Four Versions

25.

‘Welcome to our home sweetie, I hope you’ll have a wonderful couple of months with us,’ Ari’s mother named Willow said. It was a petite woman, but she had a lot of style in her clothing. It was definitely obvious that this woman had a lot of power in that little body of hers. Or at least, she knew how to use that power. It was strange, how much mother and daughter differed from each other.

I smiled back at her and nodded. ‘I hope so too.’ Then I looked at Ari who smiled brightly at me. I winked at her and then looked back at her mother.

‘Are there any rules I need to know?’
Her mother shook her head and shortly nodded towards Ari, who looked away and went into the kitchen. ‘There aren’t really that many rules around here. As long as you behave like a respectful young woman and help in the household, you should be fine.’

I nodded again and suddenly felt like I shouldn’t do that all the time. ‘Yes ma’am,’ I said instead. A big smile broke out on Willow’s face and she shook her head to herself.

‘You don’t need to call me ma’am dear, I’m not that old.’ She eyed the kitchen and suddenly stepped in closer. ‘Listen though Victoria. I know you and Ari compete in that competition, but I want none of that competing in my house. I want you guys to be friendly with each other.’

‘Of course!’ I said, a little taken aback. ‘Ari is like my little sister. I don’t want to compete with her at all!’

Willow nodded approvingly. ‘And there might be one thing you also need to know.’ The tone of her voice suddenly changed into something more serious and I didn’t understand this at all. Is it supposed to be like this when you meet someone?

‘Ari has-‘

‘Victoria!’ Ari called from the kitchen. ‘Come and taste this, it’s heavenly!’ I looked back at her mother who pushed a hand through her hair and shook her head again. The wrinkles on her forehead seemed to increase with the second and I felt bad for her in that moment. I knew that something apparently was going on with Ari, which had her worried to the max.

‘We’ll talk about it later,’ she whispered to me and nudged me towards the kitchen. ‘She’s waiting for you.’

And although she said we would talk about it later, I knew that we probably would never get the chance to again. So instead of wondering what it could be, I shook it off of me and walked into the kitchen where Ari was standing on a chair and reached for the highest cabin. Her long, tiny legs were barely able to keep the balance on the two chairs she had made a small tower off.

‘Jesus Ari, it might not be the best idea to keep on standing on that thing. It’s very imbalanced.’

She looked over her shoulder at me and smiled. ‘It’s okay, I used to do gymnastics when I was younger. I’m sure I can keep my balance a little better than the average person.’

I nodded my head but nevertheless steadied the two chairs. She stood on her toes and finally yelled out a big ‘yes’ when she got what she wanted.

‘Catch me,’ she said, and even before I could really comprehend what she was saying, she stepped off of the highest chair and let herself fall the last bit into my arms. Because I was still holding on to the chairs though, I wasn’t stable myself and fell on the ground with her falling right on top of me. I was expecting to feel at least a bit of impact from the fall, but it felt like a big package of feathers fell down on me. I sat up with her quickly rolling off of me and laughed.

‘Damn Ari, those things only happen in movies.’

She laughed back at me and her face had turned bright red. She was clearly ashamed of her actions, but I just shook my head.

‘Don’t worry about it, if every day is going to be like this, we’re going to have one hell of a time together.’ I winked at her and stood up. I bend down a little and reached my hand out for her. She hesitantly grabbed it and when I pulled her on her feet I immediately gave her a hug. Her tiny figure felt like it was disappearing under my long arms and in that tiny moment I realized that I had never felt this comfortable yet weird at the same time. Especially not with a girl I didn’t even knew that well.