It was a cruel joke.
I felt my face flush, heat jolting through my body. People were still laughing. I sat up in my seat, kept my eyes on my desk. I wanted to turn my skin inside out.
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly.
“You want to stay out late? That’s not my problem,” Mr. Mathis said sharply. “Get your sleep at home. Not in my class.”
“Of course. I’m sorry.”
He shot me a dark look. Carried on with his lecture. I spent the rest of the period staring at the textbook at my feet, feeling as though all the blood had drained from my body, pooled onto the floor.
My father was not coming home today.
He was not dying just yet, but he was also not coming home today, and that was all I really understood at the moment. My mom hadn’t talked much, hadn’t explained more than was absolutely necessary, and flatly refused my suggestion that she go to a support group for grieving parents. She’d audibly gasped when I proposed she see a therapist. She’d looked so outraged I actually panicked; I thought for a moment she might never speak to me again. But then she ate the eggs I made her for breakfast.
Something had changed between us that morning, and I still didn’t know what it was, had not yet figured out how to define it. But I could tell, just by looking into her eyes, that my mother had unclenched an iota. She seemed relieved—relieved, perhaps, to no longer be living with such a crushing secret.
“I’ll be okay,” she kept saying. “I’ll be fine.”
I did not believe her.
I spent my lunch period sleeping at a table in the library, head bowed over my folded arms. I felt like I’d only just closed my eyes when someone shook my shoulder, rattled my skeleton back to life. I awoke suddenly, my nerves fraying in an instant.
When I looked up, I saw a blur of color. Eyes. Mouth.
“Noah.”
“Hey,” he said, but he was frowning. “Are you okay? The bell just rang.”
“Oh.” I tried to stand, but the action proved harder to accomplish than I’d expected. “What—what are you doing here?”
“We were supposed to have lunch together, remember?” He suddenly smiled. “I brought a newspaper and everything. But your friend Yumiko told me you’d bailed on her for the library.”
I frowned. Dimly, I remembered running into her, telling her I’d be in the library for lunch. That conversation felt like it’d happened a lifetime ago. “You brought a newspaper?”
Noah smiled wider. “Yeah.”
I laughed, collected my things in a daze, moved through the room with a pronounced slowness. I wanted to say, That’s so nice, but it seemed like too much work.
“Hey—what’s wrong? Are you sick?” I heard his voice, heard it like it was coming from the stars.
I shook my head, the single motion disorienting me. I tried to say I’m just tired, but I wasn’t sure it went through. My feet moved even more stupidly than my mind and I suddenly tripped over my own shoes, caught myself against a research table, the sharp edge slamming into my gut. I gasped as I steadied myself, caught my breath.
I looked up, stared at the exit, wondered why the end always seemed so far away.
Someone touched me.
I turned my head as if through panes of glass, sounds shattering against my face. Noah. Noah was here, his hand on my arm, his head bent toward my face, he said, “Shadi,” he said, “are you okay?” and I heard his voice like I pictured sound—slow and loud, reverberating.
I saw color, flashes of it.
Are you? he said. Okay?
Are you Do you need to see do you need the the nursedoyou okay maybe see the go, go home home?
I felt it, when I fell.
I heard someone shout, I felt something soft—warm arms, a gentle landing—a gasp, rough carpet under my face, my eyes closing. I heard sound, so much sound, loud and round, shuddering. I tried to pry open my eyes. They refused.
My lips, on the other hand, acquiesced.
“Please.” My mouth moved against commercial carpeting, my nose filled with dust. I felt everything move, felt my body spin.
Someone was talking to me. Hands on my back.
“Please,” I whispered. “Don’t let them call my mother. She’s not— She— Please,” I said, felt myself drifting.
I didn’t know whether I was dreaming.
Don’t let them call my mother, I tried to say. Tried to scream it. Please—
Nineteen
Zahra had redecorated.
I stared first at her ceiling, the smooth white skin blemished by neither light fixture nor popcorn, no cobwebs to be seen. I turned my head a single micrometer in this grave of pillows and saw her new desk atop which sat her new computer, a stack of makeup and books, a small mirror. I saw a new lamp—still lit—standing in a corner. I saw the same laundry basket, the same six hooks on the wall from which hung a dozen purses. A single tennis shoe was pushing free of her closet door, the handle of which was hung with an ornament of the evil eye.
I’d made a huge mistake.
I tried, but could not move my arms, not yet. I felt thick with weight, forgotten under setting concrete. I tore open my mouth, wet my lips, remembered I had teeth.
I did not know how long I’d been sleeping, but a single glance out Zahra’s darkened window was enough to awaken my fear. I sat straight up and regretted it, felt my head fissure with pain.
I pushed myself to my feet, felt a familiar scrape against my ribs. I reached under my shirt to retrieve today’s newspaper from my waistband and promptly tossed the paper in Zahra’s trash. The sight
