Xenophobia

The transition from summer to autumn was taking a toll on Khai. One reason being that she would grow awfully sick whenever the seasons changed. Even though it was just for a day, it felt like months for Kahi. With an excessive runny nose and sickening cough, she was completely sure that her pain was equivalent to that of death.

Another reason is that with autumn on her backside, winter was slowly making its way and God did she hate everything about it. She hated the cold. She hated having to shake snowflakes out of her hair every minute. But most of all, she dreaded the winter clothes that she had to wear. Khai was a summer girl, obviously. She loved wearing crop tops and shorts and being absolutely free. She hated being confined behind layers and layers of clothing.

She often thought of dying from hypothermia rather than wearing that trench coat hung up in the extreme back of her closet.

Nevertheless, winter was approaching and she could do nothing to stop it.

"You've got to eat something," Melissa had been urging her daughter to take a sip of the chicken soup she had brought up. As mentioned above, Khai does tend to get ill during season changes. And well, it's that time.

Khai groaned, covering her face with her blanket. Melissa sighed, giving up. She took the bowl of soup out of her room back to the kitchen before re-entering Khai's room.

"How're you feeling?" She asked placing the back of her hand on Khai's forehead.

She replied with words that were incoherent due to the fact that she was smothered under three blankets. Melissa rolled her eyes, trying to pry the think comforters off of her daughter. She tugged, but Khai help a firm grip.

"You're feeding the fever, Khai," Melissa sighed.

Sticking her head from out of her confined space, Khai spoke to her mother, "Well it's hungry. I can't disappoint my customers." She barley finished the sentence before erupting into a fits of coughs.

"I'm gonna die," she muttered.

"Oh stop it," Melissa shushed. "We go through this four times a year and you're still alive."

As Khai was about to answer, she heard a soft knock on her room door. Her heart sped up a bit, thinking that it was Harry. God, did she want to see him. She wanted to curl under the blankets with him and make themselves into a burrito. She wanted to watch Love Actually with him while he fed her soup and called her beautiful despite her runny nose and puffy eyes.

But this is reality.

And reality fucks us all.

"Oh Violet," Melissa smiled. "How're you?"

Khai listened to her best friend and mother engage in a conversation about a recipe of some sort.

Thankfully, Melissa's watch went off, signaling that her shift at the hospital would begin shortly. With a kiss to her forehead, Khai bid her mother farewell before ordering her best friend to snatch her a tub of Ben and Jerry's. This earned Khai a scoff, but regardless she received her ice-cream.

Violet sat beside Khai, the two best friends' eyes fixed on Teen Wolf that was on the television. When the commercial break started, Khai broke their silence.

"Where's your piercing?" She asked.

Subconsciously, Violet raised her hand to meet her nose, gasping in the process as she realized that her nose ring was in fact missing.

A series of curse words left her lips as she tore apart Khai's bedroom searching for the metal.

"Did you see me come in with it?" Violet asked frantically. It was the seventh one she'd lost since the beginning of the school year.

"I wasn't paying attention," Khai rasped. Violet dramatically screamed, running out of the bedroom to search the rest of the house. Crashes of glass, curse words and the movement of furniture penetrated Khai's eardrums.

She was developing a headache.

Then she received a text. Squinting her eyes, she opened her phone to see a text from Harry. She jolted up, a pang up pain shooting through her head in the process.

Harry: How's my germ infested girl doing?
Seen 7:23pm

The text caused Khai to giggle and roll her eyes at the same time. Another crash was heard on the kitchen and a loud 'fuck' from her best friend as soon as she hit send.

I'm gonna sneeze on you.

Almost immediately, her phone buzzed.

Harry: I'm not even there.
Seen 7:27pm

But you will be. Khai hit send and sighed once she heard the front door slam. Violet must've left. Probably to buy a new ring. Khai laughed at her best friend for being so careless. And again, her phone buzzed.

Harry: You know me too well.
Seen 7:31pm

A soft knock on her room door sounded and a gasp left Khai's lips once she saw harry standing there. A beanie on his head and a box of pizza in his hands.


And her headache seemed to cease right at that very moment.

Notes