“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know.”
“Hey, don’t apologize, I don’t—”
Carefully, without disturbing my scarf, I pulled the hoodie over my head and handed it to him, practically shoved it at him.
“Shadi.” He frowned, tried to give it back. “I don’t care if you wear it. You can have it.”
I was shaking my head. I didn’t know how to say even a little bit without saying everything. “I can’t.”
“Shadi. Come on.”
I turned around, turned the combination on my locker. Wordlessly, I unzipped my backpack, swapped out my books.
Ali moved closer, bent his head over my shoulder. “Keep it,” he said, his breath touching my cheek. “I want you to keep it.”
I felt my body tense with a familiar ache, a familiar fear. I couldn’t move.
“Hey.”
I straightened at the sound of Zahra’s voice.
“Hi,” I said, forcing myself to speak. My heart was now racing for entirely new reasons.
Zahra stepped closer. “What are you guys doing?” Then, to me, with an approximation of a laugh: “Why did you just give my brother your sweater?”
“Oh. My mom actually found it in her car this morning.”
Zahra frowned. My answer was not an answer.
“I, um, thought it belonged to Mehdi,” I amended. “But it belongs to Ali. I was just giving it back to him.”
Zahra looked at Ali—whose face had shuttered closed. He glanced at me before he shoved a hand through his hair, balled the sweatshirt under his arm.
“I’ll see you later,” he said to no one, and disappeared into the crowd.
Zahra and I stood in silence, watching him go. My heart would not cease racing. I felt as if I were standing, in real time, in front of a ticking bomb.
Boom.
“What the fuck, Shadi?”
I tried to explain: “I didn’t know it was his. I was running late and I’d forgotten my jacket and—”
“Bullshit.”
“Zahra.” My heart was pounding. “I’m not lying.”
“How long have you been doing this?”
“What? Doing what?”
“This, Shadi, this. Hooking up with my brother.”
“Hooking up with . . .” I blinked, my head was spinning. “I’m not . . .”
“Was that what you were doing last night? Were you out with my brother?”
I was shaking my head, certain this was some kind of nightmare. “I was doing my physics homework.”
“God, you’re unbelievable,” she said. “Fucking unbelievable.”
A few heads turned for the second time, passersby always surprised to hear a girl in hijab swearing loudly in the hall.
I lowered my voice a few octaves in an effort to compensate. “There is literally nothing going on between me and Ali. I swear to God. I swear on my life.”
Zahra was still livid, her jaw tensed as she stared at me. But she’d at least stopped yelling, which gave me hope.
“I swear,” I said, trying again. “I had no idea the hoodie was his. It was a crazy morning, and I was rushing around so much I forgot to grab my jacket, and my mom found his sweatshirt in her car. Ali must’ve forgotten it at some point. We all thought it was Mehdi’s.”
Zahra looked at me for a long time, and though I was the one holding my breath, she was the one who finally exhaled.
Slowly—very slowly—the tension left her body.
When her anger broke, she looked suddenly close to tears. “You’re really not hooking up with my brother?”
“Zahra, come on. Can you even imagine? Listen to yourself.”
“I know. I know.” She sniffed, wiped her eyes. “Ugh, I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m sorry. He’d never even be interested in someone like you.”
“Exactly.” What?
“I mean, no offense or anything.” She shot me a look. “But you’re definitely not his type.”
I tried to smile. “I’m no one’s type. Most people take one look at me and run screaming in the opposite direction.”
She laughed.
I was only half kidding.
Suddenly, Zahra dropped her face in her hands. “I’m sorry. I’m just—” She sighed. Shook her head. “I’m sorry.”
“Hey,” I said, squeezing her shoulder. “Can we just forget this whole thing? Please? Let’s get some lunch.”
She took a deep breath. Let it go.
We left.
I only realized later that she’d never answered my question.
December
2003
Six
I couldn’t believe it.
I gave the silver car a wide berth, wouldn’t move any closer. The wind was pushing against my legs, shoving cold up my sleeves, but I was frozen in place, looking from him to the Honda.
Finally, finally, Ali turned to face me.
“That was you?” I asked.
He had the decency to look ashamed. “My sister takes a chem class here a couple nights a week.”
I already knew that.
“My mom makes me drive her.”
This was now obvious.
“I saw you drowning in the rain,” he said, finally getting to the point. “I wanted to offer you a ride.”
“But you didn’t.”
He inhaled deep. “Zahra wouldn’t let me.”
I was staring at my shoes now, at the shattered remains of a leaf trapped in my laces.
I was stunned.
“You didn’t even have an umbrella,” Ali was saying. “But she just—I don’t know. I didn’t understand. I still don’t get what happened between you guys.”
This was so much. Too much to unpack.
Several months ago, when we officially declared war on Iraq, most of my friends started crying. I was devastated, too, but I kept my head down. I didn’t argue with people who didn’t seem to understand that Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan and Iraq were all very different countries. I said nothing when my history teacher’s army reserve unit got called up, said nothing when he stared at me while making the announcement.
I didn’t know why he stared at me.
It was like he wanted something from me, either an apology or a show of gratitude, I wasn’t sure. I wrote nothing but my name in the card we gave him at his going-away party.
Hate crimes were on the rise.
Muslim communities were in turmoil. Women were taking off their scarves, guys changing their names. People were freaked out. Our mosques were bugged, set on fire. Last month we found out that Brother Farid—Brother Farid, the guy always volunteering and helping out, the
