Chapter 3 New Beginnings

Later that morning, the buzz of my phone pulled me out of sleep.

Why now. Why now. Who is sending me messages this early.

I reached under my pillow, one eye cracked open, already irritated. My head was still heavy from last night, my mouth dry, the whole room feeling slightly wrong.

I squinted at the screen.

From: Weston University.

Both eyes opened.

I sat up.

Miss Ariya King, you are being admitted to Weston University. Lectures start on the 5th of this month. Welcome to our prestigious university.

The hangover could wait.

"Dad!"

I was already halfway down the stairs before I'd fully decided to move.

"Why are you flying, Ariya?" he grumbled, not even looking up from his newspaper.

I ignored him completely.

"Guess who just bagged an admission."

He lowered the paper slowly. "Who?"

"Me." I shoved the phone in his face, beaming so hard my cheeks hurt. "Me, Dad. Me."

He took the phone. Read it. And I watched the grumpiness leave his face like someone had opened a window.

He stood up.

Just stood straight up from his chair, and before I could say another word his arms were around me — warm, tight, the kind of hug that had nineteen years of everything inside it.

"My lovely daughter," he said, his voice thick. "You did it." He pulled back, holding my face in both hands, looking at me like he was seeing something new. "What a brainy I have."

"I know right," I said, laughing.

He laughed too. Loud and full and completely unguarded — the laugh he only let out when he forgot to hold it back.

"Now," I said, straightening up with a grin. "I need to buy stuff for school. Won't I?"

He waved his hand without even hesitating. "Anything you say."

I flew back upstairs two steps at a time.

The hangover was gone. Just like that. Completely dissolved by whatever that message had done to my nervous system. I couldn't even remember why my head had been hurting.

I grabbed my towel and disappeared into the bathroom, showered faster than I ever had in my life, and came out smelling like something that had its life together even if the rest of me was barely holding it.

I pulled on a biker short, threw a big loose shirt over it, slipped my feet into my black sliders and looked in the mirror for exactly half a second.

Good enough.

Food could wait. Lina couldn't.

I grabbed my phone.

She picked up on the first ring.

"I got in," I said.

Silence.

Then — "ARIYA."

"I KNOW."

"WESTON?"

"WESTON."

The screaming that followed probably woke up half the street. I didn't care. I was already pulling clothes out of my wardrobe with one hand, phone pressed to my ear with the other.

"We need to celebrate," Lina said, breathless. "Today. Right now."

"Obviously. Where are you?"

"Give me twenty minutes."

She arrived in nineteen.

I opened the door before she could knock, already dressed, already ready.

Lina looked me up and down. "You showered fast."

"Excitement is a drug," I said, grabbing my bag. "Let's go."

We hit the mall the way we always did — no plan, no list, just moving through it like we owned the place.

The first store we walked into had everything. We went through the racks together, pulling things out, holding them up, putting them back, arguing about colours nobody asked our opinion on.

I found a black gown first. Then another one. Then a white shirt with a tie that made me look like I was going somewhere important. A short skirt. A long one. I held each one up and Lina nodded or shook her head and I trusted her completely because she had never once steered me wrong.

Lina found a strapless gown in deep burgundy that made her look like she was born to wear it. Then a long flowing one in cream. She didn't even check the prices. She never did.

At the counter, she paid for everything without discussion.

"Lina—"

"You'll pay for food," she said simply, tapping her card without even looking up.

I pressed my lips together. "Deal."

We walked out with bags swinging on both arms, shoe boxes tucked under elbows, laughing about nothing in particular. The afternoon sun was warm on our faces and for a moment everything felt exactly right.

"Pizza?" Lina said.

"Obviously."

L'Antica Pizzeria da Michele was already busy when we walked in. The smell hit first — dough, tomato, something warm and familiar that made you feel like you'd been there before even if you hadn't.

Lina spotted the waiter immediately, caught his eye across the room and signalled him over the way she did everything — effortlessly, like the world was just waiting to respond to her.

He brought the menu.

We looked through it together, shoulders touching over the table.

"Marinara," she said.

"Margherita for me," I said. "And two strawberry milkshakes."

The waiter nodded and disappeared.

We settled into our seats, shopping bags piled beside us, the restaurant noise filling the space around us comfortably. I was playing with the straw wrapper, folding it into nothing, when Lina said it.

"I got my admission too."

I looked up.

"Edinburgh," she said. "Scotland."

I put the straw wrapper down.

Scotland.

The word sat in the middle of the table between us like something neither of us wanted to pick up.

"When?" I asked.

"Tomorrow."

My chest dropped. "Tomorrow? Lina—"

"My mum already sorted the lodge. You know how she is." She said it lightly, casually, but her eyes were doing something different from her voice.

I looked at her. Really looked at her.

We had been friends since junior class. Since the day she spray painted a can on our social studies teacher's car and I was the only one who saw and instead of telling I sat down next to her in detention like I had planned to be there all along. We didn't even speak that first day. We just sat together. And somehow that was enough to start everything.

Her mum had been at every holiday. Every birthday. Every time something happened that a mother was supposed to show up for, Lina's mum showed up for me too because mine wasn't there to do it. She never made it feel like charity. She just made it feel normal.

And Lina — Lina who had everything, whose dad gave her wants and needs and things she didn't even know she wanted yet — she never once made me feel the difference between us. Not once in all the years. She paid for things quietly. She shared without announcement. She showed up without being asked.

And now she was going to Scotland.

"How long?" I asked, my voice coming out smaller than I intended.

"The full programme," she said. "Three years minimum."

Three years.

The food arrived. We ate quietly for a moment, the pizza warm and good, the milkshakes sweet and cold. Normal things happening around something that wasn't normal at all.

"You'll FaceTime me," I said finally. Not a question. More like something I needed to say out loud to make it real.

Lina looked at me. "Every day if you want."

"Every day," I confirmed.

"Every day," she repeated.

I took a long sip of my milkshake and stared at the table. My eyes were burning and I was absolutely not going to cry in a pizza restaurant.

"You're my only friend, you know that," I said quietly. "Like genuinely. Not the kind people say and don't mean. You're actually it."

Lina was quiet for a moment.

"I know," she said softly.

"Scotland better not change you."

"It won't."

"And if it does I'm flying there personally."

She laughed — real this time, full and warm. "Please do. I'll need someone to embarrass me in front of my new neighbours."

I laughed too. And for a second it was fine. It was just us, like always, like nothing was ending.

Then the second passed.

And we both knew.

At her gate we stopped.

The bags were in the cab. The afternoon had turned to early evening, the sky going soft and orange above the houses.

"Call me when you land," I said.

"Obviously."

"Don't trust Scottish weather. It lies."

"Noted."

I looked at her one more time. My best friend. The only person who had chosen me without reason and stayed without condition.

I pulled her into a hug first this time.

She held on tight.

Neither of us said anything because there was nothing left that words could do.

When we finally let go she turned and walked through her gate. I watched her go until the door closed behind her.

Then I got in the cab.

Tears brimmed from my eyes — the kind I had been holding since I heard the news. I didn't stop them this time. I just let them come, silently, all the way home.