I drew in a sharp breath.
Something flickered in Zahra’s eyes, something akin to triumph, and my composure broke. Anger filled my head with stunning speed, black heat edging into my vision. Through nothing short of a miracle, I fought it back.
“I’ve told you a hundred times,” I said, “that I didn’t know it was his. I thought that sweatshirt belonged to Mehdi. And I don’t know why you refuse to believe me.”
She shook her head, disgust marring the face that was once so familiar to me. “You’re a shitty liar, Shadi.”
“I’m not lying.”
She wasn’t listening. “Every time I asked if something was going on between you and my brother, you’d always act so innocent and hurt, like you had no idea what I was talking about. I can’t believe you really thought I was that stupid. I can’t believe you thought I wouldn’t figure it out.”
“Figure what out? What are you talking about?”
“Ali,” she said angrily. “My brother. Did you think I wouldn’t put it all together? Did you think I wouldn’t notice what you did to him? God, if you were going to mess around with my brother the least you could’ve done was not break his fucking heart.”
“What?” I was panicking. I could feel myself panicking. “Is that what he told you? Did he tell you that?”
“He didn’t have to tell me. It was pretty easy to put the whole thing together.” She made a gesture with her hand. “One day he comes home looking like he got shot in the chest, and the next day he stops speaking to you forever.”
“No.” I was shaking my head, shaking it so hard I felt dizzy. “No, that’s not what happened. You don’t unders—”
“Bullshit, Shadi.” Her eyes were bright with an anger that scared me, worried me. I took an involuntary step back, but she followed.
“You lied to me for years. Not only did you hook up with my brother behind my back, but you broke his heart, and worst of all—God, Shadi, worst of all, you pretended to be so perfect and good, when that whole time you were actually just a slutty, lying piece of shit.”
I felt, suddenly, like I’d gone numb.
“I just wanted you to know,” she was saying. “I wanted you to know that I know the truth. Maybe no one else sees through all your bullshit—maybe everyone at the mosque thinks you’re some kind of a saint—but I know better. So stay the hell away from my family,” she said.
And walked away.
I stood there, staring into space until the final bell rang, until the chaotic hall became a ghost town. I was going to be late to my next class. I squeezed my eyes shut, tried to breathe.
I wanted, desperately, to disappear.
Zahra and I had been friends since I was eleven; I met her and Ali at the same time. Our family was new in town and my parents wanted us to make friends, so they sent me and Shayda and Mehdi to a Muslim summer camp, a camp none of us had wanted to attend. It was our shared loathing of spending summer afternoons listening to religious sermons that brought us all together. If only I’d known then that we’d usher in our end with a similar emotion.
Zahra had always hated me, just a little bit.
She’d always said it like it was a joke, a charming turn of phrase, like it was normal to roll your eyes and say every other day, God, I hate you so much, to the person who was, ostensibly, your best friend. For years, her hatred was innocuous enough to ignore—she hated the way I avoided coffee, hated how I took the evil eye seriously, hated the sad music I listened to, hated the way I turned into a prim, obedient child when I spoke Farsi—but in the last year, her hatred had changed.
I think, deep down, I’d always known we wouldn’t last.
I’d known about Zahra’s old pain; I knew she’d been used and discarded by other girls who’d feigned interest in her friendship only to get close to her brother. I tried always to be sensitive to this, to make sure she knew that our friendship was more important to me than anything. What I hadn’t realized was how paranoid she’d become over the years, how she’d already painted upon my face a picture of her own insecurities. She was so certain that I’d ditch her for Ali that she nearly fulfilled her own prophecy just to be right, just to prove to me—and to herself—that I’d been worthless all along.
Soon, she hated everything about me.
She hated how much her parents liked me, hated how they were always inviting me to things. But most of all, she hated, hated, that I was always asking to come over to her house.
I felt a flush of heat move across my skin at the memories, ancient mortification refusing to die.
I just want to know why, okay? Why do you always want to come over? Why are you always here? Why do you always want to spend the night? Why?
I’d told her the truth a thousand times, but she never believed me for longer than a week before she was suspicious again. And so it went, my screams soldiering on in their usual vein, unnoticed.
Eleven
I dropped my backpack on the damp, pebbled concrete, took a seat on the dirty curb. I stared out at the sea of glistening cars quietly settling in the parking lot of an outdoor shopping mall.
So this was freedom.
Yumiko and I had spent enough lunches together now that I’d begun to feel a sense of obligation toward our meetings. I always tried to tell her when I wouldn’t be around, and though I’d invited her to join me on this unexciting sojourn off campus, she gently reminded me that she was
