by Tahereh Mafi
“I don’t know.”
“Do you feel okay now?”
“I feel a little weird, but I’m okay, I think.”
He was quiet just a beat too long.
“You still there?” I said.
“Yeah. I just—I didn’t think about it until you said it, but I haven’t been feeling great, either.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I just . . .”
I felt my head sparking again.
“Can we please talk about this?” His voice was soft, but scared. “I know you’ve been avoiding me but I don’t know why and if we don’t talk about this I just— I don’t—”
“Talk about what?”
“Us,” he said, the word a little breathless. “Us, God, I want to talk about us. I can’t even think straight around you.” And then, “I don’t know what’s happening anymore.”
I felt my mind slow down even as my heart sped up. An awful, wonderful nervousness seized me around the throat.
I felt paralyzed.
I wanted so desperately to say something, but I didn’t know what to say, how to say it, or whether I should even bother. I couldn’t seem to decide. I was suddenly overthinking everything. And we’d been lost in the silence for several seconds when he finally said—
“Is it just me? Am I imagining this?”
The sound of his voice broke my heart. I had no idea how Ocean could be this brave. I had no idea how he could make himself this vulnerable. There were no games with him. There were no confusing, meandering statements with him. He just put himself out there, his heart exposed directly to the elements, and wow, I respected him for it.
But it scared me so much.
In fact, I was beginning to wonder whether my fever wasn’t simply a consequence of this, of him, of this whole situation, because the more he spoke, the more delirious I felt. I felt my head swimming, my mind slowly evaporating.
I closed my eyes. “Ocean,” I finally whispered.
“Yes?”
“I—I just—”
I stopped. Tried to steady my head. I could hear him breathing. I could feel him waiting for something, anything, and I could feel my heart ripping open and I realized there was no point lying about this. I thought he deserved to know the truth, at least.
“You’re not imagining it,” I said.
I heard his hard exhale. When he spoke, his voice was a little rough. “I’m not?”
“No. You’re not. I feel it, too.”
Neither of us said anything for a while. We just sat there in the silence, listening to each other breathe.
“So why are you pushing me away?” he said finally. “What are you afraid of?”
“This,” I said. My eyes were still closed. “I’m afraid of this. There’s nowhere for this to go,” I said to him. “There’s no future here—”
“Why not?” he said. “Because of your parents? Because I’m some random white guy?”
My eyes flew open and I laughed, but it made a sad sound. “No,” I said. “Not because of my parents. I mean, it’s true that my parents wouldn’t approve of you, yeah, but not because you’re a white guy. My parents wouldn’t approve of any guy,” I said. “In general. It’s not just you. Anyway, I don’t even care about that.” I sighed, hard. “It’s not because of that.”
“Then why?”
I was quiet for too long, but he didn’t push me to speak. He didn’t say a word. He just waited.
Finally, I broke open the silence.
“You’re a really nice person,” I said to him. “But you don’t know how complicated something like this would be. You don’t know how different your life would be with me,” I said. “You just don’t know.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean the world is really awful, Ocean. People are super racist.”
Ocean was quiet for a full second before he finally said, stunned, “That’s what you’re worried about?”
“Yes,” I said quietly. “Yes.”
“Well I don’t care what other people think.”
My head was overheating again. I felt unsteady.
“Listen,” he said softly, “This doesn’t have to be anything serious. I just want to get to know you better. I just— I mean I accidentally ran into you and I haven’t been able to breathe straight for hours,” he said, his voice tight again. “I feel kind of crazy. Like I can’t— I mean— I just want to know what this is,” he said finally. “I just want to know what’s happening right now.”
My heart was beating too hard. Too fast.
I whispered, “I’ve been feeling the same way.”
“You have?”
“Yes,” I said softly.
He took a deep breath. He sounded nervous. “Could we just—can we maybe just spend some time together?” he said. “Outside of school? Maybe somewhere far, far away from our disgusting lab assignment?”
I laughed. I felt a little dizzy.
“Is that a yes?”
I sighed. I wanted, so badly, to just say yes. Instead, I said, “Maybe. But no marriage proposals, okay? I get too many of those as it is.”
“You’re making jokes right now?” Ocean laughed. “You’re, like, breaking my heart, and you’re making jokes right now. Wow.”
“Yeah,” I sighed. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I was smiling.
“Wait—what did that yeah mean? Is that a yes to hanging out with me?”
“Sure.”
“Sure?”
“Yes,” I whispered. “I’d really like to hang out with you.” I felt at once nervous and happy and terrified, but I could feel my temperature spiking again. I really felt like I might pass out. “But I should go,” I said. “I’ll call you later, okay?”
“Okay,” he said. “Okay.”
We hung up.
And I didn’t get out of bed for three days.
18
Eighteen
I was basically immobile the rest of the week. The fever finally broke on Friday, but my mom still made me stay home. I tried to tell her I was fine, that I had no other symptoms, but she didn’t listen. I’d never developed a cold. I had no aches and pains in my body. I felt nothing but the heat in my head.
I felt a bit like my brain had been steamed.
Ocean had texted me, but I’d had so few moments of clarity that I never got around to texting him back. I figured he’d find out, one way or another, that I was still sick, but I never imagined he’d seek out my brother.
Navid came to visit me on Friday, after school. He sat down on my bed and flicked me in the forehead.
“Stop,” I mumbled. I turned, buried my face in the pillow.
“Your boyfriend was looking for you today.”
I turned back so fast I nearly snapped my neck. “Excuse me?”
“You heard what I said.”
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
Navid raised his eyebrows. “Well, uh, I don’t know what you did to this kid who is apparently not your boyfriend,” he said, “but I’m pretty sure he’s in love with you.”
“Shut up,” I said, and turned my face back into the pillow.
“I’m not kidding.”
I flipped him off without looking.
“Whatever,” Navid said. “You don’t have to believe me. I just thought you should know. He’s worried. Maybe you should call him.”
Now I frowned. I readjusted slowly, folding a pillow under my neck, and stared at my brother. “Are you for real right now?”
Navid shrugged.
“You’re not threatening to kick his ass?” I said. “You’re telling me to call him?”
“I feel bad for the guy. He seems nice.”
“Um.” I laughed. “Okay.”
“I’m serious,” Navid said, and stood up. “And I’m only going to give you one piece of advice, okay? So listen closely.”
I rolled my eyes.
“If you’re not interested,” he said, “tell him now.”
&nb
sp; “What? What are you talking about?”
Navid shook his head. “Just don’t be mean.”
“I’m not mean.”
My brother was already at the door when he laughed. Hard. “You are brutal,” he said. “And I don’t want to see this dude get his heart shattered all over the place, okay? He seems so innocent. He clearly has no idea what he’s getting himself into.”
I stared at Navid, dumbfounded.
“Promise me,” he said. “Okay? If you don’t like him, let him go.”
But I did like him. The problem wasn’t knowing whether or not I liked him. The problem was that I didn’t want to like him.
I could already see the future. I could imagine us going out somewhere, anywhere, and someone saying something awful to me. I could imagine his paralysis; I could imagine the awkwardness that would wash over us both, how we’d try to pretend it hadn’t happened, even as I was filled slowly with mortification; I knew how such an experience would, inevitably, make him self-conscious about spending time with me, how he’d one day realize he didn’t want to be seen with me in public. I could see him introducing me to the people in his world, see their thinly veiled disgust and/or disapproval, see how being with me would make him realize that his own friends were closet racists, that his parents were happy to make general pleasantries with the nonconforming among us so long as we never tried to kiss their children.
Being with me would puncture Ocean’s safe, comfortable bubble. Everything about me—my face, my fashion—had become political. There was a time when my presence only confused people; I used to be just a regular weirdo, the kind of unfathomable entity that was easily disregarded, easily discarded. But one day, in the aftermath of a terrible tragedy, I’d woken up in the spotlight. It didn’t matter that I was just as shaken and horrified as everyone else; no one believed my grief. People I’d never met were suddenly accusing me of murder. Strangers would scream at me in the street, at school, in the grocery store, at gas stations and restaurants to go home, go home, go back to Afghanistan you camel-fucking terrorist.
I wanted to tell them I lived down the block. I wanted to tell them I’d never been to Afghanistan. I wanted to tell them I’d only met a camel once, on a trip to Canada, and that the camel was infinitely kinder than the humans I’d met.
But it never mattered what I said anymore. People talked over me, they talked for me, they discussed me without ever asking my opinion. I’d become a talking point; a statistic. I was no longer free to be only a teenager, only a human, only flesh and blood—no, I had to be more than that.
I was an outrage. An uncomfortable topic of conversation.
And already I knew that this—whatever this was with Ocean—could only end in tears.
So I didn’t call him.
19
Nineteen
I didn’t think I was doing the right thing by ignoring him again, I really didn’t. I just didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t have all the answers. I cared about Ocean, and in my own, confusing way, I was trying to protect him. I was trying to protect the both of us. I wanted to go back to being acquaintances; I wanted us to be kind to each other and call it a day.
We were sixteen, I thought.
This would pass.
Ocean would go to prom with a nice girl with an easily pronounced name and I would move on, literally, when my dad inevitably got a higher-paying job elsewhere and would announce, proudly, that we’d be moving to an even better city, a better neighborhood, a better future.
It would be fine. Or something akin to fine.
The only trouble with my plan, of course, was that Ocean did not agree with it.
I showed up to Mr. Jordan’s class on Monday, but I almost certainly failed that particular session because I said nothing, all period, and for two reasons:
1. I was still getting over the inexplicable heat in my head, and
2. I was trying not to draw attention to myself.
I didn’t look at Ocean in class. I didn’t look at anyone. I pretended not to pay attention because I hoped that Ocean would take the hint and stop talking to me.
It was a stupid plan.
I’d only just escaped the classroom, and I was darting down a deserted corridor when he found me. He caught my arm and I turned around. He looked nervous. A little pale. I wondered what I looked like to him.
“Hi,” he whispered.
“Hi,” I said.
He still hadn’t let go of me; his fingers were wrapped around my forearm like a loose bracelet. I stared at his hand. I didn’t actually want him to let go, but when he saw me staring he startled. Dropped my arm.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“For what?”
“For whatever I did,” he said. “I did something wrong, didn’t I? I messed something up.”
My heart sank. Flatlined. He was so nice. He was so nice and he was making this so hard.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I said. “I promise.”
“No?” But he still looked nervous.
I shook my head. “I really have to go to class, okay?” I turned to go, and he said my name like a question. I looked back.
He stepped closer. “Can we talk? At lunch?”
I studied his eyes, the pain he was trying to hide, and I realized then that things had gone too far. I’d let things get too far and now I couldn’t just ignore him and hope he would go away. I couldn’t be that cruel. No, I’d actually have to tell him—in clear, focused sentences—what was about to happen. That we needed to stop this, whatever it was.
So I said okay.
I told him where my tree was. I told him to meet me there.
The thing I had no way of anticipating, of course, was that someone else would already be waiting for me.
Yusef was leaning against my tree.
Yusef.
Wow, I’d nearly forgotten about Yusef.
I still thought he was a really good-looking guy, and I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t wondered about him once or twice in the last couple of weeks, but, for the most part, he’d slipped my mind. I had no reason to keep thinking about him, because I so rarely saw him around school.
And I had no idea what he was doing here.
I wanted him to leave, but Ocean hadn’t yet arrived and I was already nervous enough about the conversation we were about to have; I didn’t want to have to deal with asking Yusef to go somewhere else, too. Plus, it didn’t seem fair for me to lay claim to public property. So I pulled out my phone, made a sharp left, and started texting Ocean to meet me elsewhere.
Yusef called my name.
I looked back, surprised, the unfinished text message still unsent. “Yeah?”
“Where are you going?” He walked over. He was smiling.
Maybe on a different day, at a different time, I would’ve been interested in his smile. Today, I was far too distracted.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “I’m looking for someone.”
“Oh,” he said, and followed my gaze.
I was squinting out toward the quad, where most of the student body gathered for lunch every day. The quad was, as a result, a place I nearly always avoided, so I didn’t really know what I was searching for as I looked around. But Yusef was still talking, and I was suddenly annoyed, which wasn’t fair. Yusef couldn’t have known the deep preoccupation of my mind. Nothing he’d said to me was offensive—it wasn’t even unwelcome—it was just bad timing.
“I wanted to come back and check on my tree,” he was saying. “I was hoping you’d be here.”
“That’s nice,” I said, still frowning into the distance.
Yusef tilted his head into my line of sight. “Anything I can do to help?”
“No,” I said, “I just—”
“Hey.”
I spun around. My sudden relief was replaced, in an instant, by apprehension. Ocean had arrived, but he looked confused. He was staring at Yusef, who was standing too close to me.
I put five feet between us.
“Hey,” I said, and tried to smile. Ocean turned in my direction, but he still seemed uncertain.
“This is who you were looking for?” Yusef again. He sounded surprised.
It took a concerted effort to keep from telling Yusef to go away, that this was obviously a bad time for small talk, that he clearly had no idea how to read social cues—
“Hey man, what’s going on,” Yusef said, the question almost like a statement, and reached forward to shake Ocean’s hand. Except he didn’t shake it, exactly. He did that thing that guys do sometimes, when they pull each other in and do a kind of hug-slap. “You know Shirin?” he said. “Small world.”
Ocean allowed the gesture, accepting Yusef’s friendly bro-hug involuntarily, and I was guessing only because he was a nice, polite person. His eyes, however, looked almost angry. Ocean didn’t say a word to Yusef. Didn’t offer an answer or an explanation.
“Hey, um,” I said, “I need to talk to my friend alone, okay? We’re going to go somewh—”
“Oh, okay,” Yusef said. “I’ll be quick, then. I just wanted to know if you’ll be fasting next week. My family always throws a massive iftar on the first night and you and your brother—and your parents, if they’re up for it—are welcome to come.”
What the hell?
“How did you know I have a brother?”
Yusef frowned. “Navid is in most of my classes. I put two and two together after the last time we talked. He didn’t tell you?”
“Okay, um”—I glanced at Ocean, who looked suddenly like he’d been punched in the gut—“yeah, I’ll have Navid get in touch with you. I have to go.”
I only vaguely remembered saying a proper goodbye after that. Mostly I remembered the look on Ocean’s face as we walked away.
He looked betrayed.
I told Ocean I didn’t know where to go, that I wanted to speak with him somewhere quiet and private but the library was the only place I could think of and you’re not allowed to talk in there, not really, and he said, “My car is in the parking lot.”
That was all he said. I followed him to his car in silence, and it wasn’t until we were sitting inside, doors closed on our own little world, that he looked at me and said, “Are you”—he sighed and turned suddenly away, studied the floor—“are you dating that guy? Yusef?”
