“I know. I know, I hate it, too.”
She shook her head, shook off the emotion. “I’m just—I’m sorry I’m taking things out on you. I don’t mean to.”
“I know.”
“Everyone is different now. All my old friends. Even some of the teachers.” She looked away. “I think I’m worried I’m going to lose you, too.”
“You’re not going to lose me.”
“I know.” She laughed, wiped her eyes. “I know. I’m sorry. I know.” But when she looked up again, she looked uncertain. She whispered: “So you’re really not hooking up with my brother?”
“Zahra.” I sighed. Shook my head. “Come on.”
“I’m sorry, I know, I’m crazy.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “I just—I don’t know. Sometimes I need to hear you say it.”
I stole a furtive glance at my mom, who was now tapping the steering wheel along to a Nelly song.
“Zahra,” I said sharply. “I am not hooking up with your brother.”
She smiled at that, seemed suddenly delighted. “And you’re not going to, like, fall in love with him and ditch me?”
I rolled my eyes. “No. I am not going to fall in love with him and ditch you.”
“You promise?”
“Wow, okay, now you’re starting to piss me off.”
She laughed.
I laughed.
And just like that, I had my best friend back.
December
2003
Ten
I left the classroom with the tide, grateful today, as I was most days, that our school was home to the nearly three thousand students who gave me the cover to disappear. I felt lucky, too, that our student body included just enough Muslim kids—and a couple of girls who wore hijab—that I didn’t have to bear the weight of representation entirely on my own. Recently they’d formed a Muslim Student Union, an on-campus club through which they set up conferences and organized interfaith dialogues and patiently answered all manner of ignorant questions for the masses. The MSU president flagged me down a few times, generously inviting me to their events, and I never had the heart to say no to her. Instead, I’d do the more detestable thing, and make promises I never intended to keep. I avoided those kids not because I didn’t admire them, but because I was a husk of a person with little fight left to give, and I didn’t think they’d understand. Or maybe I was afraid they would.
Maybe I wasn’t ready to talk.
In the two months since Zahra and I had parted ways, I’d been eating lunch alone. I was too tired to drum up the enthusiasm needed to strike up conversations with people who didn’t know the intimate details of my life. I chose instead to sit far from the crowds, alone with my optimistic thoughts and my optimistic newspaper. Only recently had my innumerable attractions lured a stranger to my lunch table: a foreign exchange student from Japan who smiled often and said little. Her name was Yumiko. We were perfect for each other.
Dramatic tenebrism.
It hit me suddenly, like a slap to the head. The answer was B. Dramatic tenebrism. A less intense chiaroscuro.
Damn.
I sighed as I followed the sea of students down the hall. I had one more class before lunch, and I needed to switch out my books. Miraculously, my body knew this without prompting; the autopilot feature had flickered on in my brain and was already guiding my feet down a familiar path to my locker. I pushed my way through a tangle of bodies, found the metal casket that housed my things, spun the dial on the lock. My hands moved mechanically, swapping textbooks for textbooks, my eyes seeing nothing.
It took very little for Zahra to ambush me.
I turned around and there she was, brown curls and almond eyes, perfectly manicured brows furrowed, arms crossed at her chest.
She was angry.
I took a step back, felt the sharp edge of my open locker dig into my spine. It was all in my head, I knew that even then, but it seemed to me that the world stopped in that moment, the din dimmed, the light changed, a camera lens focused. I held my breath and waited for something, hoped for something, feared so much.
When Zahra first cut me out of her life, I had no idea what was happening. I didn’t understand why she’d stopped eating lunch with me, didn’t understand why she’d stopped returning my calls. She plucked me from her tree of life with such efficiency I didn’t even realize what happened until I hit the ground.
After that, I let her go.
I made no demands, insisted on no explanations. Once I understood that she’d ejected me without so much as a goodbye, I’d not possessed the self-hatred necessary to beg her to stick around. Instead, I grieved quietly—in the privacy of my bedroom, on the shower floor, in the middle of the night. I’d learned from my mother to hide the pain that mattered most, to allow it an audience only behind closed doors, with only God as my witness. I had other friends, I knew other people. I was not desperate for company.
Still, I had violent dreams about her. I screamed at her in my delirium, sobbed while she stood over me and stared, her face impassive. I asked her questions she’d never answer, threw punches that never landed.
It felt strange to look at her now.
“Hi,” I said quietly.
Her eyes flashed. “I want you to stop talking to my brother.”
A cold weight drove into my chest, punctured a vital organ. “What?”
“I don’t know what you’re thinking or why you would even think it, but you have to stop throwing yourself at him. Stay away from him, stay away from me, and stay the hell out of my life—”
“Zahra, stop,” I said sharply. “Stop.” My heart was racing so fast I felt it pounding in my head. “I’m not talking to your brother. I saw him yesterday by accident, and he drove me t—”
“By accident.”
“Yes.”
“You saw him by accident.”
“Yes, I—”
“So you saw him by
