Clouds of Violet

Chapter Nine

Thursday, September 11th, 18:03

I've been waiting in Ayeza's garden for a few minutes now.

I'm hiding by a rose bush, staring at her pool. The lights in the pool glow in the dark; it's the only way I can see anything. She said to make sure nobody sees me, so I'm guessing I'm not allowed in and she's sneaking me in.

I hear the screen door open and shut and crane my neck. Ayeza's walking toward me, hands in her pockets, with her head down.

"Ayeza!" I whisper. She looks up like she's about to kill me. "Hi!"

"Shut the fuck up," she says. "Are you insane? What do you think you're doing here? If my parents see you, I'm dead!"

"Sorry," I mumble. "I just wanted someone to talk to."

"Get up," she says. "And be quiet. If we get caught, my parents will send me to an all-girls boarding school in Iran."

She takes me to the side of her house and tells me to climb the ivy till I reach the top window.

"Absolutely not," I say.

"Well, it's either this or the window in the front," she says. "And that one is much harder to climb."

"Couldn't you have brought a ladder?"

"Yes, because that would look perfectly natural," she snaps. "Me carrying a ladder out my back door. My parents would never question that." She gazes up at her window. "Listen, it's not that hard. You do sports, it should be easier for you than it is for me. Look, let me show you." She grabs onto one of the vines and instructs me to do the same. She helps me climb up and my legs scream in pain. Considering all the running I did, I shouldn't be doing this, but to hell with it.

I groan as my legs ache. It feels like they've been thrown into a fire.

"What is it?"

"My legs," I say. "I ran here."

"Well that's your problem," she says simply. "We're almost there, come on."

She climbs into her window and pulls me in too. I fall on her plush pink carpet.

"Get up," she says, closing her bedroom door. "My parents are at a business meeting, but my Nani and brother are home."

"Your what?" I say, dusting myself off as I stand.

"Grandma," she says, plopping down onto her bed. Her room is not what I expected it to be, from the pale pink carpet to the baby blue curtains. Everything's so...unlike her. She has a vintage-looking, white desk in the corner of her room. I walk over and scan the table. A neat stack of notebooks, Jane Austen novels lined up against the wall, a small lamp, and a cup of pens all decorate her desk. Her wardrobe is on the other side of her room, by the window we just climbed in through, next to her vanity. I peer at her desk and see about ten different foundations.

"You have a lot of makeup," I say, looking back at her. She answers with a simple 'yeah' as she stares at her ceiling.

The window that we came in through is huge and has a small couch right in front of it, pillows scattered neatly across the soft cushion. She has a little white chest at the foot of her bed; it has flowers painted onto it and a small flower keyhole.

"Your room's really...pretty," I say, sitting down next to her. "It's really unlike you."

She sits up and looks around her room.

"I used to have posters right there." She points at the wall by her desk. "But my parents made me remove them. They wanted me to have a more...welcoming room. They're very traditional."

"My mom doesn't really care what my room looks like," I say. "She doesn't really care, you know? Like, at all."

"What about your dad?"

"Well, luckily for me, the parent that actually cares is also part of the military," I say. "I haven't seen him in a while."

"No siblings?"

"Younger brother, total asshole," I say. "He's basically my mom's henchman."

"My brother's the exact same," Ayeza says. "If he finds out you're here, he's gonna run to Mom."

"Why are they always like that?" I groan. "Can't do anything in pe-" She holds up a finger and shushes me. Tiptoeing to her door, she presses her ear against the wood.

"Shit," she mumbles. "My brother's coming. Get in there, right now." She shoves me into her wardrobe and leaves the door ever-so-slightly cracked.

"Dude, who the fuck are you talking to?" Her bedroom door creaks open and a boy—I'm guessing her brother—stands in her doorframe.

"No one," she says. "Don't you have a party to be at?"

"Yeah, I'm not leaving yet," he says, folding his arms over his chest. "What kind of party starts at six?"

"The kind without drugs and drinking."

"They're also called boring parties," he says. "Connor's picking me up at seven. He's asking if you wanna tag along."

"Tag along?" Ayeza repeats. "Like, go with you...to the party?"

"Yes," he says. "Say no."

"Yeah, I wasn't really planning on leaving my room," Ayeza says. "Like at all."

"Well, bye."

"Aryan, wait," Ayeza says. The spins on his heel, leaning against the door frame again. "Could you tell Connor that I want absolutely nothing to do with him and that he should stop trying to talk to me? Please?"

"Fine, whatever," he says. "He's like, in love with you or something. Standards are out the window at this point."

She sighs as he leaves her room, watching as he walks down the hallway. She closes the door and opens the wardrobe doors.

"Do you wanna go to Ben and Martha's?"