I see my best friend making out wildly with her boyfriend. Looks like everybody found their match, but then where is mine?
As soon as the door opened the both of them jumped back in surprise and started furiously rubbing their lips and straightening their clothes. They looked flushed with Alianna's lips swollen and her arms which had fresh red fingerprints embedded brightly on them. And as for Ciam, the short stout boyfriend of my best friend had a crimson brown mark on his neck which I assume is a hickey. Pretty wild, huh? I am myself blushing and when I look at my cousin I know I am not alone. She's blushing too. We exchange glances of pure shock and surprise and laughter and embarrassment and I have to pinch myself to not start laughing. When we look at the wild couple still inside the elevator we know we're not alone. They're feeling the same.
"We did not see anything!", Kashmira and I shout in perfect synch. At this, the couple blushes more and Ciam gets out of the elevator with his head hanging low in embarrassment not before kissing Alianna's forehead though. We get in the elevator and Alianna presses the seventh floor to her home. I am more than willing to believe I am the most naive innocent person on Earth. I didn't know when these things were so normalized in this country. Where was I? Where was I living? Did I wake up from hibernation?
"Care to explain?", I say smirking and give a toothy grin at the same time.
"Ummm...Well, it is not what it looks like", she stutters her face a tomato.
"Absolutely not. So what it looks like? Like two mad lovers making out wildly in an elevator. It definitely doesn't look like what it looks like", I say teasingly.
"I was calling him for at least an hour today but he wasn't picking up and I wanted to talk to him and...I was upset since it was my birthday...and well I thought I would check on him by going to his apartment....well then as the elevator reached the ground floor and as I was about to get out I saw him. He got in and he was wearing a black punjabi. He had a bouquet of roses and he gave it to me and then...", she opens her fist, there is a golden pendant in her hand in the shape of a sphere shining so brightly in the light that I almost had to squint my eyes. It must be an imitation or how does a seventeen-year-old boyfriend buy his girlfriend a Gold pendant? "He gave me this and one thing led to another and well you saw what happened", she flushes one more time." He saved up his whole year worth of pocket money to buy me this golden pendant. It's real gold." I am awestruck by her words. This boy really did this for her. That's so beautiful. I look at Kashmira and she's in awe too.
"Wow, this is beautiful", we stutter. "What he did is so thoughtful and beautiful". I never thought her relationship with Ciam was so deep. They have been neighbors since elementary school and pretty close. But that was it. When they first started dating two years ago I thought it was a fling and would break up pretty soon because Alianna has always been a little dramatic and too childish. Yeah, that never came. Plus point she can invite him to his house with her other neighbor friends to her home as a friend since her parents don't know about their relationship. Mr. and Mrs. Chowdhury are good friends with Ciam's parents, moreover, Mr. and Mrs. Chowdhury had a Love marriage they won't defy her. Perfect Love Story.
We enter the house and there isn't much guest, to begin with. Mrs. Chiwdhury welcomes us in and hugs us, kissing me on the cheek.
"Where's your mom Mahira?", she asks.
"She was pretty sick so she did not come". I am going through options if this was a perfect excuse because if she talked to mom and she gave a different excuse then I'm getting lashed out at home.
"What!, she did not come? This is so wrong. She had to come. Your mother is so difficult. She'll have to come. I'll call her.", she panic-talks. My mom and Alianna's are very good friends too but last time when we came to their house party I understood why she wouldn't come. She'll invite us at seven in the evening and when you arrive you'll find the whole family Still decorating or getting ready with Alianna's aunt fussing over a picture or asking others to apply her a certain blue eyeshadow because it matches her dress. And then Alianna herself would be fussing over jewelry she isn't being able to wear and fuss until it has been fixed and then the actual part will begin at eleven in the night when my dad will constantly call us to return home. This family is kinda really crazy more like screwed up.
Alianna takes my hand and pushes me through the little crowd to her room where her neighbor friend Ahona is getting ready. She's wearing a Saree with a drape on her shoulder. Alianna quickly gets undressed from her hoodie and shorts to wearing a flowy and sky-pink blouse and a petticoat. She shakes me by my shoulder and I knew it was coming but please,
"Why aren't you wearing a Saree? I said it was a traditional theme. I texted you too."
" I am not good with saree, so I did not wear. Come on it isn't a problem".
"No! No! No! It is a problem, go back home wear a Saree and then come here. The pictures wouldn't come nice ." She pushes me through the doorway and shows her mom like I've committed a heinous sin.
"MOM look she isn't wearing a saree! The pictures will not come well. She'll look like the odd one out. What do I do?" She is so childish, God forbid! and as I feared this birthday isn't really a birthday, it's a photo session for Instagram and Facebook posts. God forbid.
"Yes, that's right, why dear? Why haven't you wear a saree?" Aunty is looking at me with astonishment and I wonder how she did not catch that a few minutes back.
" I cannot walk with a Saree on and it kinda gets suffocating", I try to reason with her.
"Nope, you girls need to wear Saree, wait I'll give you my Sarees", she couldn't finish saying it, and then minutes later Kashmira and I are forced to get out of our clothes and are huddled into petticoat and blouse with aunty adjusting our drapes with safety pins.
Fifteen minutes later I am left to see my reflection in the mirror. A yellow off-the-shoulder top, that's what I'm wearing, and I have a drape on the shoulder with a yellow-green Saree hanging on me. Kashmira is wearing a red cotton Saree with a red matching blouse.
"Oh my Gosh! You girls look so pretty", aunty screeches and hugs each one of us."Mahira you wore make-up, I've never seen you with it. You look beautiful, your mom did your make-up?"
"Thank you, aunty, Kashmira did my makeup. She's very good with it."
And this the cue for Kashmira to start doing everyone's makeup. Aunty takes her by her hand out of the room for her to do aunty's makeup and before leaving Kashmira glares at me and mouths me a bitch!
I help Alianna with her hair adjusting a tiara that She has been roaming around for someone to put. The tanned girl(a shade lighter than me) has straight hair too but shorter than mine. She's wearing a sequin blouse with a sequin golden Saree looking breathtakingly beautiful. She has pout lips and almond eyes with Fox eyeliner and red lips.
"I've never seen you with makeup too. Finally getting some girly aspects out or did you find a hotshot to impress," Alianna says to me.
"Yeah watching you making out like crazy I thought I might as well hook up with someone here."
She blushes once again,"Shut up will you?".
Like that a whole night goes into blurr. Her neighbor friends come, all of our school friends had ditched so I'm pretty awkward with all the new people here on the birthday. There are seven of her male neighbor friends and one female friend. I am so introverted that I trail behind Alianna and sit with her neighbors. They're of all ages starting from seventeen to twenty-two. Why am I like this? Why can't I talk with ease? Meeting so many new people altogether is my biggest introvert turn-on. After half an hour Kashmira returns and sits beside me and I sigh in relief. She whispers to my ears,
"Three people. I had to do makeup for three people. My hands are hurting with her aunt asking for a different shade of eye shadow or lipstick. I'm so fucking tired. All because if you bitch!" I laugh out loud at this and suddenly all the eyes are at me. "I told you they're pretty weird", I whisper back and shut myself up looking at all the people in the living room. One of Aliann's neighbor friend, I guess Safwan is the name has been staring at me for a very long time. It's getting creepy now. He's shorter than me but he's very friendly and funny but I'm not interested in him. I tell this to Kashmira.
"You only attract short guys don't you?", she replies. Bitch! I mouth her. Who's the jerk now?
Meanwhile, it's eleven p.m. and the party began really. We take a lot of pictures together. Alianna and me and Kashmira. Alianna also makes a joke with a white unblown balloon on the floor and says it's someone's used condom in a non-hanky panky zone. We chat away the night and the creepy guy still stares at me. In the group picture, he's sticking beside me. I kneel down a little for his face to appear in the picture. He's still beside me when we're eating and Kashmira teases me for it.
"Look he's low-key interested and you're low-key single, you could mingle!"
As if I ran out of options. We play Uno and little by little I get comfortable with all the new people. I see Ciam helping Adrita drink water when it got over her nasal and she was coughing. He's good for her. He's very caring. And then at one point, his mom enters the room and in one second he jumps back from Alianna and hops on one of his male friends sitting on the bed and the boy swears in anguish.
Aunty had forced mom to come and join the party so in the end mom had to come and the aunties were having a nice gossip session.
It's nearly one in the morning when we finally make it out of the house. I hug Alianna goodbye and kiss her on the cheek and wish her a birthday once again.
My Mom takes a rickshaw home as obviously she would never walk a street. Our driver is on holiday so he wasn't here to drive us home. Meanwhile, Kashmira and I are walking home.
We talk about everything and the party and Alianna's boyfriend. I feel a strange sensation as if someone's following us close behind. I look back but there's no one.
"What's wrong?", Kashmira asks
"I felt someone was following us", I say still looking back for confirmation.
"Maybe you're hallucinating, we're almost home". She takes my hand and we're walking again. After a few minutes, I hear footsteps again so I quicken my steps and ask Kashmira to do the same. I am barely holding back the scream and run that I'm about to make any minute. I hold Kashmira's hand.
I suddenly stop and look back once again and I bump into something, someone's chest and...
I am clutching someone by the waist and shoulder to keep him from falling. Someone whose eyes are ash mauve, grey. I have never seen such beautiful eyes. It's a light shade of grey but as you look into it, it gets deeper and darker. He has thick and long eyelashes. The crease on my temple relaxes, the panic residing. Time has stopped. It is allowing me to study the person in my arms.
The person with light stubble on his smooth face. Thick black lashes which are so long that could make any girl jealous. A sharp jawline. And eyes. Eyes so beautiful that you would want to fall for. He has curly disheveled hair, brunette. It looks so smooth that I want to run my fingers through them. A slender nose and pink-tinted lips. I wanna Kiss him. Yeah, not a great time and place for that. This is a literal stranger on my arms, the one I don't know and I felt was following us, and it's midnight. Whatever weird thoughts I am having can wait.
"What?", his eyes are on me, they are piercing my own eyes, a deep and rich voice jolts me back to earth and my senses. I drop him on the floor. Kashmira takes my hand and pulls me closer to her. Did I say the last line...The kissing lip part out loud. Please not. Please please he could not have heard it. He did not hear it. He murmurs an ouch and stands back on the ground. At least a 6'2. He's so tall he's towering over us. I have to hold my chin upwards to meet his eyes. I am still staring at him when Kashmira takes my hand and drags me behind her running. Who is this boy in the black hoodie? Who is he?