39 | On The Road

DOMINGO

10:53 AM

Dahlia Gray

"Why do you want to hang out so late?" Aysa prompts, stepping off the subway as I wait by the platform, behind the yellow line. She glances around the station, adjusting the beige headscarf that coordinates with her Burberry-patterned pants. She finishes with a form-fitting white shirt, and matching Jordan sneakers.

I scoff, "this is late?"

"It's nearing eleven."

"Yeah, in the morning," I shake my head, a careless smile splitting my lips. "Are you always in a rush of time?"

"I am taking a day off from studying just to hang out with you, kid," she reminds, coming beside me as she hooks her arm around mine. She begins to lead the way out from the underground station. "If you wish to use up my entire day, might as well use up all of it."

I laugh as we reach the top of the steps, stepping out from underneath the steel entrance and out onto the street, the sun flows with soft rays and a breeze that captures the whole community. Busy people crowding around us, nuzzled in outerwear and bustling in and out of coffee shops, heading off to work, or taking strolls around the city.

"Where do you want to go?" I prompt, taking a look around the stores stacked right next to each other. "I don't usually go into the city, so..."

"Neither do I," Aysa shrugs, stopping in front of a restaurant with an outdoor venue, and a couple of strangers stopped their brunch to take a glance at Aysa. I knew exactly why. "You didn't plan for the day?"

I freeze. My lips parted, but no words hung. "I didn't think...I kinda...I just—I thought we could wing it!"

Aysa stares at me, dumbfounded with a hard look, for a long time before she shakes her head. "Kid, if I wasn't Muslim, I would beat your ass."

"What's stopping you?"

"Allah." She said, proceeding to walk. She tugs on my arm, dragging me alongside her as we begin to explore the city, looking for activities to do. We browse windows of stores, looking at outfits and the mannequins hung on display, keeping our eyes out for opportunities for the both of us.

I don't exactly know what Aysa likes—outside of studying and being at SAINT—so, I was hoping I could find out a little more about her today.

We stop in front of a bookstore.

"Do you read?" Aysa turns to me, leaning forward to pull on the glass door of the two-story building. She props it open, inviting me in.

"I don't." I answer honestly, "I read a lot of articles about astronomy, and constellations, but I barely read fiction."

"Well," she opens the door further, "it's time for you to get into the world of literature."

Aysa pulls me into the store, and we begin to browse the shelves. She doesn't loosen her grip around me—our formlinked together by the hook of our arms like a pair of twins—and we stroll past the rows of bookshelves, just to find a book.

There's a coffee shop inside of the bookstore, serving brewed coffee and pastries. The steaming coffee lingers all over the store, warming a temptation among the customers, driving them in.

"What is this?" Aysa picks up a book off the shelf, reading the inside of the cover for a synopsis.

I do the same, mimicking her action as I pick up a random book and flip open to the inside, skimming the summary. "What is this?"

Aysa looks up from her book, her eyes pointedly looking at my profile. I try to hide the growing smile on my lips, pretending to be focused on some dystopian fiction in front of me. "You're mimicking me."

I close the book, placing a hand on my heart. "I'm absolutely not, how dare you accuse such accusations?"

She scoffs at me, in a playful manner, before she returns the book and flips me off with her free hand. She loosens our conjoined limbs, pulling her arm out of the loop and turns to me. "I'm going to go explore some books. You stay here."

I pout, "woof."

Aysa rolls her eyes. "Hilarious, kid."

I merely grin.

She turns away and begins to head into the opposite direction, far from the dystopian young adult novels and the biographies and non-fiction sections. I lose her into the distance and soon enough, I can't find her figure.

Wow, she really left me like that.

I glance around the room, debating on what to do. I can't very well stand in the middle of the section, where people are roaming and searching for their books. Instead, I decide to take a trip up the second floor and explore whatever the hell is there.

Ascending up the steps I take in the vacant floor, saved for a couple of people who are hiding out. There's tables and chairs lined up against the border of the second floor, allowing the customers to take in the view from the first floor and appease to how enormous the bookstore truly is. There's little decorations scattered across the ledge, fenced in with waist-high railing.

My eyes scan over the shelves, hoping to find something that catches my interest. Though, I wasn't surprised when nothing truly did, I did get to witness some interesting covers and profiles. I don't know if fiction is truly the genre for me, but seeing how nothing out of the bunch has been appealing—I'm taking it's not.

After twenty minutes of exploring,  I twist around in my spot and begin descending down the second floor, entering into the coffee shop.

I look around the crowd, searching for Aysa. I don't know where she went—but I remember the direction she took. I decided to lead myself down the same path, skimming the aisles of the stores—before I found the beige-colored hijab in the midst of the crowd, scanning the back of a book. I sneaked up behind her.

"Boo!" I exclaimed, startling Aysa from behind. She turns around, with widened eyes before they spot me. They narrowed down at me.

"Not funny."

I wink, "it kinda is."

She glances down at me, her eyes doing a quick once over. She subtly drops the book back on the shelf. "No books?"

I shake my head, "I told you I don't read."

"Hmm." She hums in acknowledgment. "Let's leave."

Aysa grabs my arm, about to pull me away—when I resisted. I give her a wary look, just as she fronts with a passive one, and I return back to the position where she previously stood, in front of an NA section.

I pick up the same book, reading the summary on the back. My eyes begin to widen. "Oh."

"Kid..."

"You read..." I pause, a smile beginning to split on my lips. I couldn't contain myself. Aysa looks like she wanted to be anywhere but here. "You read smut?"

She grabs the book and throws it back onto the shelf, shaking her head. She grabs my wrist, leading me out of the aisle and subsequently the bookstore, with me trying my best to hold in my laughter.

"You read sex scenes?" I repeat, once we're outside out of the store, with a couple of pedestrians passing us. Aysa blushes under scrutiny, glancing around the city for passing onlookers. There were none.

"Shut up, Dahlia," she said with attempted authority, but it came out weak and measle. She covers her face with her free hand. "It's just a story—"

"I know," I laugh, "but it's a story that you read. I don't know, when I picture you—Aysa Kamali—reading for fun, I'm thinking you're memorizing the entire encyclopedia or something. Not college sex romance, or dark romance. This is unexpected."

"I will beat your ass," she threatens lowly, and I can't stop laughing.

"Aysa, it's fine. Sex is a completely natural thing to do, and I mean, I would love to—"

"Can we move on from this conversation?" Aysa asks, sucking in her cheeks. She's trying to remain in control of the situation, keeping everything under her cool. The problem is—she can't. "I don't want to talk about sex with you."

"I mean, you said it." I shrug, smiling so hard, my cheeks were starting to hurt. "You said the word sex. I'm surprised. It's a normal thing, though. I swear."

"I know," Aysa sighs, exhaling a sharp breath. She closes her eyes, regaining control. "I just—I don't want to talk about it."

"Are you..." I trail off, curiosity peeking through me. "Are you allowed to have sex?"

She shakes her head, eyes still closed, "not before marriage. It's haram. So, that's why I read it. To get a better experience."

I calmed down, and realization dawns on me. I open my mouth, my thoughts are a bit of a whirlpool, before I spoke: "are you...are you afraid of being bad in bed?"

Aysa drops my wrist and uses both hands to cover her face, "Dahlia."

"No, no, I'm serious," I said solemnly, gripping her forearm. "It's a genuine question." I pause, glancing at our surroundings, "and something we should probably not talk about in the middle of the streets."

She looks at me through the slit of her fingers. "You think?"

I pull her into a desolated alleyway, far from the city. I drop from her touch, leaning against the brick wall and wait for her to answer my question, my eyes lingering on hers expectantly.

She sighs, dropping her hands from her face. She doesn't meet my eyes in complete confidence, a contrast to the Aysa I know. "I don't know," she shrugs, leaning against the opposite brick wall. "I know a lot of things. I can go on and on about statistics, talk about human anatomy, and aeromechanics. I just don't study sex."

She pauses. "You can't study sex." She adds, setting her gaze to the ground. "You can study mechanisms in sex, and how to do, and what's missionary and how to perform—but you can't study having sex."

"So, that's why you read about it?"

Aysa doesn't answer immediately, but she slowly lifts her head and meets my gaze, swallowing a big gulp. "That," she nods once, "and it's fun."

She doesn't evaluate more than that, but I got all I needed. I gave her a nod, a bit impressed and a bit surprised. I'm happy for her nonetheless—at least she has a hobby outside of studying.

It's reading smut.

"Alright," I push myself off the falls, hooking out my arm in invitation. It takes a second before she takes it, snaking her arm around mine. "Let's go bowling."

━━━━━

DOMINGO

2:50 PM

Dahlia Gray

"You hate it here, don't you?" I ask, returning back to my seat at the round table, just after landing a strike with the pins. Aysa turns to me, a look of boredom crosses her features, and she nods.

"Absolutely."

I chuckle, turning back to the scoring board. We've been here for almost an hour—after searching the city for the nearest bowling alley and mindlessly wandering around for the hell of it—and Aysa, as I come to find, is a terrible bowler.

The highest she got, in one go, is a four.

No one moves. Aysa is supposed to go next, but she doesn't seem like she's enjoying the game at all. I knew taking Aysa out of her comfort zone was going to be hard, but I thought it would be worth the efforts. She would have fun, she would explore new activities, and she would want to do this again. I thought that was the blueprint in opening Aysa up.

But, then I come to realize—you can take the person out of their environment, but you can't take the environment out of the person.

"Come on," I tap her shoulder, pushing myself off one of the plastic seats. She turns to me, with one perfectly raised brow. I bend down to loosen the laces on my rental bowling shoes.

"We have half a game left."

"Yeah, I know." I nod, slipping out of the shoes. They looked like clown shoes, anyways. "But, you're not having fun, and since you're not having fun, neither am I."

She scoffs, but I could see her bending down to remove her own shoes. "That's a lie."

I send her a cheeky smile, "yeah, you're right. I was having fun."

I slip back into my Adidas and she returns into the hollows of her Jordans. We take the bowling shoes in our hands and return them to the counter, with a grateful smile and an awkward wave—both signed by me.

Hooking my arm around Aysa, we begin to pull out of the bowling alley, and return to the concrete streets of the city. A strong, cool breeze blew our way as we stood in front of the glass doors—no sense of destination planned in mind.

"What do you want to do now?" Aysa asks, turning to me.

"I don't know." I shrug. My eyes skimming the endless rows of stores and entertainment that fills the city. None of them looks appealing—at least, for Aysa and me alike. "What do you want to do?

"I've lived here for seven years, and I've yet to explore the city. I don't know any other places outside of my apartment."

An idea spurn to my head, "you like movies, don't you?"

She raised a brow at me. "I haven't seen one in forever."

"Do you have Netflix?"

"No subscription."

I sigh, "Aysa Kamali."

"Dahlia Gray."

I scrunch my nose at my last name, but nonetheless, shake my head. "Come on." I said, tugging her arm. "Let's go to your apartment."

━━━━━

DOMINGO

4:25 PM

Dahlia Gray

Whatever I thought Aysa Kamali to be—she turned out to be the complete opposite.

The base of her apartment is considerably large for one person. Upon immediate entry, you're greeted with a white marble-stabbed island with three bar stools to your left. Marble countertops fit the L-shaped kitchen, a black oven and microwave among the surface, and white oak cabinets fill every square inch of the walls saved for the fridge.

To the right, there's a large vacant space before being greeted with a small living room area, a singular couch and a coffee covered with textbooks. There's no television or stand, but there's two large walls separating the back of the apartment—where the bathroom and the private bedroom is—and another separating the kitchen from the living room.

Everything is completely white, and there's absolutely no decorations hung on the walls or anywhere. There's zero family portraits, paintings or flower pots around the apartment to appease to the homey atmosphere—and there's one more thing.

She's a mess.

Textbooks are dripping off her coffee table, cracked open and splattered on the floor, pages creased. Her couch is littered with various pillows of sorts, a large fluff blanket wrapped in a ball with random stationery tucked in and out of the cushions. The kitchen is the worst—the island is covered with crushed line papers, littered around the island, plates are left in the sink to be washed, and random utensils sorted on the countertops.

I take a seat on the couch, moving the large blanket out of the way. Aysa comes beside me, unravelling the fluffy material and casually draping it over her body. "I..." I open my mouth, my eyes searching around the apartment for something to compliment. I look from the small balcony deck, to the windows to the empty walls behind and beside me. "Um..."

"Save your breath," Aysa commands with her hand, her eyes fitted around the room. "It's just an apartment. There's nothing special about it."

"It's supposed to be homey," I remind softly, hoping to not overstep my boundaries. "You know, have something that screams you in your own home. Decorations, painting the walls—something for the guests."

"I don't have guests." She replies sharply, her eyes on mine. "Unless you count parents, which I don't."

I press my lips together, not commenting. In my head, I'm thinking of ways to stray away from the topic, something subtle. "I want an apartment," I muse, glancing around the place a second time.

"Apply for the housing program under SAINT," Aysa declares, her voice easing. She shifts in her seat, turning away from the balcony doors to the front of the room—a blank, white wall. "It usually takes two-four weeks for your application to get passed, and if you add in financial aid, they'll process your papers faster."

I sigh, shaking my head. "It doesn't matter."

She spares me a glance, but doesn't say anything else. We resorted into a peaceful silence, no communication between us, before Aysa reaches forward and picks a book out of the coffee table, flipping to the next page.

I hold my hand out, "you're not actually going to study, are you?" I question, watching her read the passage. "We're supposed to be hanging out."

"I don't know what we're supposed to do, kid." Aysa declares, shutting the textbook close. She turns to me. "You shut down before you talk, even though you want to evaluate more, and I don't know how to start small talks. How would you suggest we continue the day?"

I'm quiet. My hand slides into the pocket of my jacket, running my fingers along the outline of the inhaler. I know she didn't mean to come off aggressive—and she didn't—but I have a problem with higher authority speaking down on me. It's not her fault.

We don't say anything as Aysa waits on patiently, her fingers itching to turn to the next page but having the decency to keep settled. I stare to the floor of the living room, admiring the slick of the wooden planks, and hoping to build up the courage to explain to her.

"I have two friends." I begin slowly, my words quiet and almost indistinguishable. "Their names are Josie and Hannah."

"I don't know these people."

"I know," I sigh, "it's just—they're who I hang out with in school. Before Harlow, I had them."

Aysa nods, and doesn't interrupt any further, allowing me to build the courage to explain the entire situation.

"My dad...he's a...he's a difficult person to live with. He's my father, and I love him, but there's times where he hurts me and there's times where it's my fault. Every parent has a different way of loving their child, and I know this but—" I stop, taking in oxygen. "His way hurts sometimes."

"My mom said it's normal, that it's a part of our culture. He's not physically abusive, and he's not hurting us, so there's no reason to leave him. Plus, he deals with PTSD so he just gets a little agitated sometimes, and sometimes he accidentally slips some really hurtful things and I...am getting off-topic."

Aysa watches me, with an analytical gaze. Her eyes studied my face, before reaching my neck and my limbs. I cover my arms protectively, "he's not hurting me."

"You just said he hurts you sometimes."

"No, I mean, like my feelings," I correct, "it's not physical. Like, at least he's not beating me every day after he comes home drunk."

"He comes home drunk?"

"No!" I shout, slapping a hand over my face. I groan, "you make it sound like he's a terrible person."

"You're not making him sound like a saint either."

"He's my dad," I emphasize, hoping to get it through her head. "He's not a bad person. It's just, sometimes, he comes and he talks a lot of bad things. He says some really cruel stuff. It hurts me, and it hurts my mom—but when he's happy, we're okay. I don't know how to explain it—he's still my dad."

Aysa doesn't question anything else, which I think is a sign that she's satisfied with my explanation. I'm not trying to paint my father as a bad person—even though he's not talking to me still because of the whole paperwork incident—but there's some things I don't like about him. He's still my father nonetheless.

It's the culture.

It's the PTSD.

He loves me. I know he does.

Sometimes, I just overreact and want things too quickly.

Sometimes, it's my fault.

"How does this connect to your friends?" Aysa prompts, dragging the conversation back on topic.

"Oh, um, that," I said, fidgeting with the ends of the blanket. "It comes back with the whole thing about me not wanting to explain my situation. They—they're really good friends to me—but they just don't get it. They have great parents who love them always, and perfect fathers and they just don't get it. I don't even know if you do either, because you seem like you love your dad."

"I do." Aysa said solemnly. I sigh.

"So, it's harder for me to explain or for you to understand my situation. You probably have a really good dad, and you probably have a really good bond with him." I pause, waiting for her reaction. She nods shortly, after a moment of consideration. "My dad is a good guy, but we're not close, and like, he's just—there's off moments. Days you wouldn't understand. Things my friends wouldn't understand."

I take a two-second pause, allowing the weight to sink into the atmosphere. "It's better to stay silent than waste my breath explaining something they'll never get."

Aysa purses her lips, but doesn't say anything. Instead, she closes her eyes and pulls up the blanket, emerging herself under the material completely. She leans back against the couch.

"I was born in Somalia, during the civil war," she tells me, her eyes still closed. "Have you ever been to a war-torn country?"

I try to imagine Venezuela, and the current state of affairs in my home country, but I was a child when I left—barely any memories left other than the small, everyday things. The farm, the house, my abuela.

I shake my head, "no."

"It's horrible. You see your neighbors being killed as causalities, there's barely any clean water to drink or shower, the harsh religious laws imposed on women, the sexual violence against women—what they do to the children," she sucks in a staggered breath, her eyes squeeze shut and her fingers clenching the blanket. She swallows. "It's bad."

She doesn't speak for a couple of seconds, trying to reclaim her composure, but she's shaking her head. Her fingers clawing inside of the material, her jaw clenched under her hijab, and she starts shaking her head.

Is she...having a flashback?

"Aysa," I grab her shoulder, the fur caressing my palm. "Aysa."

I shake her shoulder, forcing her to open her eyes and when she does—her eyes widen. She looks around the room, her shoulders stiffen, and she rips the blanket off her body, throwing it to the side. "I..." Her chest rising and falling rapidly, "um."

I don't say anything, trying to read to the situation. I don't know what to do, especially witnessing her having a bad flashback about her home country. I didn't know how bad it could get.

"You...you don't understand my situation, either, do you?" Aysa turns to me, pulling her composure back into rhythm. Her eyes slightly glassy and frantic. I shake my head. "Well, that's exactly what I'm trying to prove. Just because someone doesn't experience the same story as you, doesn't mean they can't read the pages."

She pauses, her gaze meeting mine with a warm, soft smile. "Don't hold your story in. Tell them. Use them. No one is going to judge you."

And before I add anything else—to argue against her about the possibilities and what-ifs—she takes my hand in hers. "At least, I won't let them."