Saya sat on her bed staring at her cell phone with great intensity. It's the seventh day she's done this, due to the fact she hadn't had the courage to type in Solomon's number and press 'call' the other six previous days. His number had been saved in her phone since he entered it in her contacts list the first week they were dating, but she hadn't used it. In fact, they haven't really said a word to each other ever since the morning after the 'incident' happened. A glance at each other and a nod as they pass in school hallways, just as an acknowledgement of the others existence, that's all. Saya always thought they only did it to show the other spectators there were no harsh feelings between them. But right now she needed him, for something only he could do, that she didn't want to tell anyone else about, not even Haji, especially not Haji.
No one was around, which made it easier. It was the evening dinner rush and she excused herself from restaurant duties that day. Her hands slightly shook as her cell phone had its highlighter over Solomon's name on her contacts list. She knew he'd probably be happy to talk to her. Or maybe not. What if he never wanted to talk to her again? He did make the promise to be "waiting for the wings" if she ever changed her mind. But really, it's high school, a lot of people who think they're in love move on quick after break up, and a lot people say things that they never meant. This thought saddened Saya, though she wasn't sure why. When she left, she felt as though she wanted nothing to do with Solomon. Wait no, that's not right. She did want something to do with Solomon, but she made the decision not to have anything to do with him, because she knew what she wanted wouldn't come close to what he wanted. What she wanted... what he wanted... an imbalance, a gap that could never be bridged without one of their lives ruined. Saya sighed, and closed her phone, falling back across her bed and closed her eyes tight, rubbing her forehead in frustration. Maybe she was over reacting, maybe he already has another girlfriend, maybe he's completely over it and she could call and see him without any awkwardness. It seemed like a long shot but she took advantage of that small hope to reopen her phone and quickly press the call button over Solomon's number before she could over think it again.
Her heart raced in anxiety as the dial tone rang twice before Solomon picked up.
"Saya?" He asked, sounding genuinely surprised, but not at all upset, or angry.
"Hey Solomon, listen, I don't mean to sound rude, seeing how this is my first time speaking to you in a while, but I was wondering if you could do me a huge favor, as a friend."
There was no pause for Solomon's answer "Of course Princess."
Uggg! Princess. Saya grimaced at the use of Solomon's favorite affectionate nickname for her. Princess should be the name for someone spoiled, or bratty, more suiting for Diva. She wondered if that was Solomon's nickname for Diva, and he called his next girlfriend that out of habit. But Saya swallowed her irritation and spoke with gratitude. "Thank you so much! Can you pick me up tonight? I can't really talk about it here."
"Tonight?" Solomon paused, taken aback from the rush, but then spoke with enthusiasm "yeah sure, I'd love to. But isn't it a bit late? It's seven pm, and I'd like to hang out some"
Saya bit her lower lip looking at the clock. It was probably a better idea just to wait till the next day but that'd require another day off restaurant duties, plus this was something she wanted to get started on right away. While there was still a few more days of free time before school break ended. "Well… I could… spend the night… if it's not too much trouble."
"Oh really? Yeah Princess, that'd be no trouble at all!" He said with even more enthusiasm than Saya was comfortable with. She pulled the phone away from her mouth and sighed.
"So hey, you can't meet me at my house, could we meet up at the park a few blocks away in like, forty minutes?"
"Sure, sounds good, I can't wait to see you."
"Yeah… same. Bye." Saya closed her phone and proceeded to bang her head in her pillow a few times. But what's done is done, and she was sure she wanted to do it, so there was no turning back now. She sighed went to her closet. She knew Solomon wouldn't like the favor she had in mind to ask him, so she had to be as gracious as possible about it. To stay on his good side she decided to open up her large chest of clothes that was pushed in the back corner, hiding under some of her formal clothes hung on the hangers. In this overstuffed hidden case was all the clothes and accessories Solomon had gave her during their few weeks together. Stuff, that she actually did try to sell, but found out that the type of people who tend to buy those types of clothes only want them if they still have the tags attached. Something about authentication, to make sure her clothes were actually made by the designer and not someone that just managed to make the same exact thing for a hundred or so bucks cheaper. Saya thought it was stupid. It's clothes, if people think your clothes are pretty they'll be staring at the design not your tags. But alas, she was stuck of this chest of clothes, and decided to make use of them.
She pulled out a sapphire blue, long sleeved, velvet shirt with a black silhouette of a Chinese dragon on it, and matched it with a knee length pleated black skirt. She also grabbed pair of thick lined black winter boots to finish the look, and pulled out her black/electric blue hair extensions along with a small pack of makeup to stuff into her purse. She left the overstuffed chest on the floor, not bothering to try to squeeze it shut again, and grabbed her long jacket, buttoning it up so it would cover over her conspicuous outfit. Finally, she took one quick glance in the mirror before she left her room, and went downstairs to her family.
"I'm spending the night at Nathans.", She said leaning against the bar, looking at Gorge, "that's okay right?"
"Yeah, sure Saya, just don't get home too late tomorrow."
Saya paused for a moment, considering her ineptitude to lying she thought this was too easy. The kitchen is a small area close to the bar so everyone working could overhear her, and yet no one thought it was strange? Sure Nathan has been a close friend of Saya's for quite a while, but everyone who's ever came in contact with him understood that Nathan is someone best taken in small doses. Haji washed off his hands and went leaned over the other side of the bar to kiss Saya's cheek and take her hand, giving it a soft squeeze. It was obvious he had no plans of following her for once, because Haji himself probably understood the most that Nathan wasn't somebody worth being stuck with throughout the night.
"I'll miss you" he said in his deep whisper of a voice.
"I'll miss you too." She said, trying not to let the reality hit that this is the first time they'd actually be separated since they got together. She felt like she owed him some sort of explanation. Something like "Well schools about to start soon, and my friends always get me on me about spending too much time with family, so I'm doing this to appease them." But Haji wasn't looking for an explanation, and Saya knew the more she opened her mouth the more defensive she's going to look. So instead they shared one brief intimate glance in each other's eyes before Saya let go of Haji's hand and went outside.
The second Saya was away from the front windows of the restaurant she let out a deep sigh, and looked into the sky muttering to herself "I wonder how long till tonight is over." She gave herself a moment to unravel, slowly accepting that 1. She, by choice, separated herself from Haji for the night, and it's unfair to take the already gaping feeling of separation out on Solomon. And 2. Not only did she leave Haji by choice, but she also choose to lie to him about where she was going. The second part of this situation was much harder to swallow than the first. Guilt struck Saya like lightning mixing in with the separation, and she considered just walking back into the restaurant, and calling Solomon up to cancel this whole night before it began. But, this was something she wanted to do, almost needed to, and she reminded herself this would be hard. It took her a week to call Solomon in the first place so it was obvious that the rest of the night wouldn't come easy. With that, she wrapped herself back up again to working condition, and kept walking down the street, opening a compact mirror to put on her hair extensions and quickly put on some eye shadow and lip gloss before arriving at the parks parking lot.
She leaned against a lamp post and unbuttoned her long jacket, exposing the outfit. After all, the whole point of putting it on was to show Solomon she still kept the stuff he gifted her. She only waited there two minutes before the familiar red corvette pulled up, still ten minutes early from the time they planned, and a beaming happy Solomon got out of the car, and ran up to give Saya a hug.
Saya braced herself, expecting the feeling of Solomon's arms around her to be awkward, or even frightening, but instead she found herself completely relaxed in his embrace, she even felt a rush of... something. Relief maybe? Cause it turned out to be a lot less painful then she expected? No, it was more than that, it was joy. Saya genuinely missed Solomon, but she only just now realized it. Ever since Haji came into her life she never thought about anything except "their" life together, and "their" future. Solomon never fitted anywhere in "their" life, so he was forgotten. It's crazy how much has changed for her in the past six weeks, that any life she had before that seemed like a distant memory. Saya wrapped her arms back around Solomon and hugged just as tight, letting herself experience the rush of memory as it started to feel real once again.
"You look absolutely ravishing princess!" he exclaimed, when he finally let her go to take a good look at her.
Saya softly smiled "Why thanks, blue always was your favorite on me right?"
Solomon gave a nod of approval. "I'm surprised you remembered, or kept those clothes quite honestly. I would of expected them to be a rather fashionable chunk of landfill by now, or reincarnated into a pile of ashes out in a beach fire pit."
Saya smirked, "Nah, too expensive to go straight in the trash, actually, I tried to sell them, but I had no luck thanks to you removing all the designer tags."
"Well I did what I had to do. If I kept the tags on you'd locate the stores and return everything. It'd ruin the whole fun in spoiling you."
"Oh yes, tons of fun." Saya said in a sarcastic tone, Solomon just giggled in response and took her hand in his, leading her to the car and opening the door for her. She got in and he ran to the other side of the car to get behind the wheel, starting up his corvettes engine with a soft purr.
"So where we going? Did you need a ride anywhere? Or maybe a car! You know my offer to buy you one is still valid, especially now that I'm not around anymore to drive you places. I mean I give your current boy points of chivalry, but still, the whole riding on his shoulders thing wouldn't work very well for either of you long distance. Too bad it's too late to go to any dealerships, but we can order online tonight at least!"
Saya just laughed and shook her head "Solomon, be serious. And let's just head to your house."
Solomon nodded, and pulled out of the parking lot."But princess I'm being completely serious." He said with his confident smile. The kind of confidence he beams when he knows he's going to win no matter how much Saya complains about it. This frightened Saya, she never was good at talking Solomon out of things, but a purchase this big? Of course, in his eyes it's probably nothing at all. A new non luxury car would cost a fraction of even one of the pieces of jewelry he got her for the ball she was forced to go to. She knew arguing him out of it was a lost cause so she decided to change the subject before he could put anymore thought in it.
"I'm really sorry about the short notice for wanting to see you tonight. I hope I wasn't interrupting any plans you had with friends or a girlfriend or anything."
"Oh nonsense, I have very little connections with people outside of school, and I don't have a girlfriend."
"Oh? How come? I mean you're a good catch, and it seems like there's plenty of people interested in you."
Solomon's face changed, he was still smiling, but his eyes looked more distant, and his smile a little less grand, and more of the polite type of smile. It was his public mask, Saya could tell in an instant. "I guess… I haven't found the right type of person yet."
"Really? What type are you looking for?"
Solomon softly sighed and glanced away from Saya, staring blankly through the windshield. "Do you really want to know? It's not very fair to me Saya, this night was going so well so far."
"Solomon…" she spoke in a low annoyed tone.
"What! You asked! Even though you damn well know the answer. I want to find… someone like you." He sighed and then words started falling out of his mouth like a waterfall. "Forget someone like you. I want you. But I can't have you, and I accept that. I know I must not be acting like it at this moment but I really do. Just… hear me out for a moment, will you? I'm not asking you to dump him and take me back or anything. I know I don't deserve that, and I probably don't deserve forgiveness either, but I'd like it if you could see it in your ever so kind heart to give me that. That night I was the biggest idiot and jackass in the world, and every day I wish I could take it back. I just, I loved you so much, even though our time together was so little, and I craved to be closer so bad. To make love to you, to make you mine. I guess guys have a really messed up way of making their claim, because I already had you, and I could of kept you if I just kept my patience. And at the moment I just thought… hell I wasn't thinking at all was I? All the attention, all the ego went to my head, and I figured you'd want it as much as I did. Because, everyone else does right? Everyone wants me. But I forgot that's what made you different, that's what made me fall for you in the first place, that you weren't like everyone else. Every other girl that would throw themselves at me if I just gave them a smile, and yet, not know a thing about who I am. And I expected the girl who actually took the time to see me for me to throw herself at me just be like the others. The only girl who I actually wanted… I'm sorry Saya, I'm so so sorry. And like I said I'm not asking for another chance, but, if for whatever reason it doesn't work out between you and him… if you could ever give me that chance again, I swear to god I'll never make that mistake twice."
Saya looked at Solomon, his eyes glancing at her for brief moments while he was driving. His eyes were burning with sadness and guilt. He meant every word, that was evident. She was about to speak when she noticed what road they were driving down. Her road, with her families restaurant, and to top things off Haji was outside the entrance, shaking out place mats. She completely forgot to tell Solomon why she asked to meet in the park instead of in front of the restaurant, even though the point of not passing her house should have been obvious. Solomon probably wasn't paying attention to where he was going due to being wrapped in conversation.
"Solomon what are you doing!" she shouted.
"W-What do you mean?" he asked, still driving forward.
"We can't…" but it was too late, they were too close, Saya didn't even have any time to hide under the dashboard. As they passed by Saya tried her best to look straight ahead, hoping her identity would be shielded by her flashy top and hair extensions. But it was too easy for Haji to recognize Solomon and put two and two together. After they passed, Saya looked in the rear view mirror to see Haji staring back at the car, his usual almost godly composed face twisted in a painful complete shock.