"Reyi said there will be so many things that we have never seen before at the fair! I wish you could see it too, My Zera" Lilly's words slash through the morning air and fly to my ears.
I screw my eyes shut as my teeth sink on my lips, my hands ceasing from shoveling the backyard of our home. I sigh, but it was overshadowed by the music of the birds.
Lilly is clueless as ever. She doesn't know how I hate reminding myself of the person I am not is what I hate even more than the ignorance toward me.
"Lilly, I am fine with it." The lies seep out of me easier than they used to, reminding me how much I am used to it. Used to just be me, "Just drop it."
"Lilly! What are you doing out there? Are you not planning to go to school today?" Mom's shout that rings in the air startles me and Lilly.
I heard a long huff from Lilly and the crumbling of leaves underfoot. When my eyes ride up from the ground I see no one under the oak tree where Lilly was sitting. only her abandoned chappals lay on top of the green lawn.
A sigh rumbles beneath my ribcage and threatens to push out of me again but I gulp it down.
Today is Monday. Instead of getting ready for school, she tags along with me out here only to say things that don't need to be heard.
Her little babblings have failed to snatch my attention, Not when my body is the only thing here while my mind keeps running to Arlo. As I promised, I need to meet him at the Ocean. And that's the only thought that keeps surfacing in my head. It consumes my senses and switches me off from the outside world.
Will I be able to go to the Fair as Arlo said? What will it look like? Will my eyes twinkle like a star as I stare at the blinding lights? Do I sound as dreamy as Lilly sounds when I talk about it? I wish to know it all. But can I?
"Zera, The food is getting cold!"
***
"What do you mean?" My voice is alien to my ears as it escapes from between the slight gap of my lips and fills the air between me and Arlo. He has burned down my senses again, but now with the tiny shining glass bottle starting at me from between his fingers.
"If you sprinkle two droplets of this in your eyes," He shakes the bottle in his hands and I can see the blue crystals galloping inside the small vacuum. "You will get blue eyes for a whole day. That's twenty-four hours. But it will really depend on the amount of it you take in. sometimes it will stay longer and sometimes don't."
"No— what?" I feel the harsh bites of cold on my skin, yet I'm sweating. Cool droplets of sweat creep down my forehead. This cannot be real. How can it change people's eye color? I know magic exists in this world but this? This is unimaginable
I'm terrified but I feel the heat of a flickering light of an unfamiliar hope twinkle inside my heart.
Arlo steps forward, a smile dancing in the corner of his perfect pink lips before it curves in the shape of a word that flees out of him.
"Yes." And that lone word washes away the uncertainty in my veins.
He laughs, but it is a faint noise in the clamor of waves, "You look horrified." His free hand reaches for mine and caresses the back of my palm.
"Zera, It is not bad. It won't do anything to your eyes either. But in a way, it will help you to excavate the world you are not a part of."
His voice is like a soft melody that I crave to hear every night before I say goodbye to the day. Yet his words are something I never know I'm capable of hearing.
"Arlo…"
He let go of my hand and took a step backward. His fingers open the lid of the bottle and wipe the mouth of it ever so gently. A thin stain of blue wet the tip of his finger.
I hold my breath as he lifts it to his eyes and wipes that finger into them. He keeps his eyes closed for a few beats.
I suck in a lungful of salt air. My fingers tighten on the wooden railing of the balcony as the anticipation slithers out of me in the form of cold sweat.
Arlo flutters his eyes open.
My breath caught in my throat.
His eyes. It is the lightest shade of blue. Like the ocean. No hint of lavender in it as if it was this same blue when he was sent to this universe.
He stares at me with his new shade of blue eyes. He is so beautiful. Like he doesn't belong anywhere it is not heaven.