~Third person
After taking a second look and double checking to make sure there wasn't anyone who could either be a witness or a hinderance to the next action she was about to take, she stepped closer to the wardrobe on the side of the room with the most depressing color- a dull shade of green.
Inching closer while still making sure she wouldn't have a surprise guest, she neared the wardrobe with extreme caution while trying her best to get her work done knowing that if Alya or anyone else were to somehow walk into the room at the moment, it would be the end for her.
Finally in front of the mahogany wardrobe, she pulled it open silently thanking her stars that it didn't make much of a creak as she thought it would.
Within seconds, she had the lilac box with the name tag Alya Chizitaram on the floor. She went through the bags looking for anything but nothing in particular.
After her search through the first box, she went through the rest of the boxes in the wardrobe making sure not to miss a spot. Too engrossed in her search, she didn't notice a third person silently watching her from the room's door.
****
Staring at the lavish bungalow which was her supposed ‘home’ Kaira suppressed the urge to turn around and return to where she had come from- the hostel which had become more of a home to her than this building had been in the past eight years.
She wondered why her foster parents suddenly decided that they wanted her home. As far as she knew, they had always been so eager to ship her back to the boarding house for the last five years.
It was made so obvious that she was unwanted in that house. So obvious that even a first time visitor would know.
And then out of the blue, they decided that they wanted her to visit home for a weekend. 'Splendid!' Kaira thought.
With a sigh she made her way into the building walking past the waiting room and straight into the parlor where the real daughter of the family and her supposed younger sister was lying on a couch too busy on her phone to acknowledge the presence of a third party.
That had been the relationship between the two of them for a long time. They both did well to pretend that the other person wasn't even in existence where one could even walk through the other if possible.
Closer to the dinning area, Kaira found her foster mother- Katherine who did well to put on a smile at the sight of her foster daughter.
"I am so happy to see you. It's been very long since I last set my eyes on you and I have been dying to see you. How have you been?" She asked standing up to hug Kaira.
"I have been doing fine," Kaira said returning the smile. The mother-daughter duo had perfected the act of faking affection for one another which was both dumb, old and especially sickening to Kaira but she didn't have much of a choice.
"Hope the driver didn't take too long? I specifically asked him to not keep you waiting."
"You don't have to worry about that mom. He didn't take long. I wasn't even done gathering my things when he arrived."
"You didn't finish packing your things? He waited for you to get them right? And I am sure he didn't hurry you."
"He didn't," Kaira said already tired of all of her mother's questions.
"That's good. Do you want to eat?"
Before Kaira could answer the question, her ringtone filled the air directing both her and Katherine's attention to the phone in her hand.
"I see you are still using your old phone," Katherine observed.
"Yeah, I am."
"That's quite funny don't you think? Judging by the way you kept pressuring us to buy you the latest version of the phone, I even thought you would have tossed this phone by the side and started using the new one once it arrived, don't you think?" Katherine asked adding a small laugh at the end to make it look like a joke and mask her annoyance.
"Yeah, I should have dropped it when dad got the new phone," Kaira said. Katherine waited for her to say more but when she didn't, Katherine asked, "So why isn't that the case?"
Kaira sighed.
"The phone either got stolen or I misplaced it in the cafeteria."
Katherine was furious at the point. Her foster daughter just nonchalantly told her that she misplaced a phone that cost a bit above a thousand dollars.
"And you are not even bothered?" She asked anger rising in her voice and her patience already exhausted. Kaira shrugged not at all shaken by her foster mother's flop in her act.
"You know we won't replace the phone right?" She asked more calmly regaining her composure.
"It's not a problem. I'll just wait until the next model is released then you and dad can buy it for me," Kaira said before finally excusing herself to answer the call from the person who had been calling her non-stop.
~Alya
While I somehow enjoyed my stay at home which was pretty refreshing and reminded me just how much I had missed home, no matter how boring it was, it meant that I had to wait to see the expression on Mrs. Okoye's face when she found out that I was free from the punishments she had wanted me to serve.
The wait was excruciatingly painful but totally worth seeing how annoyed she looked and how her jaw almost dropped to the floor when the dorms supervisor informed her that I couldn't serve most of the punishments I was given due to health conditions.
Although I still had to join in serving of food which was basically a piece of cake.
I noticed that my things seemed to have been messed with while I wasn't around but I waved it off since I wasn't exactly the most orderly person on earth and sure as hell couldn't remember where a single thing had been before I left for home even though I barely stayed two days.
I also noticed Kaira's absence but didn't try to ask since I wasn't friends with my roommates.
"So the good news is that my family finally gave me the permission to stay in the hostel. I will be moving in in about two days from now. Isn't that great?" Alesscia asked me sounding extremely excited.
I nodded as I wondered why she was so happy to get away from her family. I didn't bother asking her. She kept ranting as we were walking. I didn't listen to much of what she said and my thoughts began to drift as we walked down the path leading to the art class.
I realized then that Auti hadn't tried talking to me after the day I had asked him to stay away from me. It broke my heart a little that our friendship meant so little to him that he didn't even try to talk to me once after that day.
A small part of me wished he followed me around school begging me to forgive him or at least tried to fight for our friendship. But then I had asked him to stay away from me so he was basically just doing what I told him to.
I sighed. In a sick way I actually wished he hadn't broken our friendship because of his girlfriend and that rather he would have broken up with his girlfriend because of our friendship.
"Have you been on the class' WhatsApp group chat recently?" Alesscia asked me as I returned my attention to her.
"No. Why do you ask?" I questioned curiously.
"It's nothing to worry about really. It's just that someone sent something about you being Ami Tara's daughter and the person said they have evidence to back it up and that they would send it very soon. But you said you weren't her daughter right?"
"I said that," I said contemplating whether or not I should tell her the truth.
"But I lied," I said against my better judgement.
"So Ami Tara is your mom?" She asked for clarity.
"Yes," I said clearly since we were the only ones in the empty hallway. She stopped walking and kept mute for a while. I stopped to face her.
"What's wrong?" I asked and she kept staring at her phone for a while before she finally peeled her eyes from the phone and looked at me, fear and worry evident on her face.
"I think you need to see this," she said handing me her phone. I took the phone from her hand as all kinds of thoughts went through my head.
What was it that I needed to see? Was it that bad that Alesscia couldn't even mention it? Did it have anything to do with my mom?
I finally built the courage to take a look at the phone and the next thing I saw made my eyes water.