The Chaos of Stars by [email protected]

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    I’m tempted to answer him in Urdu, but I opt for English instead. “It’s fine.” Other than creepy drug-addict prowlers who destroy my personal property. “Why do you keep trying to speak to me in Arabic?”
    “I don’t know, I thought maybe you were homesick.”
    “Trust me, not homesick. Sick of home. Which is why I’m here.” He’s a show-off, that’s what he is. I don’t give a mummified cat whether or not he can speak Arabic. I add show-off to my list of reasons why I will never like Ry in a way that would be dangerous. And then I’m mad that I even feel like I need to have a list, which is another thing to put on the list I wish I didn’t have to have.
    “So, I’m not strange anymore?” he asks.
    “What?”
    “You’re riding in my car, which must mean I’m not a stranger anymore.”
    “Actually, the more I’m around you, the stranger you get.”
    Ry laughs, but his phone buzzes and he pulls it out. “Yeah? No parking at all? Sure, let’s meet there. Not a problem. Bye.”
    He turns off of the main road. We weave down the hills, teasing glimpses of the ocean blinding me. It still shocks me every time I come over a hill and see it spreading out on the horizon. It feels wrong, that much water. My eyes keep trying to turn it into sand, heat shimmers, something that makes sense.
    I don’t recognize this neighborhood—the homes are close together but big. Here they cram as much house onto as little land as they possibly can. Cars are parked all down the narrow street, and guys carrying surfboards walk barefoot on the asphalt.
    There’s no space in this city. Anywhere. I want open land. I want desert. I want to be able to look in a single direction and see nothing .
    Crap. I am not homesick. I’m not, I’m not.
    Ry slows and I see Scott’s car (the color of puke mating with rust) pulling up into the driveway of a massive home, complete with huge Grecian pillars and a fountain. The whole thing is so ostentatious it borders on laughable. Okay, I do laugh a little bit.
    “Can we park here?” I ask.
    “It’s okay, we know the owners.”
    I shake my head at the monstrosity of a house. “Do you know the architects? Because they should be shot.”
    “You know, I kinda agree.” His mouth twists into that smile again, and it sets my teeth on edge. He always seems to be in his own little world, his blue eyes never quite focused on this one except for that brief time with the smoothies. Not that I want them focused on me, but still.
    Ry pulls in behind Scott. Tyler’s already out of the car, grabbing towels and a big canvas bag out of the trunk. “You boys get the pizza and meet us there. Okay, Isadora, you want the daisy bikini, or the pink one?”
    Who is this girl and how did I end up here?
    Thirty minutes later we’re on the sand by ourselves. Or, well, by ourselves and about 400 billion other people. Thankfully Tyler had a black cover-up for this painfully pastel bikini I’m wearing. It only took me seven minutes to text Sirus that I don’t need a ride home—I’m getting better. He texts me back and reminds me about the new security system. It’s an unnecessary reminder. I spent all the hours I couldn’t sleep last night reading the manual and memorizing how it works.
    Tyler stretches her legs over the edge of the huge towel and digs her toes into the sand, leaning back onto her elbows. “If the boys don’t get back with our pizza in the next five minutes, I will die of starvation.”
    “Scott seems nice,” I say, watching the water warily. I want a bank on the other side. And no waves. Then I’d like it.
    Tyler smiles, watching the water happily. “He is. He’s also a huge, huge dork. I love him. But seriously, if he’s not back soon, it’s over. I will propose to the next boy who walks by with anything edible.”
    “Fickle woman,” Scott says from behind us, setting down a pizza box with a flourish. Ry puts another on top of it and hands me a bottle of Coke.
    Oh,