I Hope You Like The Stars I Stole For You

When I woke, it was about eleven o’clock. Not nearly enough sleep for me to function after flying from South Africa, to England. The dress I fell asleep in last night was all bunched up around me and the jewelery around my neck was going to give me marks there, from sleeping with it on.

I rolled over onto my side and saw my glasses on the table beside my head. At least I took those off before I fell asleep.

For the next half hour I stared at the ceiling of Kame’s extremely bland room. It was white. Not like that wasn’t normal for many ceilings but the entire room was sort of off white and really bright in someway. It was annoying.

Deciding I that I’d spent way too much time on my ass in the past two day, I threw the blankets off my already dressed body and rolled quite literally, out of bed. As I lay on the ground, I took notice of the flooring. At least I could work out a paint colour with the surprisingly nice white maple floor. Perhaps red. That had the potential to make this room more lively.

I pondered colours for at least another minute before I realized what I was trying to do in the first place. And that was get off my ass and get dressed.

A shower and twenty minutes later, I stumbled into the kitchen section of the apartment and contemplated what I should do today. My parents and I had an agreement about the time I spent in England so there actually was a certain amount of days I was here. Just for the summer is what my father said. Mom was all for the experience lasting longer into my school year. After all, I was only seventeen. But I had a certain amount of independence that many people of my neighborhood noticed when my brother left.

That seemed to be a contributing factor when I asked my parents two years ago if I could make this trip by myself. It might have been at Kam’s house but we all knew that he was barely there anyways. But at the time I thought I’d see him for a little bit.

My stomach gave an extremely loud grumble. I reached my arms over my head to open some cupboards. There seemed to be no food at all in the entire apartment. There were some empty boxes of what I assumed to be Chinese food in the trash. Typical Kam, not being able to cook for himself.

I sighed, not looking forward to searching for a place to eat so soon in arriving in England. I seemed to recall with all my grogginess, seeing a coffee shop somewhere along the street the apartment complex was. Just thinking about a fresh cup of black coffee just made my mouth water. It was decided, I was going for a walk.

I put my wallet full of both South African and English currency in the back pocket of my extremely ripped jeans, and then walked out the door. As I closed the door and locked it behind me, my mind wandered to that guy I met last night and his apartment next door to Kam’s. What was his name? My memory failed me, I couldn’t remember. Oh well, I did seem to remember him saying it like a cocky James Bond so revisiting the annoyance was something I didn’t want in my future.

Walking down the hallway I swiftly passed by the elevators to the door labelled STAIRS. Since I was eight I’ve had a fear of elevators. My mother took me to India that year and we got stuck in shaky elevator for an hour. Since then I’ve always taken the stairs, no matter the situation.

It didn’t take me long to walk quickly down the four floors of stairs to get to the bottom floor of the apartment complex. As I walked out the door, the sun was shining down. My eyes hurt for a moment, but then adjusted. It was slightly colder here then what I was used to but not by much. Diagonal to my left, there was a small coffee shop with a big sign that said ‘Angela’s’.

Several horns honked at me as I J-Walked across the street, but I ignored them. They were all moving slow enough for me to pass between them and not get hit.

As I opened the door to the coffee shop, the first thing I noticed was the smooth Jazz music that was playing in the background. The second was the tiny hoard of people sitting in the far corner of the tiny shop. There were about seven men perhaps in their twenties, sitting at two tables, talking in hushed voices.

My interest turned back to the task at hand, getting my coffee.

“A large black coffee please.” I said to the dark skinned girl about my age behind the counter. She nodded her head and smiled.

“Anything else?”

“No thank you.”

“That’s one pound and ninety-five pence.”

English money was so confusing. I pulled out my wallet full of notes or pounds or pence or whatever it was. I looked at the girl who was waiting for me to pay her.

“I’m not from the UK, if you can’t tell. Can I trust you to pull out the correct amount of money?” I asked her, kind of embarrassed. She chuckled a little bit and nodded, grabbing paper bill with a picture of the Queen and a five on it. She then gave me some change and went to pour me my coffee.

I fiddled with my wallet as leaned against the counter, watching her pour the lovely liquid into a cup. The whispers of the men in the corner had ceased. I had just noticed that when I heard a voice from right behind me.

“Well howdy there neighbour!”

I turned around slowly, and there he was. Just as tall, and handsome as when I met him at four in the morning. Perhaps more so. This time he was wearing a shirt though, and his brown hair was still as messy as before. I blink a couple times, just to make sure that my tired mind wasn’t just seeing things. Or hearing annoying Texas accents.

“Oh. Hey.”

I heard the girl set my coffee down on the table behind me. Immediately I turned around and grabbed it, inhaling the sweet smell of caffeine.

“You know, you never told me your name last night.” He told me suggestively, as if he actually though I would tell him my name.

“You never asked.” I pointed out, then taking a sip of my drink. I tried to side step by his but he blocked my way. His friends were looking intently from over his shoulder at me.

“But I did ask where you were from.”

“And I recall shutting the door in your face. Now will you move out of my way?” I asked him as calmly as I could. He stood his ground and didn’t move a finger. My gosh this guy was irritating. “Not until you tell me your name.”

“My mother told me not to tell that information to strangers.” I was getting really pissed off now. Moving my weight to one hip, I leaned to one side and waited for his retort.

“Well you know my name so we’re not strangers.”

This was true.

“Oh come on Jonah! Leave the poor girl alone.” One of his friends called to him. I liked what he said, for that was what I wanted. But Jonah ignored him.

“Please? It’ll get me off your back. I just want a name to the pretty face. Just incase we meet again.” He did have a point. Besides, what harm was there in telling him?

“Fine.” I sighed, caving in as he began to pout. “My name is Samira.”

“And...”

I rolled my eyes.

“I’m from South Africa.”