Reluctantly, suspiciously, my parents let me go.
I ran.
I ran through the night on burning legs, with burning lungs, dragged air into my chest with difficulty. My limbs were trembling, my body shutting down.
I pushed harder.
I let the wind sear my skin, let it whip the tears from my eyes. I let the cold numb my nose, my chin, the tips of my fingers, and I ran, ran through darkness, chest heaving, breaths ragged.
I collapsed when I got to the park, my knees sinking into wet grass. I rested for only a moment, body bowed halfway to prostration before I pushed myself up again, dragged myself across an open field. When I saw the shimmering lights in the distance, I realized I knew what I wanted to do. I also knew then that Shayda had been right.
I’d probably lost my mind.
The gate was locked so I jumped the fence, landed poorly. Pain shot up my leg and I welcomed it, ignored it.
As I stood, I stalled.
I caught my breath, stared. There was no one here. There was never anyone here. I’d walked past this pool a thousand times on similar evenings, wondering always at the effort expended to maintain such a place for the mere mice and ghosts who haunted it.
The light was ethereal here, bright and glowing, the glittery depths swaying a little in the wind. I had no plan. I had no exit strategy. I had no way of knowing how I’d get home or in what state. I only knew I felt my chest heaving, my bones heavy with ice and heat. I was sweating and freezing, fully clothed, desperate for something I could not explain.
I kicked off my shoes. Tore off my jacket.
Dove into the water.
I sank. Closed my eyes and sank.
Screamed.
Silk wrapped around my head and I screamed, tore the sorrow from my lungs, water filling my mouth. I screamed and nearly choked in the effort, thought it might kill me. The water absorbed me instead, swallowed my pain, kept my secrets.
Let me drown.
I kicked up suddenly, struggled as my clothes grew heavy. I broke the surface with a gasp, drank in the cool night air, swallowed untold amounts of chlorinated water. The pool was unexpectedly warm, welcoming, like a bath. I took a deep, steadying breath. Another.
Sank back down.
I listened to the whir of silence, to the thick, distant thuds of water. I let myself fall, let my weight drag me down.
It was somehow a comfort not to breathe.
I sat at the bottom of the pool and the water compressed me, held me with its heft. Slowly, my heartbeat began to steady.
The home I’d run from tonight had been warm, hopeful—unrecognizable from what it had become in the last year. Until tonight I’d never even considered we might be happy again; I’d never dreamed we might use the broken pieces of our old life to build something new. I’d thought, for so long, that this pain I clenched every day in my fist would be my sole possession, all I ever carried for the rest of my life.
I’d forgotten I had two hands.
I felt a key click into the clockwork of my heart then, felt a terrifying turning in my chest that promised to keep me going, to buy me more time in this searing life. I felt it, felt my body restart with a climbing, aching fear. I feared that something was changing, that maybe I was changing, that my entire life was shedding a skin it had outgrown at last, at last.
It scared me.
I didn’t know how to handle the shape of hope. I didn’t know how such a thing might fit in my body. I was so afraid, so afraid of being disappointed.
I felt him before I saw him, arms around my body, a blur of movement, shuddering motion. The world came back to me in an explosion of sound, heaving breaths and cool air, the shaking of branches, whispering leaves. I was gasping, clinging to the slick edge of the pool, my thin clothes painted to my body, my scarf suctioned to my head.
I dragged myself out of the water, collapsed sideways. I was breathing hard, staring up at the sky. I could feel my heart pounding, my pulse racing.
“Sometimes, I swear, I really think you’re trying to kill me.”
I pulled myself up at the sound of his voice, bent my sopping knees to my chest. Ali was sitting at the edge of the pool, his legs still in the water, his body drenched. I watched him as he stared into the glowing depths, his hands planted on either side of him. Rivulets of water snaked down his face. He was beginning to shiver.
“What are you doing here?”
He turned to look at me. “Are you?” he asked. “Are you trying to kill me?”
“No,” I whispered.
“I went to your house,” he said. “You forgot your backpack in my living room. But when I got there your mom told me you’d gone to get it yourself, she said that maybe I’d missed you on the way over.”
I sighed, stared into the water. “How’d you know I was here?”
“I didn’t. I searched the park. I saw your shoes through the fence.” He nodded at the bars around the community swimming pool. “So I jumped it. God, Shadi, I didn’t know what you were doing.” He dropped his face in his hands. Pushed wet hair out of his eyes. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“What did you think I was doing?”
“I don’t know,” he said, exhaling suddenly. “I don’t know.”
I knew.
I picked up my sopping self, dripped over to him, sat down beside him. I noticed then that his fists were clenched. His body was shaking.
“Come on,” I
