Here to Stay

by Sara Farizan

  Maybe I should have told them all that. But would they have cared?

  “I want to thank those of you who have made me feel comfortable or checked in on me.” I kept my eyes fixed on my paper. No one had booed me yet, so I was doing okay. “To the person who sent that email of me,” I said, “I’m not going to cower or allow ignorance to run my life. I’m going to be me, whether you like it or not.” Now I stared at Jessica.

  She scowled at me, her arms folded across her chest.

  “Unlike our dumb mascot, I am here to stay. I’m not going anywhere.”

  I finally looked out into the whole crowd. “So that’s all I wanted to say. Thanks.”

  I walked back to my seat.

  “Would you listen to that crowd, Reggie? They are making noise for Majidi. I haven’t heard this kind of uproar since the 1986 NBA finals in the Garden!”

  “Our little guy is growing up.”

  Sean gave me a one-man standing ovation. “That’s my brother from another mother right there!” he yelled, pointing.

  I blushed profusely but did my best not to slump in my chair. I waited for everyone to stop clapping. It was nice of them, but I’d had enough attention to last a lifetime. I needed to get all that out once and for all. I peered over the seats in front of me at Jessica Carter, three rows ahead. She wasn’t clapping.

  When Ms. McCrea ended assembly, I stayed in my seat.

  “You need backup?” Sean asked. One day, I hoped I’d be able to show Sean how much I appreciated his friendship. I think going to his art show with a poster that reads Eye of the Tiger, Sean might be a good place to start.

  “No, thanks. I got this,” I said. He ruffled my hair and left the auditorium with everyone else—everyone except Jessica, who sat in her seat, staring at the empty stage. We both waited until we were the only two people left.

  “That was quite the speech,” Jessica said without looking at me. “A little hokey, but not bad.”

  “I haven’t had a lot of practice having to defend my humanity,” I replied. “Hopefully I won’t have to do it again.”

  She rotated in her seat and watched me. I leaned over, hoping I appeared a hundred times more casual than I felt, and rested my arms and chin on the back of the seat in front of me.

  “Any idea why Ms. McCrea was running assembly instead of Headmaster Clarkson this morning? Or why Elle texted me last night asking if I had anything I wanted to tell her?”

  “I think I have an idea,” I said. “I think you do too. Or you wouldn’t be sitting here.”

  “Maybe I enjoy your company.”

  “I find that difficult to believe. You went to all that trouble to make my life hell.”

  Her mouth twitched. She may have wanted to smile, then thought better of it.

  “If Mr. Clarkson thought I was responsible, what proof would he have?”

  “He might have some evidence from the yearbook staff. From one amazing star photographer in particular. Knowing your ex-boyfriend’s character, to save his own skin, he’d probably confess to Coach Johnson in a heartbeat who lent her artistic skills to making those posters for the Mercer Day game. He’d probably have some emails sent from you to show off too.”

  Her cheeks reddened. Maybe it was dawning on her what everyone else knew: Will Thompson wasn’t loyal to anyone but himself. Still, she didn’t break.

  “Did he tell you to do that to me?” I asked her.

  “Hypothetically speaking?”

  I nodded. Sure, Lady Death Strike. Hypothetically speaking.

  “He was worried you might take his playing time. And since you showed up,” she said, like I hadn’t been going to this school and I hadn’t been in her grade for three years, “Erin’s crying over Busted Bergner and doesn’t have time for me, Elle is trying to change our mascot, you’re pulling my crew into your parking-lot brawls . . . School used to be awesome. Now it’s like—it’s like I don’t recognize it anymore. And everyone’s obsessed with you. You didn’t know your place.”

  “My place? And you decided you could fix that with that photo?”

  “So big deal, it was a dumb photo. Do you think people were upset by that email? The people I heard from felt satisfied.” She paused to brush back a piece of her hair. “I see what’s happening in the news. Why should I have to pretend that I’m fine with you going to school here?”

  “What’s happening in the news, Jessica?” I asked through gritted teeth.

  “There’s a holy war, in case you haven’t noticed,” she spat.

  “There are wars, but they have as much to do with power and money and resources as with religion,” I said. “You think we would have an interest in controlling the Middle East if there weren’t oil there?”

  “That’s very cute, how you say ‘we,’” she said with a smirk. “Like it’s your country.”

  I leaned back in my seat, studying her face for any tics or any remorse for what she’d just said. There weren’t any. She meant every word that came out of her mouth.

  “Since you know so much about terrorists, you probably know a whole lot about the KKK. Or do you have Klansmen relatives, so they don’t count?” I asked her.

  Jessica rolled her eyes.

  “I feel sick to my stomach when innocent people die,” I said. “Whether they’re killed in a movie theater, a school, or a drone strike, it makes me ill. I mourn when anyone is killed. Here or elsewhere.”

  “That’s your problem. What is that supposed to mean? ‘Here or elsewhere’? You’ve got to pick a side,” Jessica said. “No one can tell whose side you’re on.”

  Teams. In Jessica’s mind, humanity was split up into teams. I got out of my seat and left her alone. There wouldn’t be any reasoning with her.

  I didn’t want the anger I’d felt the past few weeks, the pain she’d caused, to change me. I didn’t want hate to feel like a constant hum inside me, making me question every friend I had, every conversation, wondering if someone was going to do something horrible to me just for existing in the same space. I didn’t want to give her that power. I walked out of the auditorium to the mostly empty hallway.

  Elle was waiting for me.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Hi.” I was happy to see her, and I wanted to smile for her, but I was drained to nothing. “Aren’t you going to be late for class?”

  “Mr. Clarkson gave some of the yearbook staff notes for first period,” she said. “We just finished up in his office. I heard you made a speech.”

  “Your presentation inspired me.” I took a deep breath. “I need to ask you something,” I said, looking down at the floor. Elle reached over and took my hand, and I looked up into her eyes. “Did you, um, did you know what Jessica was like?”

  She didn’t answer right away.

  “I think Erin knew more than I did,” she finally said. “Jessica was always pretty careful with the way she spoke around me. Wonder why.” She paused again. “It freaks me out, though. We’ve been friendly for years, but I don’t know if we were ever truly friends. To be friends you actually have to know someone, right? Most of the time we’d talk about yearbook, boys, music, but I never spoke with her about things that were really important to me. Maybe she liked it better that way.”

  I couldn’t shake the things Jessica had said to me a few minutes earlier. I knew she was wrong, but no one was going to change her mind—at least, not anytime soon.

  “Are you okay?” Elle asked.

  “I’m . . . I think I am some days,” I said. “Others, I want to get as far away from here as possible, move to some remote island. Then I think there’s really nowhere like that to go, and I don’t really want to hide anymore. But I definitely don’t want to make speeches every week.”

  “I can’t imagine why not. You always know the right thing to say.” It actually felt nice to be teased a little, especially with El
le doing the teasing.

  “I want to get back to thinking about whether I’m going to pass my math test, what movie Sean and I should see over the weekend, who’s going to make the NBA All-Star team, what I should say when I bump into you so I don’t sound like a total babbling weirdo . . .” At least she didn’t seem to mind my babbling. “I want to stop thinking about my mom crying. She thinks she can protect me forever, but she can’t. We both know that, but we can’t say it to each other.”

  “How come?”

  “I think deep down, we have a feeling things are actually getting worse, and it’s too scary to think about,” I said. “Sean says it’s the Age of the Assholes.”

  “Oh, they’ve always been around,” Elle said. “This might be new for you, but they never go out of style. Trust me, I’ve got some stories.”

  “I’d like to hear them,” I said. “Any of your stories. Good or bad, I’d like to know.”

  Elle leaned up and kissed me. I cupped her face in my hand. She was so warm. Kissing her was a million times better than scoring the winning basket for Granger.

  When she backed away, she put her hand on my chest. “I believe you would,” she said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  My mom and I were asked to come to Headmaster Clarkson’s office two days after I confronted Jessica. Everyone from our previous meeting was there except Mr. Thompson. After Will’s fall from grace, he probably wouldn’t be making many appearances on the Granger campus for a while. Coach Johnson was at this meeting too. He didn’t look so stressed now that basketball season was over.

  “Ms. Powell, as well as the school’s IT department, confirmed for me that the yearbook staff have individual logins,” Headmaster Clarkson said. “Meaning these photographs of Bijan were available only to the photo editors. We also verified that there were two photos used for the posters at the Mercer Day game and both came from the yearbook drive.

  “Will Thompson confirmed that he had the original email in his possession before it was sent to the student body as a whole, sent to him from an email address belonging to Ms. Carter.”

  I bet Coach Johnson was instrumental in convincing Will to turn in his girlfriend. That must be some new kind of low, but Will still needed an in at Trinity. Maybe he’d write an essay about how he used to bully a kid but then learned a lesson about why isms and bullying are bad. Colleges love that stuff. He’d be fine.

  “Ms. Carter is no longer a student here,” Headmaster Clarkson continued.

  “Good,” Mom said, her hand over mine as we sat in chairs next to each other. I didn’t pull my hand away. “Did she apologize? Did her parents apologize?”

  “On behalf of the Granger School, I would like to apologize to you both,” Headmaster Clarkson said. I took that to mean the Carters hadn’t said they were sorry about anything. “Especially for assuming Noah Olson was responsible for all the cyber-related offenses and not investigating further after his expulsion.”

  “What can we do to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again?” Mom asked. “What can we do about the images of my son that may exist online, which college admissions boards might find in a quick web search without knowing the context? What about the damage that’s been done to his spirit?”

  “Unfortunately, we cannot control what may take place off campus,” Mr. Clarkson said. This seemed to be his go-to line, reiterating that the school wasn’t technically at fault. The school probably had attorneys telling him to avoid accepting responsibility. “But we do have some programs on the horizon to foster a better sense of community.”

  “We have scheduled a full day of workshops in April to address the emotional needs of the students,” Ms. Jacobs said. “We will discuss bullying prevention and conduct exercises to help build bridges between students from different social circles.”

  Most kids would probably be stoked to get out of classes and tests. Maybe by the end of the day, we’d all be singing folk songs and playing Frisbee. Get a good game of Frolf going with your secretly bigoted classmate!

  “Majidi’s still a little bitter, Reggie.”

  “I think that’s all right for now, Kevin. So long as it doesn’t eat away at him like McNair’s ex-wife in Zombie Killers Part Three.”

  “Was it part three or part four?”

  “No idea. This is Bijan’s train of thought. I haven’t seen any of them—too much violence for my moviegoing sensibilities. Now let’s hear a word from our sponsor, Zombie Killers Part Six.”

  “There are going to be changes at Granger. We can assure you of that,” Ms. McCrea promised. As usual, she had an optimistic outlook, with no concrete evidence to back up her vision. I still owed her my paper, but she hadn’t brought it up again.

  “That’s all very well and good, Ms. McCrea,” Mom said. “While I’m happy that steps are being taken to change the culture here at Granger, I wonder if maybe your curriculum could use some changes as well.”

  “I don’t follow,” Mr. Clarkson said.

  “The text for your world history class. Bijan showed it to me. It’s dated, and frankly, it offers a fairly one-sided perspective. The books from Bijan’s English class are also limited in perspective. I understand the students need to be prepared for tests and higher education, and I am sure there are constraints on teachers, but the students here should go into the world having a fuller understanding of American and global history and culture. The history of every kind of student here, and also the history of people they will encounter after they leave Granger.”

  “I think that’s a fine idea and something we can look into over the summer,” Mr. Clarkson said. By the time they got around to implementing that, I would probably be in graduate school—or a retirement home.

  “Speaking of summer,” Coach interjected, “your son has real talent on the basketball court, Mrs. Majidi. I run a camp over at Regis College and would love to have Bijan train with us. If I work with B, I think he’d have a great season next year and possibly attract the attention of some college scouts.”

  “We’ll discuss it when we get home,” Mom said, looking from him to me a little warily.

  “Are there any other Granger kids there?” I asked. No matter how awful this season had been, the idea of playing basketball all summer appealed to me.

  “The only other Granger student there will be Drew Young. The other players come from all over.”

  I could tell my mom wasn’t crazy about the idea, but at this point I could have asked to eat ice cream every night for dinner and she’d have let me.

  “We’ll think about it,” my mom said to Coach.

  The bell rang and my mom shook hands with all the teachers. She was making a follow-up appointment with Headmaster Clarkson when I approached the guidance counselor outside Mr. Clarkson’s office.

  “Ms. Jacobs?” I asked.

  She turned around, a little startled.

  “Uh, hi.”

  “Bijan, hi,” she said.

  “Your office is, um . . . it’s upstairs, away from the masses?”

  I didn’t know where to go from there. She didn’t smile at me condescendingly or anything like that, which was good. I wasn’t sold on visiting the school counselor, but Stephanie said seeing Ms. Jacobs was helping her. Maybe talking to an objective person could do something for me too, even if I didn’t always have the right words.

  “Yes. It’s very discreet. As are the conversations in my office.”

  “Okay. Cool, cool.” I didn’t elaborate, but I knew how to find her if I felt like I needed to. “I heard you have snacks up there. So . . .”

  “There are snacks,” she confirmed. This time she smiled a little.

  I nodded and gave her a small wave, bowing out of our conversation.

  I stepped into the hallway, where students were rushing to get to their classes. Stephanie, Erin, Elle, and Sean walked over, trying to
act as if they hadn’t been loitering there, waiting for me to show up.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “I told them your mom was going to be here and Stephanie just had to say hello again,” Sean said.

  “Someone else was curious to meet her too,” Erin said. Elle looked nervous and elbowed Erin. How did Elle continue to get more adorable than was humanly possible?

  Mom came out of the office to join us.

  “Hi, Dr. M,” Sean said.

  “Hello, Sean. Stephanie, nice to see you again.” Mom looked relieved to see some familiar faces.

  “It’s very nice to see you again, Dr. Majidi,” Stephanie said. “This is my—this is Erin.” It was kind of amazing to watch the pink rise from her neck to her hairline as she spoke.

  “Her girlfriend,” Erin said, with all the confidence of her years in the New Crew. She reached out to shake my mom’s hand. “Hi. Your son is a stand-up guy.”

  “Thank you for saying so. I think he’s quite a stand-up guy myself.”

  When Erin let go of my mom’s hand, she took Stephanie’s in its place.

  “Mom, this is Elle Powell,” I said, scooting to stand next to Elle so I could properly introduce her.

  “I’m so very happy to meet you, Elle,” Mom said. “You were wonderful at the meeting with the board. Bijan has always spoken so highly of you.”

  “He has, huh?” Erin asked, and this time Stephanie elbowed her.

  “It’s nice to meet you too,” Elle said, blushing as much as I was.

  “Thank you so much for all your help,” my mom said, hugging Elle supertight. I was mortified. Elle didn’t seem to mind, though. She hugged my mom right back.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “Majidi is on the attack! The shot clock is winding down, the game is tied up, he’s on a fast streak to the hoop, and BANG! He’s won the game for the Boston Celtics!”

  “Are you kidding me? This is unbelievable! The fans are going wild!”