Cherry - part 13

Zia

Holes

The most important thing about Zia, is her wish to just be another one in the crowd. For as long as she could remember, she loathed the girls who did everything they could to get attention from the boys. They just seemed so fake, with their push up bras, their thick layers of make-up, and their dyed hair. Her only problem was that she had all the things the other girls wanted; the look of an angel, and she never even tried. She only tried to make people like her for whom she was, yet people would still comment on her breathtaking beauty. They'd ask how she kept that figure of hers, and they'd ask how she managed to look like a dream when she left for school. They'd say she was the most beautiful girl on this planet. And then she'd shrug and walk away. That's usually how Zia does, when she is stuck in a moment she can't get out of without being mean. She even wore hooded sweater and plain jeans, yet people continued to see her as a model. And now, Twenty five years old, she was about to give up. Would anyone look at her and like her for who she was? She never figured that would happen.

As she stood in her bedroom, somewhere past midnight, she opened her window and looked out. All the lights were out in the entire house. People must have been asleep for a while. When she noticed Perry's window was open, she closed hers and started singing. The song had been a part of her forever. She rarely plays the game anymore and never tells people about it, but she still sings the song whenever she's alone.

“I dig my hole, you build a wall...” She sings. She'll always remember when she found her, Zia, in the game. Hearing her voice, so similar to her own was scary. She didn't say a thing for a week, but the song was stuck in her head like a virus. It was something pure inside her that grew, just to stay for good. And Zia liked it.

It was so beautiful; she never wanted people to know about it. Her treasure, something so personal. Like the most fragile flower, like a lily made of floating diamond dust, she couldn't share without destroying it. So she sang on the top of her lungs and sent a prayer to all holy and pure, that no one heard her.

Perry had a talent of being mad in the morning, and Zia had perhaps sugarcoated her memories of his bad mood throughout the time she had been away. The following morning he was as mad as ever.
“What's with you, little brother?” She teased him. He sent her a look of doom and she turned away.

Her father had been gone for hours now, and she was wondering when Perry were going to start working for him.

“What's up with you and dad, anyway?” She tried in a playful, yet serious voice. He answered something which was not to be understood.

“If you don't want to talk about it...” It left Zia in not so wonderful a mood to see him mad. She had to get going through; she was going to a job interview.

“An English and music teacher, huh?” The fat lady behind the desk peaked up from her lemon shaped glasses with a skeptical look on her face.

“Are you sure you're not in the wrong place, Missy?” The elevator look was getting old on Zia, but this lady's eyes was disapproving and discomforting. That was at least a new thing.

“Whatever do you mean?” And she knew exactly what she meant. She was going to give her the old 'you're too pretty to be here'-speech. Frankly, she was getting tired of it.

The fat lady looked like she chews on her tongue and started shaking her head.

“Right. You have quite some qualifications, Miss Cryx. We didn't get anyone with such a nice resume. I think you'll fit here perfectly.” Everything the fat lady said sounded sarcastic, but Zia didn't let it get to her.

“I'll see you in two weeks then.” Two weeks, and she would start at her new job. And she left the office feeling completely empty.