Hello. Rayen Parker Lusana at your service. I’m sure you know of me by now, so I’ll spare the details of my parenthood and half-brother.
I don’t have much of a story in my own eyes, but my father, Andrea as we all have taken to calling Jahre ‘dad’, said I should write it all down anyway.
I decided to indulge him, and thus, started this little story up.
Well, I made it through high school all right, all As and one B my senior year. So that wasn’t a majour issue. If I did have a story it would start in my junior year at college. I immediately decided on General Art, as I’d always had a talent for it.
Lucky me though, I got lost on my first day actually at campus, as I’d been going to a different college until then, and ended up, literally, bumping into someone.
“I’m sorry,” I immediately apologized.
“It’s OK. Really, it happens a lot here,” the boy told me, handing me some of my dropped stuff.
“Thanks. Rayen Lusana,” I introduced myself, sticking out my free hand.
The boy smiled and I couldn’t help but think ‘Gorgeous teeth’. “I’m Hari Kazuku. What’re you here for? If it’s on the way I’ll think about walking you to class.”
I chuckled, I couldn’t help it. I told him my major and he grinned again. “That’s right near where I was going. Come on, let’s go,” he said, grabbing my hand and pulling me off.
All through class I found it hard to concentrate. Hari’s perfect, white teeth were constantly flashing in my mind, distracting me from what the professor was saying.
After class, my natural curiosity got the better of me. I called up the campus directory and asked to be transferred to speak with Hari Kazuku. After waiting for ten or twelve minutes his voice sounded through the earpiece. “Hello?”
“Hi, Hari? It’s Rayen, from this morning.”
“Hey!” he said excitedly. “I was just getting ready to look you up!”
“R-really?” I stuttered. For the first time in my life, I stuttered! I never would have expected that comment.
“Yeah!” I started to pay attention again as he said this. “I don’t know, that chuckle of yours was haunting me all day,” his tone was a bit embarrassed so I guessed he wasn’t lying.
“Well, equal trade then. I couldn’t stop thinking about you teeth,” I laughed back at him.
I could hear him chuckling as well. Besides that his end of the line seemed unusually quiet. I asked him about it.
“I have my own house here on campus. One of those rental-house-things actually.”
“Oh…” I looked around me at all the dirty plates thrown everywhere and cringed, suddenly wishing my scholarships had included housing.
“You’re a dormer aren’t you?” he asked during my silence.
“Unfortunately, yes.” I snapped my gaze back to the dirty carpet in front of me.
“Tough luck there,” he mumbled. “Hey, Rayen, I have to go start a paper. It’s due tomorrow; you get it, right?” I told him I did and he said something completely out of the blue. “Why don’t we meet up tomorrow? After classes are over? I’m free anytime between four in the afternoon and midnight.”
I stood there and thought about it, somewhere in the back of my mind shocked that he didn’t keep asking ‘Huh, what about it, what do you think,’ etc like most people would.
Finally, I smiled to myself. “Six-thirty?”
“Sounds good. I’ll you outside the art building at six-thirty!” A click told me he’d hung up.
My fingers flew across the numbers. I couldn’t wait until I heard dad and father’s reactions at someone asking me to hang out with them!
Dad picked up the phone. “Hello, Lusaka residence.”
“Hi, Dad!”
“Rayen! It’s good to hear from you so quickly. How’s your…wait a minute.”
I could hear him saying something like ‘It’s Rayen’ before a click came from the earpiece of the phone.
“Sorry about that,” he said, though his voice a little more muffled than before. I guessed it was on speakerphone before the heard the other voices.
A chorus of people called out variations of ‘Hi, Rayen!’ and I started laughing. The people in the dorm who weren’t in their own rooms began to look at me weirdly, but I ignored them. It was getting late, and a lot of the dmormers had papers or whatever to write.
“To what do we owe this pleasurable call?” I heard Dylan’s voice ring this out.
I grinned despite myself. Best thing about having an author as a dad was how much your vocabulary expanded. “Well, I didn’t expect the phone to be on speaker while I was saying this,” I started.
I paused when I heard a tapping sound on the phone. Corbin, I knew instantly. I closed my hand over my other ear to hear the small pings of his message. He and I were the only ones who understood Morse Code so we used it quite often.
I don’t remember exactly what he said, but it was along the lines of no one teasing me for not getting along with anyone. I had always been somewhat reclusive as I got nearer and nearer my college years; had never even had a boyfriend in all my twenty years.
I chuckled and tapped back that it was just the opposite. I laughed as I heard him laugh, as though he already knew what I was going to say.
“Well, what is it?” Shayn was growing impatient.
“Someone asked me to meet up with them and just generally hang out I guess,” I spilled. It was planned a lot better in my head, but that’s how it came out.
I could imagine everyone’s reactions in my head, so I knew to pull the phone away from ear just in time to hear Shayn and Dylan screeching ‘What?!’ and not hear Dad and Father, as they would be speechless or at least close to it.
Corbin started laughing harder and almost choked. A new voice broke in.
“Who?”
It was a little girl’s voice, one I hadn’t heard before. “That can’t be Sonya, can it?”
“Yes, it most certainly is,” Father told me.
My mouth was beginning to hurt from all the laughing and smiling. “She’s talking so early!”
Rune and Sonya were both going to celebrate their first birthday in two months.
“Well, considering ‘who’ is the only thing she can say I wouldn’t get my hopes up that she really understood what you were saying and wants to know who asked you to hang out.”
“Who!”
“See what I mean?” Dad asked through laughter.
“Yeah, I do.”
“Well, we want to know it is!” Dylan said impatiently.
“Not that you would know him,” I told her. If we’d been in the same room we would have stuck our tongues out at each other. “But his name is Hari Kazuku.”
“I know that name!” Father suddenly said. “I’ve met his father Dei before. Just in passing, but still.”
“Well, what do you know about him?” I wanted to know what I could before I went to meet him the next day.
“Not much really. Just his name and what he looks like.”
I could imagine Father shrugging as he spoke.
“That would be the best I could give you.”
“That’s OK. I can’t wait until tomorrow though.” I yawned suddenly, taking myself off guard. “I need to get to sleep guys. I have to start writing a paper tomorrow too.
“I’ll call you in a few days or so, all right?”
I hung up after a chorus of ‘Sure’ and “Good night’ and ‘Sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite’. After, I went to sleep and fell into dreamland like I hadn’t slept in a week.
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Here she is, folks!
Pictures are a bit sparse, but I'm sorry. This one was harder to take pictures of for some reason. Hope it doesn't stay that way the whole time through.
