ZaYa FF - Sweet Liar[Completed - Page 44] - Page 6

Originally posted by: Ilovezaya

Awesome !!
Last part *blushing*
Continue soon ! 😊

😉 😃 😳

Originally posted by: zayalove

Chpter 1 is really amazing
Update soon thnks for pm

Thanku Dear 😃

Originally posted by: .Anisha.

<font face="Comic Sans MS, Times, serif" size="3">Simply superb👍🏼</font>

<font face="Comic Sans MS, Times, serif" size="3">do continue soon</font>

<font face="Comic Sans MS, Times, serif" size="3">thanks for the PM</font>

Thank u sooo much Anisha..
I'll update it today*hugs*

Originally posted by: zayalove

Chp 2 is awsome
Update soon
Thnks for da pm

Thanx dear..
Whats ur name btw?

Originally posted by: -ZaYaholic-

superb update.
love it.continue soon next part.

Thank thanku 😃

Originally posted by: AnnRosewood

please update ats..am already in luv :*

Thanx Ann.
I'm glad u luved it...
Read the book.. I swear its amazing!

Originally posted by: zaya-firdose

Tremendous chapter

Please continue ASAP

Thanku Firdose..
I'll update it now 😃 😉

On her first night in New York, Aaliya slept in a bed chosen by her father, and the trauma of the day was somewhat softened. But when she awoke, she felt worse than she had when she went to bed, because the full reality of her situation hit her. In Louisville, in her father's house, she'd been all right, but now she was in a strange place, surrounded by strangers. Never in her life had she been alone before. Not really, truly alone, for she'd had her parents, her grandfather, then her husband.

Hearing a noise outside, she got out of bed and went to the window to look out into the little graden below. The man, her landlord, was watering his plants, and the moment Aaliya moved the curtain, as though he'd heard her, he turned and waved, making Aaliya jump away from the window, flinging the curtain back into place.

Not only was she alone, she thought, but she was surrounded by predators. The image came to her of being lost at sea, bobbing in the ocean with a life preserver about her waist, watching an ocean liner filled with happy, laughing people who were having too good a time to hear her cries for help - and sharks were circling her. At the moment, the sharks seemed to be in the form of one Zain Abdullah.

After she showered and dressed, she pulled her hair back from her face and waited until she heard the front door open and close before venturing down the stairs. Pausing at the front door of the town house, she dawdled, not wanting to go outside. In fact, she wished she didn't have to leave the house at all, but she had to buy food and open an account at a bank so she could have money transferred from Kentucky.

Quite honestly, New York terrified her. Now, peeking out the curtains, there wasn't a story she had ever read or heard about the city that didn't enter her head the moment she stepped outside. All over the world New York was used as a bogeyman for adults. When something dreadful happened in any other town in America, people said things like, "This place is getting as bad as New York," or "At least this isn't New York." Well this was New York and she had to go out into it all alone.

What happened when one walked alone in the city? she wondered. Through the door glass she could see women walking past the town house, some of them with dogs on leashes, some of them in long, tight black suit jackets with tiny skirts below. None of them seemed to be terrified.

Taking a deep, fortifying breath, she finally opened the door, closed and locked it behind her, then went down the stairs, walked to the end of the block, and took a left. Reading the green street sign, she saw she was now on Lexington Avenue. As she walked north along the block, she saw a grocery with outdoor bins of fruit and vegetables, a shoe store, a dry cleaners, a branch of the Bank of New York, a tiny video rental store, a delicatessen that had freshly baked breads and pastries in the window, and a bookstore.

Within two hours she had opened her account at the bank and bought groceries, fresh flowers, and a paperback novel - and she'd done it all without so much as crossing a street. She went back to the corner, took a right, and went straight back to the town house where she put her key in the front door lock, opened it, closed the door behind her, then leaned against the door, giving a great sigh of relief. She had just made a foray into the city of New York all alone and she had returned safely. She hadn't had a knife held to her throat, hadn't had her purse snatched, nor had anyone tried to sell her drugs. Right now she felt as though she'd climbed a mountain, planted a flag on top, and returned home to tell the story.

After putting the groceries away, she made herself a bowl of cereal and a pot of herbal tea, took a cranberry muffin from the bakery bag, put it all on a tray, and took it into the garden.

As she sat in the garden, lounging on one of the chaises, she stretched and wiggled her toes. Perhaps she should have felt lonely, but instead of feeling lonely, she thought how wonderful it was to have no duties or responsibilities. Sometimes it seemed to her that she had been taking care of people all her life. When she had been married, there had never been a minute to herself, for her husband was always needing something. If he wasn't hungry, he was asking her to help him find something, or he needed clean clothes or someone to listen to him describe how miserable his life was.

At that thought Aaliya tightened her mouth. Altogether, it was better not to think about her ex-husband and his "writing."

"I see you made it to the grocery."

At the sound of the voice, Aaliya nearly jumped out of her skin, then immediately went from lounging in the chair to sitting upright, her feet on the ground, her hands in her lap. She did not look up at him.

"Did you have any trouble?" Zain asked, looking down at her, annoyed that she seemed convinced that he was an ax murderer with uncontrollable sexual urges.

"No, none," she said, standing, then starting back into the house.

"You don't have to leave because I'm here." His annoyance was evident.

She didn't look at him. "No, of course I don't have to leave. I have things to do, that's all."

Frowning, Zain watched her go back into the house, knowing that she was leaving to avoid being near him.

Aaliya went to the rooms her father had chosen, the rooms that re reminded her of him, the rooms that made her feel safe, settled down in a dark green chair, and began to read her book. She had all day in which to do exactly what she wanted to do, in fact, she had a whole lifetime before her in which to do what she wanted to do. All she really had to do was serve her sentence in New York, then she'd be free.


For the next few weeks Aaliya enjoyed her freedom with the delight that only one who has not had freedom can enjoy it. Not since her mother died had she had time to sit and read or to just be still and daydream. When she was a child, she used to take long bubble baths, but she had only had time for showers since her mother's death. Looking down the road at her future life, she saw that she'd at last have time to read all the books she'd ever wanted to read and time to take up a hobby as soon as she found one she liked. Time to do anything and everything.

Each morning she awoke and looked about her father's room and smiled, craving the feeling of his being so close and having the prospect of a long, empty day before her. She made a list of books she wanted to read. There were many biographies in her father's library, and she started on a biography of Queen Victoria that must have weighed four pounds.

She didn't leave the town house unless she had to go to the grocery, otherwise, she had everything she needed right in the house. There was a washer and dryer off the kitchen; there was the garden; she had a VCR and exercise videos; she had books; she had a television with cable; she had time. There was no reason to leave the house unless she had to.

The only disturbing element in her lovely, peaceful life was her landlord. He was true to his word in that he didn't bother her. In fact, for the first two weeks of her stay, she might have been living in the house alone, but of course Aaliya went to great lengths to avoid him. She would have liked to get to know his habits so she could avoid seeing him at all, but as far as she could tell, he had no set schedule to his life. Sometimes he left the house early in the morning, sometimes he didn't leave until afternoon, and sometimes he didn't leave at all. On the days when he didn't leave, Aaliya had difficulty avoiding him, for he always seemed to decide to come to the kitchen whenever she went downstairs for food, so she had to run up the stairs to keep from seeing him.

On the days when he was out, she sometimes walked through his rooms, for there was no door shutting them off from the rest of the house. She didn't touch anything of his, she just looked, reading the titles of his books about gangsters, but nothing interested her. He wasn't a very tidy person, for he seemed to leave his clothes on the floor where he took them off, but on Wednesdays a rather pretty young woman came to the house to clean. She picked up all his clothes, washed them, and put them away. On one Wednesday, Aaliya heard the telephone ring then the front door slam, and she knew the young woman had left early.

Going downstairs, Aaliya saw that the dryer was full of clothes and the dinning room table was littered with dirty dishes. Without conscious thought of what she was doing, she began to clean the room. When the dryer buzzer went off, she folded his clothes, took them to his bedroom, and put them away, telling herself all the while that she was free and if she wanted to do this she could. Besides, her landlord would never know who had done the work.

It was at the beginning of the third week that Aaliya found out about New York delivery services. As she was carrying three bags of groceries out of the store, one of the employees suggested that she have them delivered; after all, the delivery was free. All she had to do was tip the delivery boy a couple of dollars. For that matter, if she was very busy, she could call the store and tell them what she wanted, and they'd deliver her order. Aaliya thought this was a marvelous idea, because now she wouldn't have to leave the apartment at all. First thing the next morning, she went to the bank and withdrew five hundred dollars in cash, knowing that the money would enable her to stay in the house for a long time.

When she returned to the town house, glad as always that it was empty, she breathed a sigh of relief and thought about what she wanted to do. Reminding herself that she was free, she knew she could do anything. With that thought, she popped herself some popcorn, went back to bed, and watched videos. But the videos her father had were all intellectual treatises on the lives of various bugs and birds, so after a while she fell asleep. How wonderful to be able to sleep in the afternoon, she thought, for surely a nap was one of life's great luxuries.

When the sound of laughter awakened her at twilight, she got out of bed, went to the window, and looked into the garden, where her landlord seemed to be having a party. He was cooking steaks on an outdoor grill - and Aaliya could see he was doing it incorrectly, piercing the meat as he turned it - and drinking beer with a half dozen nicely dressed people.

As always, he seemed to sense when she was watching him, for abruptly, he turned and waved his arm, beckoning to her to come down and join them, but Aaliya stepped back into the room and drew the curtain closed. Putting a CD on the player, she sat on her father's chair and picked up a book - she was now reading a five-pound biography of Catherine the Great. When the laughter from downstairs became louder, she turned up the music. All of her father's CDs were of old blues singers, music from the twenties and thirties, mournful songs sung by people like Bessie Smith and Robert Johnson. It wasn't music that Aaliya would have chosen, but she was beginning to like it since it was what her father liked.

As the third week ran into the fourth, Aaliya found that what she really wanted to do most was sleep. It had always seemed to her that since she was twelve and her mother had died, she had never had enough time for sleep. There had always been school and household chores and other people's needs to see to. Then, after she'd married, she'd had to prepare three meals a day and work eight to twelve hours a day six days a week. Now it seemed perfectly feasible that her tiredness would be catching up with her, and she was glad for the time to rest.

When she was in Louisville, she hadn't been able to bear giving all of her father's clothes away, so she'd boxed some of them and mailed them to New York. She found that it made her feel closer to him to wear his shirts over her jeans; she liked sleeping in his pajamas, and she especially liked his heavy flannel bathrobe.

By her fourth week in New York, Aaliya was feeling very relaxed. It was amazing how much she could sleep; sometimes she didn't wake until ten in the morning, when she'd go downstairs to get a bowl of cereal, but sometimes she didn't eat anything. When she did eat, instead of cleaning up after herself, she discovered that she could leave her dirty dishes in the sink and the young woman who came on Wednesdays would clean them. Aaliya was glad of that because, quite honestly, she felt too tired to do much cleaning.

Every day by noon she was feeling sleepy again, so she didn't bother to take off her father's pajamas. In fact, it began to seem like too much effort to bathe and put on clean clothes, after all, she couldn't be too dirty since she did little more than sleep. When she tried to read a book about Elizabeth I, she could hardly keep her eyes open.

Several times over the weeks she heard laughter in the garden, but she no longer got up to see what was going on. And her landlord no longer disturbed her. A few times she'd seen him in the kitchen, but she just smiled sleepily at him and went back upstairs, no longer running to get away from him.Putting the book on the bedside table, she turned off the light. It was only seven in the evening and it was full daylight outside, but she was too sleepy to stay awake. As she fell asleep, she thought that as soon as she was rested, she'd finish the book and all the others in the apartment, but right now she wanted to sleep.


"* * * * *
Looking across the picnic table in the back garden at Zain, Nafeesa Khan knew it didn't take a genius to see that he was upset about something. Usually Zain was cheerful, always making jokes, and usually he came close to eating his weight in meat, but tonight he was pushing his steak around on his plate as though he weren't hungry.

Nafeesa didn't know why he'd invited her tonight, but then maybe it was because she'd pretty much invited herself because she was "between jobs" at the moment, as people put it so politely. The last club where she'd worked had hired a new manager, a greasy little creep who thought it was Nafeesa's honor to be allowed to do things to his body. When Nafeesa had declined the honor, she'd been fired as a result. She had a bit of money saved, and she knew she'd be okay until she got another job, but until then she knew Zain was good for a meal.

"You okay?" she asked.

"Sure, fine," he said, but he was almost mumbling.

Nafeesa had never seen Zain like this. Usually he was the life of the party, always laughing, always ready to have a good time. With his looks, he always had women falling all over themselves for him, even though, for the most part, Zain remained unaffected by them. Nafeesa wondered if he had a girlfriend back home somewhere, or for all she knew, maybe he had a steady girl right here in the city. When she saw the girls from the club who worked with her fling themselves at Zain, Nafeesa felt like telling them to stop wasting their time, because they weren't going to get a guy like Zain

Nafeesa was aware that all the girls thought she slept with Zain, and she never told them differently, but she and Zain were just friends.

Nafeesa had a problem that, unfortunately, she shared with too many women: She desperately wanted a man to love her, but every man who did love her she couldn't seem to care about, so she spent all her time and energy, and often her money, trying to make uncaring, screwed-up jerks love her. When they did nothing but abuse her, she cried on the shoulders of the people who did love her - usually men - that all men were scum - just as her father had been. As for Zain, she thought he was lovely to look at and he always took care of her when yet another of her boyfriends dropped her, but she didn't think of him as a man. Not an actual man, because Zain had never treated her with contempt as the men Nafeesa was attracted to did.

When Nafeesa was sober, she laughed about the long list of losers in her life, and when she was drunk, she cried about them. But drunk or sober, she basically understood that the reason she, of all the girls at the club, was invited to this rich house was because she never made a pass at Zain.

"How's your book coming?" she asked.

Zain shrugged. "All right. I haven't worked on it much lately."

Nafeesa had no reply to that. To her, there was something magic in putting words on paper and having them mean something, so she tried to think of something else to talk about. Feeling the need to try to cheer Zain up was something altogether new - it was usually Nafeesa crying while Zain laughed and told her she was better off without so and so.

"So how's your tenant?" she asked.

"I guess she's all right. I never see her." He toyed with his food. "I don't think she likes me."

Nafeesa laughed. "You, Zain? There's a girl on this planet who doesn't like you?" When zain didn't say anything, Nafeesa kept laughing. "And what do you think of her?"

Zain looked up at Nafeesa with eyes so hot, eyes that showed such desire, that Nafeesa, who thought she'd seen everything a man could dish out, leaned away from him and had to take a deep drink of her cold beer before she could speak. "I don't know whether I envy her or I'm afraid for her," she whispered, holding the frosty bottle to her cheek.

Zain looked back down at his plate.

"Have you asked her out?"

"Tried to, but she runs away every time I get within ten feet of her. If she hears me coming, she hits the stairs, and except for meals, she stays in her apartment all the time, never leaves."

"What's she do all day?"

"As far as I can tell, she sleeps," Zain said in disgust.

Nafeesa took a bite of her steak. "Poor kid. Didn't you tell me her father just died and that she just got a divorce?"

"Yeah, but from what I heard, her husband was no great loss."

"Maybe so, but losing your guy makes you feel rotten. I remember the first time a guy walked out on me. Lord! but I was in love with that man. He was my first and I lived my whole life for him, anything he wanted, I gave it to him." She snorted in memory. "That was when I first started stripping. He said I was so good at it when I did it for him that I ought to make us some money. But even when I did what he wanted, one day I came home and he was gone. No note or nothing. Of course, looking back on it, I doubt if the bum could read and write. Brother! was I depressed after that. I didn't think I had anything to live for after he left me. I managed to drag myself to work for a few days, but after a while I even stopped doing that; just stayed in the apartment and slept. Hell, I'd probably still be sleeping if that man hadn't made me see what a creep the guy was - that he wasn't worth sleeping for."

Zain was only half listening to Nafeesa's story as her stories tended to depress him. He'd told her once that she could walk into a crowd of a hundred nice guys with one wife-beating scum-of-the-earth hidden among them, and she'd be able to pick out the bad guy within thirty seconds. Nafeesa had laughed and said that if he was bad enough, she'd have him moved into her apartment and be supporting him within three minutes.

What Zain was thinking about was Aaliya. Maybe over the years he'd become spoiled with women liking him, maybe girls had been too easy for him to get. Aaliya was a challenge. Since she'd come to New York, he'd tried everything to get her attention, up to and including slipping invitations under her door. He'd "accidentally" met her in the kitchen a few hundred times. He'd even hinted repeatedly that he'd like to learn how to use a computer, but she'd looked at him as though she'd never heard the word before.

For the life of him he couldn't figure her out. There was the prim little miss who hadn't wanted to stay in a house alone with a man; there was the hot tamale who'd kissed him like he'd never before been kissed; and lately there was the grubby little zombie who silently moved about the kitchen wearing her father's pajamas and robe. He rarely heard her footsteps above anymore and when he did see her, she was always yawning, even though she usually looked as though she'd just woken up.

Zain's head came up sharply. "What did you say?"

"I said I missed him so much that I wore only his clothes. I couldn't button his shirt across my chest, but that didn't matter because wearing his clothes made me feel closer to him. If that man-"

Zain came out of his seat. "What man?"

Nafeesa looked startled. "The man at the hospital. Haven't you been listening to what I've been telling you? I wanted to sleep forever, so I decided to do just that. I took a bottle of pills and woke up in a hospital, and that's where that man talked to me, told me I had to keep on living."

Zain stood looking down at her for a moment, but he wasn't seeing her, because he was beginning to comprehend what Nafeesa was saying. "Aaliya's had a hard time, Zain," he could hear Aaliya's father saying over the phone, his voice harsh and weak, heavy with his impending death. "She's had a hard life, and when I'm gone, I don't know what she'll do. I wish I knew my daughter better, but I don't. I don't know what goes on inside her head, but I want to leave this world knowing that she's going to be taken care of. I want you to look out for her, Zain, and I want to make up to her for some of what I did to her. Take care of her for me. There's no one else I can ask."

Zain had experienced the death of his uncle Zain, but that was all - and that was enough. He couldn't actually imagine more death in his life or losing as many people as Aaliya had. He definitely couldn't imagine what he'd feel like if his father died - or if, like Aaliya, his last and only friend and relative died.

Looking up at Aaliya's windows, he saw that, as always, the curtains were drawn. No doubt she was sleeping again. Sleeping forever, as Nafeesa put it.

"You're a poor guardian, Abdullah," he said to himself, then turned to look at Nafeesa

"Want me out of here, Zain?" she asked as she picked up her purse and started to go back through the house to leave, but at the door she turned back. "You need anything, Zainy, honey, you let me know. I owe you a few favors."

Absently, Zain nodded, but he was looking up at Aaliya's windows, and his mind was wholly on his tenant. Two minutes later he was on the phone ordering a meal to be delivered from La Cte Basque."

awesome update.so Zain is confuse with Aliya behavior.can't wait for next part.update soon.

Amazing update...