Ali spun back around like I’d slapped him. “What?”
“Or maybe you can tell her that nothing ever happened between us? Because she thinks”—I shook my head—“I don’t know, she came up to me today, and she was really upset. She seemed to think that we, that, I don’t know—”
“Are you joking?” Ali blinked, stunned, took a step back. “Please tell me you’re joking.”
“What? Why?”
“I can’t believe you’re still doing this. I can’t believe you’re still letting her do this to you, even now, when she’s not even—Listen, Shadi, I don’t need anyone else’s permission to live my own life. And you shouldn’t, either.”
“She’s not just anyone else,” I said quietly. “She’s your sister.”
“I know she’s my sister.”
“Ali—”
“Listen, I don’t care, okay? This isn’t about us. You told me to jump off a cliff, and I did. I jumped off a fucking cliff. I cut myself out of your life because you asked me to, because you can’t see that my sister is just jealous of you, that she’s always been jealous of you, and can’t stand the idea of you being happy.”
Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe.
“I’m not trying to change your mind anymore,” he said. “All right? I moved on. And if I’m standing here right now asking questions it’s only because I’m worried about you, because we used to be friends.”
I flinched. “I know that.”
“Then stop letting my sister dictate the terms of your life. Or mine, for that matter. Make your own choices.”
“Ali, she was my friend,” I said. “My best friend.”
“Your best friend. Wow. Okay.” He nodded, then laughed. “Tell me something, Shadi—what kind of best friend doesn’t want you to be happy? What kind of best friend doesn’t care if she hurts you? What kind of best friend denies you the right to make decisions for yourself?”
“That isn’t fair,” I said, “it wasn’t that simple—”
“We were friends, too, weren’t we? Why didn’t I get a vote?”
I looked up at him then, caught the flash of pain in his eyes before it disappeared. I thought to say something, wanted to say something, and I never had the chance.
Ali laughed.
He laughed, dragged his hands down his face, stared up at the sky. He seemed to be laughing at something only he understood. I watched as his body went slack, as the light left his eyes. He took a steadying breath, stared into the distance as he exhaled. When Ali finally met my eyes again he looked tired. He smiled, and it broke my heart.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll tell my sister that nothing ever happened between us.”
I stared at him. Heat was pushing up my throat again, pressing against my eyes, and I knew I couldn’t take much more of this. I nodded toward the long walk that awaited me.
“I should get going.”
“Right. Yeah.” He clapped his hands together. Took a step back. “Okay.”
I’d just turned to leave when I heard him say—
“Wait.”
It was soft, uncertain.
I turned back around, the question in my eyes.
Ali moved toward me again. His face was different now, worried. “Last night,” he said, “when I asked you if you were okay—you said no.”
My hesitant smile disappeared. My face became a mask. “I’m sorry I said that. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Don’t— Shadi, don’t apologize. I just wanted to know—are you okay now?”
“Oh. Yeah.” I took a deep breath, forced a smile back on my face, swallowed down the heat, willed my eyes to remain dry. “Yeah. Great.”
“Is your mom okay?”
“Yeah, she’s great, too.” I nodded. “So much better. Thanks.”
He was about to say something else, but I couldn’t take it anymore. I cut him off in a rush, terrified the tremble would return to my lips.
“I have to go, actually. I need to get home for dinner. My mom’s waiting for me.”
“Oh,” he said, surprised. “That’s . . . great.”
“Yeah,” I said again, eyes still dry, legs still working. “Really great.”
Fourteen
When I got home, the house was dark.
I closed the door behind me, the familiar whine of an ungreased hinge preceding the heavy close. I leaned back against the door, rested my head against the cheap wood. I smelled new paint, stale air, the faint aroma of Windex. We’d moved into this sterile rental not long after my brother died. It had become impossible to live in a place that housed the museum of his life, the modest bedroom from which my father would drag my mother’s prone, sobbing body every night. I saw her with my own eyes only once, just once before my father chased me out, shouting at me to go back to bed. My mother was curled on the floor of my brother’s room, banging her head against the baseboard, begging God to be merciful and kill her.
Somehow, through the power of violent self-delusion, my parents thought we wouldn’t hear them fighting late at night, thought we wouldn’t have ways of seeing them in the hallway, thought we wouldn’t hear my father begging my mother to come back to bed, begging in a voice I’d never known him to possess. Come back, come back, come back, come back.
She’d slapped him in the face.
She’d thrown feeble, desperate punches at his chest, clawing at him until he finally let go, let her sink to the floor. I watched from a half-inch opening in my bedroom door, my heart pounding so hard I could barely breathe. In the dead of night my parents became strangers, each utterly transformed into versions of themselves I did not know.
I watched my father fall to his knees before my mother, a penitent dictator. I watched my mother reduce him to ash.
On the morning my father announced we were moving, no one even lifted their heads. There were no questions, no discussions.
There was no need.
We left that place behind, did not drive past our old street, did not discuss the hours my mother now spent in her closet. But when I closed my eyes I still heard her voice; I
