“It was nice meeting you.” Avery spoke up.
He did a wave as he ran back across the street to work.
“Your tire?” Avery laughed confused, asking Aira.
“I don’t know.” Aira put her hands into her hair and her elbows on the table. She smiled because she felt ridiculous.
Joshua was now aware of what was going on and decided it was the right time to speak up.
“He sure likes you,” he smiled at Aira. Aira looked at him like she couldn’t believe he just said that and so did Avery.
“How do you know that?” Avery asked as excited as Aira felt.
“He told me,” Joshua grinned.
Avery looked back at Aira with a shocked look that quickly became a smile.
Saturday consisted of homework, roaming the house aimlessly, and checking the online weather forecast a million times because it had rained all day. It was now 9:15p.m. Aira was in her room sitting on her bed talking on speaker phone to Avery.
“If it doesn’t rain tomorrow we’ll be there by noon.”
“I don’t think I’ve hated rain more in my life!” She was frustrated. The rain was relentless. Avery laughed out loud. Aira shook her head and smiled.
“Have you checked the forecast?”
“Like a million times,” Avery laughed again.
“I love you. Get some sleep and try and work on your communication skills.”
Aira lightly laughed, “Okay.”
“Sweet dreams.”
Aira hung up the phone and laid down.
Would it ever stop raining? Would he get Sunday off? She just wanted to sleep but her brain wouldn’t shut off. She tossed and turned until about 12:45 a.m. Finally she fell asleep, and almost instantly fell into what she thought was a dream.
She was still in her room, it was still dark, and she was still laying in her bed. She didn’t even know she was dreaming. The moonlight was shining through her half open-curtains.
There was a light knock on her bedroom door.
“Come in.” Aira moved her hair out of her face and sat up.
Her mother opened the door a bit and poked her head in.
“Someone is here to see you.” Maddy smiled, and she opened the door all the way and Israel walked in.
Her mother faded into the background until she wasn’t there anymore. Aira was too shocked to even notice.
Israel walked over to her and sat down at the edge of her bed. He had a relived and calm look on his face.
She looked at him and waited for him to say something. She couldn’t believe he was there.
He was looking down at her hands. He slowly moved his hand towards hers and he took her left hand into his. Moving onto his knees onto her bed, he placed her hand against his solar plexus. It’s where he felt everything, because it’s where the soul admits itself.
His eyes glistened like diamonds refracting light. She stared at him and looked calm, but her heart pounding would tell you different.
“I need you to trust everything I show you.” He spoke in a soft tone.
He took her hand off and held onto her wrist moving his thumb over her beauty marks.
She noticed him staring at the constellation on her arm. He looked back up at her with an intensity, and slowly, taking his time, unsure of how she would react, he leaned in and very gently kissed her mouth.
Aira closed her eyes feeling a rush through her body like a vast flowing river. Nothing else existed in that moment.
Aira opened her eyes to the sound of her alarm. 7:00 am Sunday morning. She had forgotten to turn it off for the weekend. Of course. She slowly sat up.
Remembering the dream she touched her mouth. She could still feel the coldness of his dusted, blushed over lips, and his smell. It was so calming to her. He didn’t wear cologne or anything, it was just him.
Aware it was Sunday, in an instant she stumbled quickly out of bed and over to her window.
Moving her curtains out of the way, she saw a cloudless day with the early morning sun still rising. She smiled with relief.
Aira grabbed some clothes and had a quick shower. Letting the water fall down her face, she re-played the dream over and over in her head. It was so vivid, it seemed real to her.
She had felt everything, even the pulsating of her own heart when she had looked into those strange and beautiful eyes. Whatever was behind them seemed to go on forever. She looked down at the beauty marks on her wrist and moved her fingers across them. She thought about what he had said, but she couldn’t understand it. It made no sense.
After her shower she dried off, put on her mustard-colored bikini, some black short shorts, and a light, loosely fit sweater. She brushed her hair, put on a bit of foundation, some of her favorite lotion, a very subtle calming vanilla, and some lip balm.
Walking back into her room, she grabbed her purse and went downstairs. David was watching Sunday morning cartoons.
Aira walked into the kitchen. Her mom was making fruit smoothies and Barry was sitting at the kitchen table doing a word puzzle in the newspaper. It looked like he was really concentrating.
“Did you have a good sleep?” Maddy asked, throwing some strawberries into the blender.
“Ya,” Aira smiled to herself thinking of her dream.
“What are you smirking about?”
“Nothing…” She shook her head slightly leaning against the counter, “I just had a good sleep.”
“Well, can I make you a smoothie?” Maddy smiled.
“Ya, it looks delicious.” Aira went and sat down at the table with Barry.
“What’s a nine letter word for cryptic?” Barry asked both of them, looking up for only a second.
“Ambiguous,” Aira answered almost immediately.
“How did you get to be so smart? I’ve been stuck on this for almost twenty minutes.”
“I actually did that puzzle yesterday.”
Maddy grinned.
“Hmm,” Barry paused for a second feeling a little better about his smarts. “How long did it take you?” He continued to ask.
“About five seconds.” Maddy tried to not laugh, and looked at Barry with an endearing smile.
“I’m gonna spend the day with Avery, we’re gonna go to the lake.”
“Well, it’s a good day to do it. We probably only have about another week of this nice weather. Just try and not to be too late, you have school tomorrow.” Maddy walked over and handed them each a smoothie.
“Where’s O’ Romeo? He’s usually knocking at the door by now.” Barry asked in a nonchalant smart ass kind of way.
“Actually, it’s over,” Aira answered.
“Oh lord, what did he do now?” Maddy asked, sounding expectant of it, but disappointed for her daughter.
“Probably just being himself,” Barry answered.
Maddy looked at Barry. “Oh stop it.”
Aira bit her lip and smirked because she knew he was right.
“You’re still young, and you’re beautiful, I wouldn’t worry about it too much. Have you thought about what you wanted to do yet after graduation?”
“I don’t know… Probably catch up on sleep.” Maddy shook her head, grinning at her daughter.
“Actually, do you guys mind if I take this upstairs, I really need to finish some homework.”
“No, honey, you go ahead,” Maddy answered.
Aira grabbed her smoothie, taking a drink as she stood up and walked upstairs to her room.
Maddy shook her head, looking at Barry.
Israel was still sleeping. His door was open and his father stood at the doorway. He could sense his father, so he opened his eyes and looked over to him.
“Your boss called. Three buses have come in, he wants you there by noon.”
Israel’s father looked like him, except he
had lighter hair and a beard. Kind of gruff, like a well-groomed bush man. He was warm looking and most of the time very composed and quiet.
Israel was disappointed. He grabbed onto his blanket and rolled over, putting his pillow over his head. He was wearing dark blue, plaid pajama pants and a T-shirt.
“You’ve been exhausting yourself. Why didn’t you wait until after graduation to get a job? If you need money —”
Israel rolled over and sat up.
“No… I want to do this myself. I’m making payments on something, it’s almost paid off anyways.” Israel rubbed his eyes, still half asleep.
“I know he’s probably not the easiest person to work with.”
“It’s fine, Dad.” His father laughed.
“Alright, well, your mother’s making breakfast if you’re hungry.” He tapped on the door frame and walked out.
Israel fell back onto his bed wanting to sleep more, but slowly pulled himself out of bed, grabbed his sweater off his chair and walked out of his room.
Hours went by. It was almost noon.
Israel walked into work. Though he was disappointed, he had reasons for not asking for the day off. He pulled his sweater over his head, pulling his T-shirt down so it didn’t come off with the sweater and he hung it up in the back room.
While Israel put on his dishwashing apron, his boss, doing paper work in one of the booths, glanced over at him, then quickly went back to his work.
Aira was sitting on her bed doing homework waiting for Avery. Her phone began to vibrate. Excited it might be them, she picked up her phone and looked. There was a text from Jaidas.
Babe I’m sorry.
Aira just looked blankly at it and threw her phone on her bed.
A car honked loudly more than once.
She closed her books and went downstairs.
Jaidas was sitting at the side of a dirt road in his car. He rubbed the bottom of his chin with the back of his fingers looking at his phone. You could tell he was in deep thought, upset perhaps.
“Jaidas, what’s up? Come on.” Harlem walked over to the car from where they had set up to camp.
Jaidas looked down at his phone one more time, then he threw it onto the passenger seat and got out.
“You gotta see this,” Harlem laughed, and they walked back to the camp site.
Avery was already inside talking to Maddy and Barry.
“Ready?” Avery asked. Aira smiled.
“He has to work,” Avery said, sounding disappointed for her. Aira’s smile quickly fell.
“It sucks, I know,” Avery replied to the look on Airas face.
“Who has to work?” Maddy asked curiously.
“No one,” Aira answered, quickly trying to dismiss the conversation.
“Alright, Avery, spill the beans,” Barry smirked.
Aira got tense and quickly grabbed onto Avery’s hand and dragged her to the door.
“Sorry, Mr. Valentine, she would never forgive me.” When they got outside, Aira closed the door.
Barry laughed and Maddy had a look on her face. “Here we go.”
“I’m never gonna hear the end of this now,” Aira spoke in dread. Her parents like to raz Aira, but it embarrassed her.
Avery just smiled at her. “Wait until Jaidas finds out.”
“He won’t. There’s nothing to find out.”
“Aira, you shouldn’t worry about what he thinks, he doesn’t care about anything other than himself.”
“I don’t... care,” she lied. She was a little worried, mostly about how he would react. He already seemed to have a beef with Israel for some reason.
Aira slid into the back seat of Joshua’s car. Joshua was on the phone. Avery got into the front, closed the door and turned around and looked at Aira.
“Aira, don’t let him ruin this for you. You deserve better and he knows it.”
Aira knew it wouldn’t be that simple if something were to actually happen. She hated drama, Jaidas lived for it.
“Let’s just have fun.” Avery smiled at her.
“Okay, at four? Hold on.” Joshua put his phone down, covered it for a minute and looked at them. “Israel’s off at four, he wants us to meet him by the park when we’re done.”
“Yes!” Avery said, excitedly looking at Aira.
Joshua smiled and uncovered the phone and put it to his ear.
“Okay man, we’ll meet you there. Kay, see ya.” Joshua hung up.
All of Aira’s worries about Jaidas completely flew out the window.
“Let’s go,” Joshua said, putting his car in reverse. He pulled out of Aira’s driveway and they drove to Lake of the Woods.
Lake of the Woods was five minutes out of town. It was surrounded by mountains, was said to be bottomless, and legend has it, it originated from a volcano.
They pulled into the parking lot. They got out of Joshua’s car and walked down to the steep rocky hill that led to the lake.
Avery took off her shoes, shorts, and shirt. She was wearing a dusty pink and burgundy, floral- printed bikini.
Joshua took off his shirt and shoes, leaving on his black swimming shorts.
Aira pulled off her sweater as she watched Joshua drag Avery to the water. He picked her up and walked into the water with her. It must have been cold by Avery’s reaction.
Aira took off her sandals and walked down to the water putting her toes in. It was cold, but not unbearable.
“Come on, you chicken,” Avery spoke, while swimming around.
Aira smiled, walking into the water up to her waist. She moved her hands around in the water to get used to it and finally dunked herself all the way under. She came back up refreshed. Aira loved to swim. She loved the feeling of coming out of the cold water on a hot day. To her it felt like everything bad was washed away, a feeling of newness. It was probably one of her most favorite things.
She swam backwards aways and floated around. In the distance she could hear the echoing of a helicopter chopping through the air. Its familiar sound barreling through the sky was more apparent on days like these. She floated there, every once in a while diving underneath the water.
Avery and Joshua were talking. “What!!!” Avery had a high pitch excited tone to her voice.
“You have to tell her,” she spoke quietly to him.
Avery pushed Joshua towards Aira and they swam over to her, moving their arms in the water keeping themselves afloat.
Aira looked at them wondering why they were being weird as they looked at each other smiling.
“What?” she asked.
“What would you say if Israel asked you out?” Joshua asked her.
Aira’s stomach filled with butterflies.
“He’s not,” she replied, more nervous then she had probably ever been. She was in disbelief.
“Ya, he is,” Joshua laughed.
Avery smiled with love at Aira.
“No, what? Like now?” she said, almost forcing her words to come out.
“No,” Joshua answered. Aira felt somewhat relieved. “At four,” he continued with a grin.
“You’re not serious,” Aira smiled nervously, shaking her head. “No, he’s not.”
“He is, and there’s no getting out of it.” Avery bit her lip, splashed a little water at Aira and smiled.
Aira shook her head, looking at their expressions, then turned around and dove into the water to try and wrap her head around what they had just told her.
“She hates us,” Joshua laughed.
“Not yet,” Avery smiled.
They spent the next few hours playing in the water. Aira found a near-by rock and crawled up onto it to sunbath.
Israel was drying dishes and putting them away when his boss walked into the back with his reading glasses pulled down on his nose.
“I
srael!” He spoke loudly. Israel was startled a little bit.
“Mr. Lee…”
“I have your cheque here. You should run to the bank before it closes.”
“I can go?” he asked delighted.
“Yep, it’s slowed down enough now.” Israel took off his apron, dried his hands and his boss handed him the cheque.
“Thanks!” Israel grabbed his sweater and went to run to the door.
“You do a great job, kid. I’m happy to have you working here,” Mr. Lee called after him.
“I’ll see you Friday,” he spoke, half saluting his boss as he ran out the door. His boss nodded and returned to his paper work.
Israel ran down the road about a block, to the C.I.B.C bank. He still had another twenty minutes before it would close, but he had to run back the other way to catch the other shop. He needed to go and pay off what he wanted to buy.
Avery and Joshua were on shore getting dressed. Aira was still lying on the rock.
“Aira!!” Avery shouted across the water to her. Aira sat up, looked and saw Avery waving her hand for her to come to them.
Aira stood up on the rock, looked down at the water, then dove in and swam back to them.
Avery dried her hair while they waited for Aira. Aira finally got to the shore, dried herself off, got dressed, and they all walked back up to the car together.
As they were driving back, Aira just stared out the window. It felt like her heart was in her stomach. The closer they got to town, the worse it got. It wasn’t a bad feeling, was just that feeling you get when you’re about to go into a dreamed about situation. She could barely get words out to him never mind having to come face to face with something she didn’t even understand. About the only thing she was sure of was that this was something she had waited forever to feel, to really feel, something that felt beautiful, magical, and unexpected.
Avery looked back at her, smiled, and she laid her head back onto the seat.
Aira started to bite her nails.
“Stop biting your nails.” Avery spoke not even looking at her. She knew Aira that well.
Forbidden: Book One of Wild Sky Saga Page 5
