Maria sat at the edge of the flowery bench farther away from Arnold. She was curious and a bit unsettled about his reason for asking her to join him for breakfast this morning.
This could be considered Maria's first time eating alone with the opposite sex so she was unsure of what to discuss with him.
When she was still at the University, she would always eat alone or with Lexis and sometimes together with Lexis boyfriend Kobby who was a senior studying medicine in their university. She never accepted to dine alone with any man because of the increasing rape cases that occurred at school.
Maria ate the sandwich and drank the milk that Arnold gave her silently while being alert at the same time. She didn't want to be seen by anyone, least of all rumors spread around about her. She was the most scared of rumors because it had once almost destroyed her life.
When her mother cheated on her father leading to their divorce, news spread all over her school and her life became hell. A lot of her classmates back then and some teachers started treating her badly saying she only had a pretty face but a nasty character. People referred to her mother and said she was going to grow up and become exactly like her mother.