BOYS OF SUBURBIA [boy x boy] [Wattys 2018]

✗ THIRTY-ONE ✗

Sebastian was uncomfortable.

This wasn't unusual.

Denise was rich- he gathered from where she lived and the butler who answered the door- but he didn't know she was that powerful. Her room was decked out in all-white as she brought us into it. It was aesthetically pleasing with the white walls, the white Mac computer along with her white keyboards (which made Sebastian ponder upon how she could possibly type any fast- what with both the desk and the keyboards being monochromatically the same colour), a white bed, white cupboards, a white vase displaying freshly-picked white tulips. The only splash of color were the inhabitants of the room- a gaggle of prep school girls giggling, gossiping and chatting, adorned in navy blazers, black stockings, and plaid skirts- just like Denise.

And here he was, with Niko, about to deliver a bunch of drugs to them.

Kids these days.

"Girls," called out Denise in a tenor of delicacy, her posh accent ringing out her words like an etiquette Madame, "I have some special guests for you."

Their attention shifted from themselves (shocker) and blanketed onto them, laying them with a cloth of eyes.

"Hello," chipped in Niko, quite nicely, "How are you?"

The girls giggled amongst themselves and clamored in feminine tones until Denise cleared her throat again. "There's Sharon-" A fair, pale blonde with gray eyes observed them and smirked. Sebastian felt a strong sense of dislike immediately at the smugness she exuded, "-Alexandra-" A dark haired girl rose her head and registered them with cold, blank emotion. Sebastian couldn't figure out whether her impression of them had been received positively or not, "-Jasmine-" the Asian girl barely looked up, eyes glued to her screen as she rapidly tapped on her screen and it went on like that, their names and faces flying around in Sebastian's memory, making it extremely hard to keep up with, "-Tallulah, Kelsey, and Kasey- twins obviously, Fallon, Louise, Sawyer and...Arissa."

Unlike the other girls, when he briefly glanced at Arissa it turned from a brief glance to a stare. She had dark hair, wild eyes and there was something vaguely Arabic with her features  She was dressed a little less up than the girls; settling for a combined mixture of rich and poor, cheap and expensive. While all the other girls were decked in head-to-toe designer, Arissa paired her luxurious London schoolgirl uniform of cashmere jumpers and tweed plaid skirts with a three-dollar batik bag bought off a beach vendor in Bali. 

"So, Nikkie darling," Denise interrupted with that irritating voice of hers, "What have you got for me?"

Niko strode over to the table, which Sebastian followed along with, and dumped his bag on Denise's spotless white desk. The juxtaposition of the Tesco bag and the Italian craftsmanship of the desk was too bizarre for him to process. "Anything for the birthday girl."

Denise giggled, flustered again by the flirty attention (which Niko deemed was to make customers pay more) Niko was giving her. Sebastian tried not to let jealousy invade him and drown him with horrible thoughts of killing Denise, knowing Niko was tolerating this and egging it on to drain Denise out of much cash as he possibly could. "I want anything new...I'm tired of all that safe weed shit you gave me last year. Girls, observe."

As the other girls browsed through the inventory and Sebastian distributed it evenly amongst them with a brief description of all the fucked up effects it had.

"You know," Arissa spoke up as the other girls had snatched the whole tablet of LSD and paid him a full amount of three hundred and fifty pounds for them, "You don't strike me as a dealer."

Sebastian was caught off-guard when Arissa, the beautiful dark-haired girl, came up to him. Regardless of sexual orientation, it was the pure common sense that girls who looked like that did not talk to guys like him. "Um, well." Say something clever, you moron. "You don't strike me as a prep school girl."

Arissa laughed and even the manner she laughed was breathtaking. It was one of those laughs that were meant to be savored- the type that made you want to laugh with her head thrown back and the hairs to fall from her imperfectly knotted bun. Inexpensive aviators from thirft-shops perched atop her head. There was a diamond studded in the curve of her nose. "Appearances can be deceiving," she replies smoothly. Her accent doesn't sound British. It has flavors of a Knightsbridge accent but there's that unplaceable twinge in her consonants that gave him the sense that this is a girl who has been schooled internationally. "You have some cigs?"

Sebastian nodded and took out a lighter with two packets. He passed it to her. "Thanks," she said, "You're a g." 

As the other girls began experimenting with drugs, he and Arissa stuck to a corner of the room that didn't have a Chelsea bird rolling off the walls, smoking their cigarettes. He talked a bit to Arissa and every second found her more interesting than the next.

"So where you're from?" asked Sebastian as he lit up his second cigarette. Nowadays, he could easily finish one in three minutes. A few months ago, he would've been such a health freak about it- trying to ration his addiction to only one a day. "You don't sound British." 

"My parents are Malaysian," Arissa supplied, ashing on the floor, "They send me to Denise's place for homestay while I attend school here." 

"You think so?" Then there was this smile as she held the cigarette up to her lips. "To be honest, I only came here to leave that shithole." 

"That bad?"

"It's not Malaysia," Arissa responded, "I fucking love Malaysia. It's my home, you know? But it's my parents.' 

"I understand," he chuckled. He inhaled fast and allowed the heat to travel down his throat, then exhaled slowly with a wide open mouth. It came out as a smoke ring and dissipated as quickly as it was there. Niko taught him that. "So what was life like in Malyaisa?" 

"When my parents are being annoying?" Arissa laughed, "Well, it's fucking dope. I can kind of get away with whatever I want. They're super lax on the rules about clubbing and drinking and shit."

"No way."

Niko and I would've died there.

Arissa nodded, "Yeah, man. I once smoked weed with a bunch of friends outside a police station and it was fucking chill as shit." 

"That's so weird," Sebastian shook his head. He couldn't imagine tempting faith like that. "So you're full-blooded Malaysian?"

"Three-quarters," Arissa assented, tapping the cigarette onto the window sill of the window, which had been slanted open, and using it as a makeshift ashtray. "Mom's half Irish and my Dad's Malay. My full name- which might be a lil' hard to pronounce: Arissa Farrah Maeve Ibrahim."

"Arissa Farrah May-eve E-bra-him?"

Arissa rang out a short laugh, "You'll get there."

They talked some more and exchanged their worlds, swapping numbers and social media contact, working their way through Arissa's packets. It was strange to connect so much with a member of the opposite sex, who was only a younger than him but he felt like they were the same. Arissa spent her life as an outsider. She was too smart for the girls in cliques but too rich to relate to anybody else. She had never belonged to anything- not for one second, just like him.

Except he did belong to someone now- Niko.

-

yo i've decided to change arissa's character slightly...and based on her people i know in real life (and also screwed up like her in real life). malaysia is extremely easy to get away with stuff like drinking, drugs, et cetera (speaking from experience tbh) so there's where arissa comes from. arissa is probably the closest caricature of my life tbh. anyway, please vote, comment and loveeee!

dedicated to threetreetown for writing some of the best bxb books out there!