Too Little, Too Late

0.5

Aomi, Atlantica

On Friday July 13, 2013, thirteen year old Ayra Leilani Abdulaziz officially stopped being a junior secondary school student. She became an official member of the senior secondary school class one at Harmony High and like she'd always wanted, she was to be in the arts division.

On that same Friday July 13, Ayra Leilani Abdulaziz fell in love. She didn't plan to fall in love that day but fate doesn't really wait for us to plan, does it?

When the school bus dropped her off at the front gate of the compound her family owned, Ayra happily waved bye at her classmates and opened the passenger gate to let herself in. There were a lot of cars, telling her that there were official visitors for her father.

Already used to such scenarios, she went in through the kitchen door at the back and as quietly as she could, she went upstairs. Her mother was out and on such occasions, her father didn't know she (Ayra) was back until the visitors left.

Knowing she had some time on her hands, Ayra changed out of her school uniform, dumped it in the laundry basket, and then paced the length of her room until she decided to go down to the second living room to watch a movie until her father finished. The guests never came towards the other living room so she did not have to bother about anything.

Her footsteps were light as she descended the stairs and she heard her father's clear laugh as she walked past the closed doors of the main living room. There were other laughs but she didn't recognise them and she wasn't sure she wanted to do so. Only her father's laughter mattered. It was the only one that made her feel warm inside.

She walked past the closed kitchen and past the home office where her father could be found if he wasn't in any of the living rooms or in the room he shared with her mother. The second living room sat on the other side of the house and the nearer she got, the excited she became. There was going to be no school until September and such breaks meant she got to be spoiled rotten. Nothing could beat that and she was ready to start her break with a very good show.

Nothing prepared her for the sight she met in the space she'd assumed would be empty. Momentarily panicking, Ayra rushed behind the nearest curtain and let a near minute pass before she peeked out of her hiding spot; as though she was a thief scared of being caught.

There was a male in the cosy space and he sat on one of the sofas. Ayra had never seen him before. The book he held in his hand had his full attention and the particular sofa he occupied sat in front of the opened windows. There was something about the way the light shrouded him like an angelic halo that did something to Ayra's little heart. She'd never seen someone who paid so much attention to a book, to the extent he had no idea he was being watched by the curious eyes of a new teenager as she'd turned thirteen at the start of that very month.

She acknowledged then that he was a beautiful man. She had no idea where the thought had come from but she knew it was the truth. The man seated in the living room was beautiful and obviously older than she was. Ayra tried to guess his age, wondering if she would be correct if she said he was about twenty. He appeared tall even while sitting and there was grace in his movements as he flipped the page over.

He had light brown skin; almost the shade of smooth honey. His hair was full of curls that were neatly cut low. From where she stood, Ayra couldn't make out the colour of his eyes but she was certain they'd be beautiful too. He had full dark brows, a straight nose that fit his face, lovely shaped lips, and a well-kept stubble beard that framed his jaw.

He wore a cream coloured turtleneck which he'd paired with dark blue trousers. His feet were covered with black socks and he had one leg elegantly crossed over the other. Ayra wondered if she'd be able to pick out what shoe belonged to him on the shoe rack if she could manage to sneak out to the foyer.