Is This Okay?

Chapter 4

It is packed with people. Absolutely packed. There is music turned up so loud that it would have been hard for Uzair to tell what Azhar is saying, if not for his gestures. He points to a couch in the far corner and starts walking towards it while Uzair follows.

Inside, he has a really bad feeling about this. His conscience is telling him he should get out of here before something goes terribly wrong. That he shouldn't even be here in the first place. 

But there is also a small part of him that is eager to know what happens in the coming days. See if he is able to live two very different lives. 

The-Good-Son slash The-Deceiving-Son.

"UZAIR?!"

He is jolted back to the current situation by Azhar.

"Yeah, I'm here".

Azhar stares at him as though trying to figure out what's going through his mind. And he has it figured, it seems, because now he has an arm around Uzair's shoulders and he is practically yelling in his ear.

"Man, it's your first time here, you got to learn to chill! It'll get better once you get used to it". He lights a cigarette and hands it to him. Uzair brings it to his mouth and inhales.

"What's got you so worried, anyway?", Azhar asks.

"Do your parents know where you are right now?", Uzair gives him a question instead of an answer, the exact same thing that annoys him when someone does it to him.

"You think they would have let me get out of the house next time if i told them?"

Uzair looks up from the cigarette and his gaze lingers on a couple dancing at a distance, before resting on Azhar. He's looking at them too. 

"Do you think it's right, what we're doing?"

Azhar turns to him and goes, "What are we doing?"

This makes Uzair laugh in disbelief while giving the room a once-over.

"We're at a party, Azhar. You know what happens at these. Hell, I just smoked my first cigarette on the way here, I don't know what I'll be inhaling next". He gives a pause. And then, "It's not hard to ignore conscience here, is it?"

"You don't know what happens here", he says. "One second you're here, the next you could be getting forced to drink alcohol."

Hearing this leaves Uzair incapable of doing anything other than stare at him. He is trying to figure out what he's trying to tell him, but Azhar won't meet his eyes.

"Azhar, I - "

He isn't allowed to finish his sentence because Yasin appears out of nowhere and starts his.

"BOYS, LOOK WHAT I GOT", he falls on the couch next to Azhar and slams two vodkas down on the coffee table in front of them. Azhar puts an arm around his neck and grins.

"You don't need any more of those, bro", he says to Yasin and grabs both of them. He's about to stand when Yasin snatches the bottles from him.

"They not for me, they for you both". It seems to Uzair that Yasin isn't even trying to make sense, his words are slurring so much.

"I don't feel like it, dude. What about you, Uzair?"

"Not me, either"

"**** off, both of you, boring as hell", Yasin says and walks - stumbles - across the room to some guy. Azhar turns to face Uzair, but he seems to have changed his mind about asking the question.

He stubs out his cigarette on the coffee table and walks out of the house. Azhar follows him. He's walking pretty damn fast but Azhar catches up to him and grabs his arm, swiveling him around to face him.

"Then why did you come here?". It feels like Azhar spits those words at him rather than speaking them.

And he does not have an answer. 

"You made that decision not long ago, to come here, to come with us. Why?!".

Uzair remains silent. He's looking over Azhar's shoulder at a girl leaning against the apple tree in the front yard. She's in a yellow button down and black jeans. And she's wearing Jordans. The girl senses someone's stare and looks up to meet eyes with Uzair, which leads to him quickly averting his gaze to Azhar.

He opens his mouth but doesn't know what to say, which makes Azhar sense he isn't getting an answer

He doesn't like to be kept waiting, Uzair is about to learn. Because he is suddenly shoved a little too hard in the chest by a hand that is Azhar's. Uzair stumbles but regains his balance.

"Answer me, will you?!", he is now shouting.

"Because I - "

"Because you wanted this. You started to hang out with these guys who have a life better than your own, and you wanted  to experience firsthand, what that life felt like". 

It hurts more to hear those words from someone else.

Of course it does.

"So if you want to fit in with us, you have to stop this shit. Those guys will make your life hell if you keep up this attitude in front of them", he says, pointing over his shoulder at the house behind him.

Uzair knows the people Azhar is referring to. So he nods.

It isnt hard to knock some sense into Uzair, Azhar thinks. He puts his arm around Uzair's neck and while they are walking back into the house, Uzair sees the girl watching them.

She has her phone in her hands, and he can see in the light of her phone the color of her hair.

Electric blue.