by Tahereh Mafi
Silence steps between us, pushes us apart.
“You know what’s hilarious?” I shake my head, look up at the night sky. “This,” I say. “This conversation is hilarious.”
“Are you drunk?”
“Stop.” I turn back, level her with a dark look. “Stop underestimating my mind. You think I’m too dumb to understand the most basic shit about a rescue mission? Of course I understand,” I say angrily. “I get that you had to do some shady things in order to make our escape happen. I’m not angry about that. I’m angry right now because you don’t know how to communicate.”
I see it when her face changes. The fire goes out of her eyes; the tension leaves her shoulders. And then she blinks at me—
Confused.
“I don’t understand,” Nazeera says quietly.
The sun has been dead for hours now, and the dark, winding path is lit only by low lanterns and the diffused light of nearby tents. She’s bathed in it. Glowing. More beautiful than ever, which is nothing short of terrifying, to be honest. Her eyes are big and bright and she’s staring at me like she’s just a girl and I’m just a guy and we’re not both just a pair of dumbasses headed directly for the sun. Like we’re not both murderers, more or less.
I sigh. Shove a hand through my hair. The fight has left my body and I’m suddenly so exhausted I’m not sure I can keep standing.
“I need to go to bed,” I say, and try to move past her.
“Wait—”
She grabs my arm and I nearly jump out of my skin at the sensation. I pull away, unnerved, but she steps forward and suddenly we’re standing so close together I can practically feel her breathing. The night is quiet and crisp and she’s all I can see in this flickering darkness. I breathe, breathing her in—something subtle, something sweet—and the memory hits me so hard it knocks the air from my lungs.
Her arms around my neck.
Her hands in my hair.
The way she pinned me against the wall, the way our bodies melted together, the way she ran her hands down my chest and told me I was gorgeous. The soft, desperate sounds she made when I kissed her.
I know now how it feels to have her in my arms. I know what it’s like to kiss her, to lick the curve of her lips, to feel her gasp against my neck. I can still taste her, feel the shape of her, strength and softness, under my hands. I’m not even touching her and it’s like it’s happening again, frame by frame, and I can’t stop staring at her mouth because that damn diamond piercing keeps catching the light, and for a moment—for just a moment—I nearly lose my mind and kiss her again.
My head is full of noise, blood rushing to my ears.
She drives me insane. I don’t even know why I like her so much. But I have no control over how my body reacts when she’s around. It’s wild and illogical and I love it. I hate it.
Some nights I fall asleep running back the tapes—her eyes, her hands, her mouth—
But the tapes always end in the same spot.
“It would never work, you know? We’re not—” She makes a motion between our bodies. “We’re so different, right?”
“Kenji?”
Right. Yeah. Shit, I’m tired.
I take a step backward. The cold night air is sharp and bracing, and when I finally meet her eyes again, my head is clear.
But my voice sounds strange when I say, “I should go.”
“Wait,” Nazeera says again, and puts her hand on my chest.
Puts her hand on my chest.
She’s got her hand on me like she owns me, like I’m so easily stopped and conquered. A flame of indignation sparks to life inside of me. It’s obvious she’s used to getting whatever she wants. Either that, or she takes it by force.
I remove her hand from my chest. She doesn’t seem to notice.
“I don’t understand,” she says. “What do you mean I don’t know how to communicate? If I didn’t tell you anything about the mission, it was because you didn’t need to know.”
I roll my eyes.
“You think I didn’t need to know that you’d given Anderson a heads-up? You think all of us didn’t need to know that he was (a) alive, and (b) on his way to murder us? You didn’t think of giving Delalieu a warning to shut his mouth just long enough to keep himself from getting murdered?” My frustration is snowballing. “You could’ve told me that you were going to throw us in the asylum temporarily. You could’ve told me that you were going to drug me—you didn’t need to knock me out and kidnap me and let me think I was about to be executed. I would’ve come voluntarily,” I say, my voice growing louder. “I would’ve helped you, goddammit.”
But Nazeera is unmoved. Her eyes go cold. “You clearly have no idea what I’m dealing with,” she says quietly, “if you really think it was that simple. I couldn’t risk—”
“And you clearly have no idea how to work in a group,” I say, cutting her off. “Which makes you nothing more than a liability.”
Her eyes go wide with rage.
“You fly solo, Nazeera. You live by a moral code I don’t understand, which basically means you do whatever you want, and you change allegiances whenever it feels right or convenient. You cover your hair sometimes—and only when you think it’s safe—because it’s rebellious, but there’s no real commitment in it. You don’t actually align yourself with any group, and you still do whatever your dad tells you to do until you decide, for a little while, that you don’t want to listen to The Reestablishment.
“You’re unpredictable,” I say to her. “All over the place. Today, you’re on our side—but what about tomorrow?” I shake my head. “I have no idea what your real motivations are. I never know what you’re really thinking. And I can never let my guard down around you—because I have no way of knowing whether you’re just using me. I can’t trust you.”
She stares at me, still as stone, and says nothing for what feels like a century. Finally, she takes a step back. Her eyes are inscrutable.
“You should be careful,” she says. “That’s a dangerous speech to give to someone you can’t trust.”
But I’m not buying it. Not this time.
“Bullshit,” I say. “If you were going to kill me, you’d have done it a long time ago.”
“I might change my mind. Apparently I’m unpredictable. All over the place.”
“Whatever,” I mutter. “I’m done here.”
I shake my head and I’m gone, already walking away, five steps closer to sleep and quiet, when she shouts angrily—
“I opened up to you! I let my guard down around you, even if you can’t do it for me.”
That stops me in my tracks.
I spin around. “When?” I shout back, throwing up my hands in frustration. “When have you ever trusted me? When have you ever opened up to me? Never. No— You just do your own thing, whatever and however you want, consequences be damned, and you expect everyone to be cool with it. Well I call bullshit, okay? I’m not into it.”
“I told you about my powers!” she cries, her hands in fists at her sides. “I told you guys everything I knew about Ella and Emmaline!”
I let out a long, exhausted breath. I take a few steps toward her, but only because I don’t want to shout anymore.
“I don’t know how to explain this,” I say, steadying my voice. “I mean, I’m trying. I really am. But I don’t know how to— Like, listen, I get that you telling me you can be invisible was a big deal. I get that. But there’s a huge difference between you sharing a bunch of classified information with a large group of people and you actually opening up to me. I don’t— I don’t want—” I cut myself off, clenching my teeth too hard. “You know what? Never mind.”
“No, go ahead,” she says, her own anger barely contained. “Say it. What don’t you want?”
Finally, I meet her eyes. They’re bright. Angry. And I don’t know what happens, exactly, but staring at her cuts something loose in my brain. Something unkind. Unfiltered.
“I don’t want this sterilized vers
ion of you,” I say. “I don’t want the cold, calculating person you have to be for everyone else. This version of you is cruel and unfeeling and loyal to no one. You’re not a nice person, Nazeera. You’re mean and condescending and arrogant. But all of that would be tolerable, I swear, if I felt like you had a heart in there somewhere. Because if we’re going to be friends—if we’re going to be anything—I need to be able to trust you. And I don’t trust friendships of convenience. I don’t trust machines.”
Too late, I realize my mistake.
Nazeera looks stunned.
She blinks and blinks, and for one long, excruciating second her stony exterior gives way to raw, trembling emotion that makes her look like a child. She stares up at me and suddenly she looks small—young and scared and small. Her eyes glitter, wet with feeling, and the whole picture is so heartbreaking it hits me hard, like a punch to the gut.
A moment later, it’s gone.
She turns away, locks the feelings away, slips the mask back on.
I feel frozen.
I just messed up on some cosmic scale and I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t know what protocol to follow. I also don’t know how or when, exactly, I turned into such a grade A douchebag, but I think hanging out with Warner all the time hasn’t done me any favors.
I’m not this guy. I don’t make girls cry.
But I don’t know how to undo this, either. Maybe if I say nothing. Maybe if I just stand here, blinking at outer space, I can turn back the clock. I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I only know that I must be a real piece of shit, because anyone who can make Nazeera Ibrahim cry is probably some kind of monster. I didn’t even think Nazeera could cry. I didn’t know she still did that.
That’s how stupid I am.
I just made the daughter of the supreme commander of Asia cry.
When she finally faces me, the tears are gone but her voice is cold. Hollow. And it’s almost like she can’t even believe she’s saying the words when she says, “I kissed you. Did you think I was a machine then, too?”
My mind goes suddenly blank. “Maybe?”
I hear her sharp intake of breath. Pain flashes across her face.
Oh my God, I’m worse than stupid.
I’m a bad human being.
I have no idea what’s wrong with me. I need to stop talking. I want to not be doing this. Not be here. I want to go back to my room and go to sleep and not be here. But something is broken—my brain, my mouth, my general motor controls.
Worse: I don’t know how to get out of here. Where is the eject button for escape from conversations with terrifying, beautiful women?
She says: “You honestly think I would do something like that—you think I would kiss you like that—just to manipulate you?”
I blink at her.
I feel like I’m trapped in a nightmare. Guilt and confusion and exhaustion and anger fuse together, escalating the chaos in my brain to the point of pain and suddenly, incomprehensibly, my head pops off.
Desperate, stupid—
I can’t stop shouting.
“How am I supposed to know what you would or wouldn’t do to manipulate someone?” I shout. “How am I supposed to know anything about you? How do I even get to be in the same room as someone like you? This whole situation is bananas.” I’m still shouting. Still trying to figure out how to calm down. “I mean, not only do you know how to murder me in a thousand different ways, but, considering the fact that you’re, like, the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life— I mean, yeah, it makes a lot more sense that you were just messing with me than it does for me to believe in some alternate universe where you actually find me attractive.”
“You are unbelievable!”
“And you’re clearly insane.”
Her mouth falls open. Literally falls open. And for a second she looks so angry I think she might actually rip the throat out of my body.
I backtrack.
“Okay, I’m sorry—you’re not insane—but twenty minutes ago you were accusing me of being in love with my best friend, so, to be fair, I think my feelings are warranted.”
“You were looking at her like you were in love with her!”
“Jesus Christ, woman, I look at you like I’m in love with you!”
“I— Wait. What?”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “Nothing. Never mind. I have to go.”
“Kenji—”
But I’m already gone.
Three
When I get back to my room I shut the door and sag against it, sinking to the floor in a sad, pathetic heap. I drop my head into my hands and, in a jarring moment, I think—
I wish my mom were here.
The feeling sideswipes me so fast I can’t stop it in time. It grows quickly, spiraling out of control: sadness breeding sadness, self-pity circling me mercilessly. All my shitty experiences—every heartbreak, every disappointment—choose this minute to tear me open, dining out on my heart until there’s nothing left, until the grief eats me alive.
I crumble under the weight of it.
I duck my head into my knees, wrap my arms around my shins. Shocks of pain unfurl in my chest, fingers breaking through my rib cage, closing around my lungs.
I can’t catch my breath.
At first, I don’t feel the tears running down my face. At first I just hear my breathing, harsh and gasping, and I don’t understand the sound. I lift my head, stunned, and force out a laugh but it feels foreign, stupid. I’m stupid. I press my fists against my eyes and grit my teeth, driving the tears back into my skull.
I don’t know what’s wrong with me tonight.
I feel off, unbalanced. Aching for something. I’m losing sight of my purpose, my sense of direction. I always tell myself that I’m fighting every day for hope, for the salvation of humanity, but every time I survive only to return to yet more loss and devastation, something comes loose inside of me. It’s like the people and places I love are the nuts and bolts keeping me upright; without them, I’m just scrap metal.
I sigh, long and shaky. Drop my face in my hands.
I almost never allow myself to think about my mom. Almost never. But right now, something about the darkness, the cold, the fear, and the guilt—my confusion over Nazeera—
I wish I could talk to my mom.
I wish she were here to hold me, guide me. I wish I could crawl into her arms like I used to, I wish I could feel her fingers against my scalp at the end of a long night, massaging away the tension. When I had nightmares, or when Dad was gone too long looking for work, she and I would stay up together, holding each other. I’d cling to her and she’d rock me gently, running her fingers through my hair, whispering jokes in my ear. She was the funniest person I ever knew. So smart. So sharp.
God, I miss her.
Sometimes I miss her so much I think my chest is caving in. I feel like I’m sinking in the feeling, like I might never come up for air. And sometimes I think I could just die there, in those moments, violently drowned by emotion.
But then, miraculously—inch by inch—the feeling abates. It’s slow, excruciating work, but eventually the cataract clears, and somehow I’m alive again. Alone again.
Here, in the dark, with my memories.
Sometimes I feel so alone in this world I can’t even breathe.
Castle’s got his kid back. My friends have all found their partners. We’ve lost Adam. Lost James. Lost everyone else from Omega Point, too. It still hits me sometimes. Still knocks me over when I forget to bury the feelings deep enough.
But I can’t keep going like this. I’m falling apart, and I don’t have time to fall apart. People need me, depend on me.
I have to get my shit together.
I drag myself up, bracing my back against the door as I find my footing. I’ve been sitting in the dark, in the cold, in the same clothes I’ve been wearing for a week. I’ll be all right; I just need a change of pace.
James and Adam are probably fine.
&
nbsp; They’ve got to be.
I head to the bathroom, hitting light switches as I go, and turn on the water. I strip off these old clothes, promising to set them on fire as soon as I can, and pull open a few drawers, sifting through the amenities and cotton basics Nouria said would be stocked in our rooms. Satisfied, I step in the shower. I don’t know how they got hot water here, and I don’t care.
This is perfect.
I lean against the cold tile as the hot water slaps me in the face. Eventually I sink to the floor, too tired to stand.
I let the heat boil me alive.
Four
I thought the shower would perform some kind of restorative cure, but it didn’t work as well as I hoped. I feel clean, which is worth something, but I still feel bad. Like, physically bad. I think I’ve got a better handle on my emotions, but— I don’t know.
I think I’m delirious. Or jet-lagged. Or both.
That has to be it.
I’m so exhausted you’d think I would’ve fallen asleep the second my head hit the pillow, but no such luck. I spent a couple of hours lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, and then I walked around in the dark for a little while, and now I’m here again, throwing a pair of balled-up socks at the wall while the sun makes lazy moves toward the moon.
There’s a sliver of light creeping up the horizon. The beginnings of dawn. I’m staring at the scene through the square of my window, still trying to figure out what the hell is wrong with me, when a sudden, violent banging on my door sends a direct shot of adrenaline to my brain.
I’m on my feet in seconds, heart pounding, head pounding. I pull on clothes and boots so fast I nearly kill myself in the process, but when I finally pull the door open, Brendan looks relieved.
“Good,” he says. “You’re dressed.”
“What’s wrong?” I ask automatically.
Brendan sighs. He looks sad—and then, for just a second:
He looks scared.
