Referee [Fiction]

Mariam shot a scowl across the classroom for a second before burying her nose in her biology textbook.

It was thick and hardcover. The perfect shield. No one, least of all Aria, would guess that her angry stare was simply a disguise. Anything to avoid playing the referee between her two friends again.

It was hard enough when Temi transferred to another school, shrinking their tight circle from four friends to three. Mariam clenched her jaw and stared harder at a diagram of the chest cavity in the book.

Three was an odd number, for a reason.

She loved Aria and Shekina but in a trio, someone was always left trying to keep the balance. It was exhausting. She had been dragged into their quarrels and forced to take sides on many occasions.

Whenever they had a beef and called her to settle, it was about defending one of them against the other. The one time she did choose a side, the other didn't talk to her for three days.

In those days, her eyes became open. Wisdom budded in her mind. Aria and Shekina always found their way back to each other in the end. When they did, she was left standing like a misfit.

She wasn't used to saying no to her friends but this childish behaviour had to stop. They were almost fourteen. It was time to grow up. And if that meant, not choosing sides and staying on her own, so be it.

She was already loving her company.

A quick glance over the textbook, Aria and Shekina were staring at her, stunned. Mariam ducked back behind her book and chuckled.

I hope you enjoyed reading this short piece. It's inspired by the Freewrite #dailyprompt phrase "referee".

Thank you for visiting my blog.

^{_{Image credit: Freepik}}