Darius the Great Deserves Better

by Adib Khorram

  And then he said, “You’ve got a sister, right?”

  “Yeah. Laleh.”

  “She ever do anything that just makes you want to, like, murder her?”

  “Not really. She’s nine.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s okay then.” Chip puffed his cheeks and blew out a heavy breath. “My brother was supposed to look after Evie tonight, since Ana and Jason both have class, but now he says he’s sick and wants me to do it instead. Like I could just turn this bus around. Like our game calendar isn’t on the fridge.”

  “That sucks,” I said.

  And then I said, “Who’s Jason?”

  “Jason Bolger? Evie’s dad?”

  My brain executed a swift and painful change in inertia.

  “Is he related to Trent?”

  “Yeah, Trent’s brother. Graduated when we were first years?”

  I had about a million questions.

  I couldn’t ask any of them.

  So instead I just said “Oh.”

  Chip blew out another sigh.

  “I guess I should be used to this.”

  “Sorry.”

  I didn’t know what else to say.

  I thought maybe Chip didn’t want me to say anything else. Just listen.

  Sometimes people just need you to listen to them.

  Chip shrugged and turned back to the window. I watched him for a second. The sunlight silhouetted him in gold and caught the fine hairs at the nape of his neck.

  My chest gave a little squeeze.

  I shrugged myself, and blinked, and turned away.

  Our game against Poplar Grove High School was a complete and total victory for us.

  I almost felt bad for the other team.

  Almost.

  Gabe got a hat trick in the first half, while James and Jaden each scored a goal in the second.

  We shook hands with our vanquished opponents, and then Coach pulled some of the guys (including Gabe) aside to talk to a pair of track-suited adults in the first row of the stands. I couldn’t make out the logos on their breasts, but it was pretty clear they were recruiters.

  As we walked to the guest lockers, Chip put his arm over my shoulder.

  He’d never done that to me before.

  It reminded me of the way Sohrab always did that to me.

  “Good game, huh?”

  “I guess.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I shrugged. “I only touched the ball twice. But Gabe was awesome.”

  “Yeah.”

  Chip’s arm left my shoulder, but then he put his hand on my back.

  “Um.”

  “Hm?” Chip said.

  “I didn’t say anything.” I swallowed.

  The silence between us hummed against my skin where Chip’s hand warmed it.

  Poplar Grove High School’s locker room smelled so sterile it made my eyes water, like someone had poured ammonia over every single surface, and then maybe added some rubbing alcohol on top of that, and then filled the sprinkler systems with bleach and ran that for a couple hours too.

  The back of my throat burned, and I hacked and coughed as I changed. Chip stood right next to me, radiating body heat and a faint scent of sweat and deodorant as he pulled his shirt over his head.

  I slipped my joggers on and got out of there as fast as I could, because I didn’t want anyone to see my erection.

  What was wrong with me?

  * * *

  It was dark when the bus pulled back into the student parking lot at Chapel Hill High School.

  “Good job today, guys. Get some sleep.”

  A row of cars lined the curb, parents picking up their sons. Some of the seniors headed deeper into the lot to pick up their cars and give their friends rides. I grabbed my bag and one of Coach’s and helped her inside.

  “Good work today, Darius,” she said.

  “Thanks, Coach, but I didn’t do much.”

  She smiled.

  “You never give yourself enough credit.”

  “Well.”

  “Your parents waiting for you?”

  “I rode my bike.”

  “All right. See you tomorrow.”

  “Yeah. See you.”

  I grabbed my messenger bag and helmet out of my locker and went out to the bike racks.

  Chip Cusumano was there too. He’d unlocked his bike, but it was lying on its side in the grass next to the curb, where he was sitting with his chin in his hands.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey.”

  I sat down next to him, but with a good foot between us, because I was still feeling weird about getting an erection when I was changing next to him, and the way my skin hummed when he was close to me.

  I didn’t like it.

  I didn’t like that my body responded to him the same way it did to Landon. Like it didn’t matter who it was I actually liked.

  Like it didn’t matter who I wanted.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  He looked out into the parking lot. Orange cones of light dotted the empty asphalt, catching the misty rain that had begun to fall.

  I ran my hands through my hair at the same time Chip did, trying to get the damp bits out of our eyes.

  Chip made a popping sound with his lips. “It just sucks.”

  “What does?”

  “My sister is mad I couldn’t take care of Evie. Like it wasn’t my brother’s night in the first place. And my mom is taking her side.”

  “That doesn’t seem fair.”

  “Right? It’s like, it’s not my job to fix all their messes. But for some reason everyone expects me to be ‘the mature one.’ The one who’s got it all figured out.” He sighed and flopped back, stretching his arms over his head into the wet grass behind him. “I never get to be the one who needs help.”

  I leaned back too, using my hoodie to protect the back of my head, and rested my hands on my stomach. The misty rain tickled my eyelashes.

  “That sucks.”

  “Yeah.” Chip leaned over to look at me. “Whoa.”

  “What?”

  “You just have really long eyelashes, dude.”

  My cheeks burned.

  “Oh. It’s a Persian thing.”

  “Huh.”

  Chip stared upward again.

  “Sorin’s always been a mess. And Ana was never really responsible until she had Evie. And Mom’s got her hands full with both of them, and now Evie too.”

  Chip ran a hand through his hair again, leaving it even messier than before.

  Somehow, it made his whole face look more open.

  Vulnerable, even.

  “It’s like, they already sucked up all the air in the house. Now there’s Evie too. And I love her, god I love her, but what’s left for me? Nothing.”

  “I’m sorry. That really sucks.”

  “Yeah. Well. I’m pretty sure I’m Evie’s favorite at least. She can’t even say Sorin’s name.”

  “Sorin’s your brother?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s kind of a cool name, though.”

  Chip snorted.

  “Sorin?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Better than Cyprian at least.”

  “What do you mean? I like Cyprian.”

  “No one can spell it.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “Man from Cyprus.”

  “It suits you. I mean, you seem like a Cyprian.”

  “Thanks,” Chip said.

  And then he said, “Hard to beat being named after a king, though.”

  “Technically Darius the Great was an emperor.”

  “Yeah, well. Darius suits you too.”
/>   My ears burned. I thought maybe the rain would start steaming off them. “Thanks.”

  “And it’s cool you have this, like, connection. With your family back in Iran.”

  “I guess. It’s hard sometimes too. I’m still only a Fractional Persian. And sometimes the Persian part is all that matters. And sometimes, the American part is too much of a barrier.”

  Chip looked at me for a second.

  I blinked away the rain.

  “You know what?” he asked.

  But before he could finish, his phone buzzed. He pulled it out and held it above his head, typing into it as a grin crept across his face.

  He sat back up. “Sorry. That was Trent.”

  “Oh.”

  I still couldn’t wrap my brain around the idea of Trent Bolger, Soulless Uncle of Orthodoxy.

  It seemed to violate some fundamental law of the universe.

  I sat up and wiped my palms on my knees.

  “I’m gonna go hang out with him. You want to come?”

  I stared at Cyprian Cusumano as my brain experienced a cascade failure.

  Maybe when you’re a guy like Chip Cusumano, and Trent Bolger has always been your friend, you can’t conceive of why anyone would want to avoid him like a hull breach.

  “I think I’m gonna head home. I need to shower anyway.” I stood and pulled my helmet on.

  “Aww, come on.”

  Another cascade failure.

  Why would Chip want me to come along, anyway?

  Chip reached his hand out, and I helped him up. “Maybe next time?” he asked, his eyebrows all perked up in hope.

  “Maybe.”

  Like if we ever found ourselves in mirror universe where people had goatees and inverted senses of morality.

  “Cool.” Chip hopped onto his bike. “See you, Darius.”

  “See you, Cyprian.”

  He grinned at me and pedaled away.

  I shook my head, wiped off my face, and headed home.

  KOTAK MEKHAI

  Grandma and Oma were at the dining room table when I got home, sipping mint tea and reading.

  Oma was always reading mysteries—the more twisted, the better—while Grandma was into biographies.

  I’d never managed to convince either of them to read any science fiction or fantasy. They said they preferred “real books.”

  I don’t know why that made me so mad.

  Neither of them looked up when I walked in. I pulled the door shut behind me, and they didn’t respond.

  That aura of quiet unhappiness had returned to our house, an oppressive miasma that hung in the air like a coolant leak.

  I cleared my throat and said, “Hi.”

  “How’d it go today?” Oma said.

  “We won.”

  “Good. That makes three in a row, right?”

  “Yeah. Gabe—that’s our forward—he even got a hat trick.”

  Grandma whistled but kept reading.

  “How about you?” Oma asked. “How’d you do?”

  I shrugged. “The ball barely made it to me.”

  “You should be more aggressive.”

  That was something my old coach, from when I played as a kid, would say. Be aggressive.

  Coach Bentley never said anything like that.

  I really liked that about her.

  “Where’s Laleh?” I asked.

  Grandma sighed. “In her room. She’s been there most of the night.”

  “How come?”

  Oma folded down the page she was reading and closed her book. “She got into a fight at school today.”

  First of all, I never folded pages—I always used bookmarks—and there was a moment where I wondered if Oma and I were even related to each other.

  Second, Laleh had never been in a fight in her life. Not ever. What Oma said was impossible.

  So I said, “What?”

  And then I said, “Laleh’s never been in a fight before.”

  Oma nodded. “She won’t tell us what happened.”

  Grandma said, “Her teacher couldn’t get the full story either.”

  So then I said, “Maybe she’ll talk to me.”

  * * *

  My sister never kept her door closed, not even at night. She always left it cracked open.

  But when I went to see her, the door was all the way shut.

  I guess I always knew there would be a point where she closed a door between us. When she would grow too tall for me to carry piggyback, or for Mom and Dad to tuck in at night.

  I knocked, but there was no answer.

  “Laleh? It’s me. Can I come in?”

  “I guess,” she murmured.

  I opened her door and poked my head into her room. The only light came from the night-light on her bedside table—this weird carousel-looking thing that played creepy tinkling music when you cranked a knob on it.

  Laleh never used that feature, except on Halloween, when she would play the music and I would pretend to be terrified of it, and she would shriek with laughter at the way I cringed and flailed and hid under her blankets.

  Laleh was already in bed, the lump of her facing away from me, toward the lamp.

  I sat on the edge of her bed, and then kind of laughed at myself, because Mom and Dad always did that.

  Standard Parental Maneuver Alpha.

  “Don’t laugh at me,” Laleh mumbled.

  “I’m not. Mom and Dad always sit like this when they come talk to me.”

  Laleh didn’t say anything.

  “You wanna tell me what happened?”

  Nothing.

  “Did I ever tell you about the time I got in trouble for hitting someone?”

  At that, Laleh turned over, leaving her book open behind her. “You hit someone?”

  “This guy named Vance Henderson.” I scrunched up my nose. “He always made fun of me, which was bad enough. But one time he started making fun of Mom. Her accent.”

  Laleh scrunched up her face too.

  “I know. So I gave him a kotak.”

  Laleh giggled. “Kotak mekhai? Ba posta das?”

  While we were in Iran, one of our cousins taught Laleh that phrase. It means “Do you want a slap? With the back of my hand?”

  For months after we got home, she kept saying it to people whenever they annoyed her. And after a while she started saying it whenever she wanted to be funny. And then eventually her use kind of petered out.

  But I liked that the memory of it could still make my sister smile.

  “Technically I hit him with my palm. But still.”

  Laleh giggled.

  “Will you tell me what happened? I promise not to judge. Or get mad.”

  Laleh looked at her hands for a moment, and then her shoulders loosened up a bit.

  “I didn’t hit anyone,” she said. “Not even a kotak.”

  I was glad to hear that, but I didn’t say it, because I promised not to judge.

  “I just told Micah to shut up. We’re not allowed to tell people to shut up. Miss Hawn says it’s a bad word. But that doesn’t make any sense. It’s two words.”

  I nodded.

  “How come?”

  “How come it’s a bad word?”

  “How come you told him to shut up?”

  “He was calling me Lolly again. He kept saying it.” Laleh’s voice got smaller. “And he said our family was terrorists.”

  I breathed in sharply.

  I was almost used to being called a terrorist.

  Almost.

  But I hated for someone to call my sister one.

  I hated that people could look at her, look at our family, and say that.

  “I’m sorry, Laleh. That hurts. People say that to me sometimes. And other stuff too. Did
you tell Miss Hawn what happened?”

  Laleh shook her head. “She wouldn’t let me. She gave me a demerit!”

  Demerits were these little pieces of paper that basically said the teacher was disappointed in you.

  They didn’t actually mean anything, not unless you got three of them in a week, and then you got sent to the principal’s office.

  But I remembered being Laleh’s age, and thinking they were the worst thing that could ever happen.

  “That’s not fair,” I said.

  Laleh’s lip quivered.

  I ran my hand through her hair. When she was a baby, it was fine and light, but now it felt a lot like mine: curly and thick and strong.

  “So Miss Hawn didn’t say anything at all to Micah?”

  Laleh shook her head and wiped her eyes.

  “And no one will listen to me. Grandma and Oma are just disappointed. And Mom is at work.”

  “And I was at soccer,” I finished for her. “I’m sorry. But I’m here now. I’m listening to you.”

  She sniffed.

  “Hey. It’s okay.” I held my arms open. “Do you want a hug?”

  Laleh pulled herself out from her covers and wrapped her arms around me. I pulled her in close and held her against my chest and rocked her back and forth.

  “It’s gonna be okay,” I said. “I’ll talk to Mom. We’ll figure it out.” I kissed the crown of Laleh’s head.

  I would have done anything in the world to shield my sister from Soulless Minions of Orthodoxy like Micah Whatever-his-last-name-was.

  I never wanted her to feel the way I felt.

  Like a Target.

  “I love you, Laleh.”

  * * *

  I put Laleh to bed and kissed her forehead and left her door cracked, the way she liked it.

  I tried calling Sohrab. No answer, but he was probably in school anyway.

  Oma and Grandma had already gone to bed, but I stayed in the kitchen with a cup of New Vithanakande, a tea from Ceylon that has this great round, mellow mouthfeel and notes of chocolate on the palate.

  I sipped my tea and worked on my Algebra II. We’d moved on to logarithms, which I didn’t get at all. I kind of wished Chip was around to help me.

  But that made me feel weird.

  Ashamed of myself.

  I was finishing up when the garage door rumbled.