and Auntie Amara talked about all sorts of boring stuff, like the news and politics and the wallpaper Uncle Nadir had chosen for his new apartment. Arwa couldn't understand why they cared about any of that. 

Since they weren't paying attention to her at all, Arwa decided to find something better to do. She slipped off her chair and went to the most interesting thing in the diner: a little girl sitting in a booth near the counter, with a coloring book and crayons all over the table. 

"Hi!" Arwa said. "My name is Arwa, what's yours?" 

The girl looked up, but didn't say anything. She just stared at Arwa like she was waiting for something.

"What are you drawing?" Arwa asked. The coloring book was open to a page with a horse which had as much color outside the lines as within them. 

The girl didn't answer, just kept looking at her.

"It looks pretty," Arwa said. "I like this purple color. Can I sit with you?"

The girl was very shy, so Arwa took her silence as a yes and climbed up next to her on the bench, sitting on her knees now that Mom wasn't watching and making her sit properly.

"Do you wanna see my marbles?" 

Arwa took out her velvet pouch of marbles and carefully poured them out on the table, making a barrier with some of the girl's crayons so they wouldn't roll off the edge. 

"I have even more at home, but these are my favorites." She picked up the marbles one by one and explained what made them special. "I like this one because it sparkles, and I won that one from a girl in my class at recess, and my uncle gave me the big orange one that looks like Jupiter. Did you know Jupiter is the biggest planet? I wanna get marbles that look like the rest of the planets too, but my brother said that's stupid because Saturn has rings and marbles don't have rings, so I told him he's stupid and I can make the rings myself. And this one is the most special of all of them." She held up a small, blank marble. "It looks boring, but it isn't because I got it from a soda bottle! It's this special kind of soda from Japan that uses a marble instead of a lid, and you have to push the marble into the soda to open it! And after I finished the soda I wanted to take the marble out but I couldn't, so I asked my brother to try, and he couldn't either, so we looked it up online and figured out you have to set the bottle on fire, so we did that and my uncle got really mad because we coulda burned the house down, but we didn't so it's okay, and now I have the marble! You can hold it if you want!"

Arwa held the marble out to the girl before she noticed that one of the waitresses was standing by their table watching them. 

"Hi," the waitress said with a big friendly smile on her face. "Nova, did you make a friend?"

The girl didn't say anything, and suddenly Arwa got a bad feeling in her belly. Maybe the girl wasn't just shy. Maybe she didn't like Arwa or the marbles and just wanted her to go away and Arwa hadn't noticed because she never noticed when people wanted her to go away, even her teacher said so, and her brother and her classmates all called her annoying and now the girl thought so too! 

She was just about to swipe her marbles back into the pouch and leave when the girl nodded. 

"You did? I'm so happy for you!" said the waitress, and turned to Arwa. "What's your name?"

"Arwa."

"What a beautiful name! My name is Delia, and this is Nova. Nova doesn't speak much, but it is so nice of you to play with her! Is that your mom over there?" 

When Ms. Delia went to talk to Mom, and Arwa turned back to Nova. 

"Your name is Nova? That's pretty," she said. "Did you know it means star? My name means goat, but no one knows that unless I tell them. My mom says my name fits me because I climb on everything, and my brother says it fits me because I'm as stubborn as a goat. Did you know that when a star explodes it becomes a supernova? And then it becomes a black hole!"

Nova didn't say anything for their whole conversation, but that was okay, because Arwa could speak enough for both of them. She talked about space and names and her family and animals and ranked Nova's crayons by how much she liked the colors. Ms. Delia gave them a big cookie to share and Arwa told Nova how lucky she was to have a mom who let her eat sweets on a normal day, but then Mom said Arwa was allowed to eat her half of the cookie and she felt pretty lucky herself. 

When it was time to leave, Arwa sorted through her marbles and picked a purple one with glitter in it. 

"You can have this one." She held the marble out to Nova. "It sparkles like stars, like your name, see?"

Nova hesitated, but held her hand out, and Arwa dropped the marble into it. 

"This means we're friends," she said. "That means you can come to my house if you want and I can teach you how to play marbles." 

She would have waited for Nova to reply, but Mom was getting impatient and Nova hadn't said a word all day, so after a moment of hesitation, Arwa gave Nova a hug before running out after Mom.