Isle of Sanctum | The Aya Thrasher Chronicles | Book 1 |[Editing]

Chapter Nine

CHAPTER NINE

Kindness Day

AYA

Jubilant.

Ecstatic.

No, scratch that.

Rhapsodic.

I felt rhapsodic. I liked that word. It reminded me of music, like the warm vibrations of the roaring synthesizers that were pulsating from the condo next door. The whole building was in party mode. I had expected nothing less. After all, it was "Kindness Day" — the day that marked the cohabitation of humans and Sciusians on Earth many years ago. It was basically the Fourth of July on steroids.

I rarely got invited to parties, unless Lake threw them. So, when Trevor invited me, I almost fainted, but now, that same ball of apprehension that had been floating around my lower gut, like a parasite, was back. I was a good girl, or at least I tried to be. I had heard stories of what actually went on at these parties, and I was somewhat worried that I would get myself into trouble — or that my naiveté would end up embarrassing me. But even if I had managed to embarrass myself, it couldn't be any worse than being stuck in my tiny, rodent ridden excuse for an apartment back home, while my mother shouted demeaning insults.

Finally, it was time to go in and to stop overthinking things. I lifted my finger to the intricate scanner, adjacent to the front door. After seconds of analyzing my identity, the heavy metal door creaked open, exposing a crowd of hyper teens in designer clothing, dancing wildly.

Amongst the busy crowd, a bushy haired teen emerged, rushing forward in a hurry. It was Soren. Without paying attention, he pushed past me, dropping a set of keys that clanked against the glass floor.

"Soren?" I quickly retrieved the keys and turned around, but he was already out of view. I stuffed the keys into the pocket of my jacket. Out of sight out of mind. I would just give them to him after the party. 

When I turned back around, a dark shadow loomed toward the door's frame. I looked up at the source of the shadow. His hair, a burnt cinnamon, with bangs that lingered just below his eyebrows, reminded me of autumn. It was Trevor. He looked better than ever.

"Hey Aya, I'm glad you came," Trevor said with an excited smile.

I rubbed my arm. The itty-bitty hairs on my arm were standing up. It was always that way whenever I was around Trevor. I had never really been boy crazy. In fact, my motto was: school, career, friends, and then boys, but there was something about Trevor that made my heart sing.

"Um, yeah. Sorry, I mean. I was running late vacuuming our suite." I tried to come up with a half decent excuse for being late, but the words that came out of my mouth made my cheeks turn a bright red, realizing I had sounded lamer than I had intended to.

Trevor laughed. "Vacuuming, huh? Why don't you get the suite Zeza to do that?"

My embarrassment turned into shame. I had totally forgot that the suite had a Zeza. I just wasn't used to using fancy devices like that. There was no way my family could even afford the oldest model of a Zeza self-cleaning robot, with the way my mother gobbled up my disabled stepfather's pension plan. I had seen some generic house cleaning robots, but even those were too expensive.

"I forgot about that," I blurted out.

"Don't worry. They're the worst. Anyways, come in. The party's just started," Trevor said.

The living room, which served as the party room, was decorated with expensive Scandinavian furniture probably flown in inter-planet just for Trevor's family. I scanned the room, spotting Lake, standing by the refreshment table. She saw me and handed me a glass of punch.