It was discernibly not.
My scarf was discernibly not neoprene; it did not resemble vinyl. It was silk, an intentional choice, not just for its weight and texture but for the sake of my vanity. Silk caressed my hair during the day, made it smooth and shiny by the time I got home. That anyone thought my hijab capable of withstanding a thunderstorm was baffling to me, and yet it was a logic maintained by a surprisingly large number of people.
If only they could see me now.
The rain had drenched my scarf, the skin of which was now plastered to my head. Water ran in rivulets down the sides of my neck, my hair heavy, dripping. A few rebellious strands had come loose, harsh winds whipping them across my eyes, and though I made to tuck them away, to pull myself together, my efforts were more habit than hopeful. I was no fool. I knew I was going to die of pneumonia today, possibly before my next class even started.
I was a senior in high school but on Monday and Wednesday evenings I took a multivariable calculus class at the local community college. It was the equivalent of taking an AP class. The units were transferrable, helped inflate my GPA.
My parents were into it. Most parents were into it.
But my parents, like many Middle Eastern mothers and fathers, expected it. They expected me to take multivariable calculus as a senior in high school the way they expected me to become a doctor. Or a lawyer. A PhD would also be accepted, though with decidedly less enthusiasm.
I looked up again, at the opposition.
The rain was falling harder now, faster, but there was no time to take shelter. If I wanted to get to class on time, I had to be walking now. I knew I’d spent too long after school hoping someone would come get me, but I couldn’t help it; my hope was greater on Mondays and Wednesdays. Greater because I hoped for more than a ride home—I wanted to be spared the long walk to the college, two and a half miles away.
I was tempted to skip.
The temptation was so palpable I felt a tremble in my spine. I imagined my sodden bones carrying me straight home and my heart stuttered at the thought, happiness threatening. Cars flew past me, spraying me with dirty water, and I wavered further, shivering in soaked jeans and sopping shoes. I was a smudge with a dream, standing at a literal crossroads. I dreamed of going left instead of right. I dreamed of hot tea and dry clothes. I wanted to go home, home, wanted to sit in the shower for an hour, boil my blood.
I couldn’t.
I couldn’t miss class because I’d already missed a day last month, and missing two days would drop my grade, which would hurt my GPA, which would hurt my mother, which would break the single most important rule I’d made in my life, which was to become so innocuous a child as to disappear altogether. It was all for my mother, of course. I was ambivalent about my father, but my mother, I didn’t want my mother to cry, not for me. She cried enough for everyone else these days.
I wondered then whether she’d look out the window, whether she’d be reminded, in a rare moment, of her youngest child, of my pilgrimage to calculus. My father, I knew, would not. He was either asleep or watching reruns of Hawaii Five-0 on a television stapled to a partition. My sister would certainly not be bothered, not with anything. No one else I knew would even know to come for me.
Last year, my mother would’ve come.
Last year, she would’ve known my schedule. She would’ve called, checked in, threatened my sister with violence for abandoning me to the elements. But in the wake of my brother’s death my mother’s soul had been rearranged, her skeleton reconfigured. The crushing waves of grief that once drowned me had begun, slowly, to ebb, but my mother— Over a year later my mother still seemed to me not unlike sentient driftwood, bobbing along in the cool, undiluted waters of agony.
So I’d become a ghost.
I’d managed to reduce my entire person to a nonevent so insignificant my mother seldom even asked me questions anymore. Seldom realized I was around. I told myself I was helping, giving her space, becoming one less child to worry about—mantras that helped me ignore the sharp pain that accompanied the success of my disappearing act.
I only hoped I was right.
A sudden gust of wind rattled through the streets, pushing me back. I’d no choice but to duck my head against the gust, the motion exposing my open collar to the rain. A tree trembled overhead and a stunning, icy torrent of water shot straight down my shirt.
I audibly gasped.
Please, God, I thought, please please don’t let me die of pneumonia.
My socks were soup, my teeth chattering, my clenched fingers growing slowly numb. I decided to check my cell phone for a sign of life, mentally sorting through the short list of people I might be able to call for a favor—but by the time I fished the metal brick out of the marsh of my pocket it was waterlogged and glitching. Never mind pneumonia, I would likely die of electrocution. My future had never looked so bright.
I smiled at my own joke, my lips curving toward insanity, when a car sped by so quickly it just about bathed me in runoff. I stopped then, stopped and stared at myself, at my amphibious state. It was unreal how I looked. I couldn’t possibly go to school like this, and yet I would, I would, propelled forward by some greater scruple, some nonsense that gave my life meaning. It all suddenly struck me as
