“I know a boy who loves that movie as much as you,” she’d told me the moment I arrived.
In typical Vanessa fashion, she refused to say who. But I forgot all about this mysterious boy once the movie started. Ten minutes in, the keg suddenly arrived. At first I thought it was a shared aversion to cheap beer; Amir ended up being the only other warm body to remain in the basement. We’d always been a part of the same social scene, the circles of friends that orbited around Vanessa. But I would have never pegged him as a fellow Fight Club fan. He didn’t exactly give off that vibe. He gave off the opposite, in fact—a hippie-hipster musician, with an old-school guitar pick and feather dangling from a slim black cord around his neck. Then again, I, of all people, should have known how deceiving looks could be…and his looks are fine.
I couldn’t help but sneak glances. He kept tucking loose strands of that thick, dark hair behind his ears. And he was definitely a Fight Club fan. He was whispering the lines.
Eventually I stopped paying attention to the movie.
I didn’t care how obvious I was being, staring at him. I couldn’t get over it. I couldn’t believe this boy I’d known but not known was a kindred spirit. But how kindred? Message-wise, the film was timeless. Take the general social commentary and apply it to Snapchat: As outward tastes are being engineered, so, too, our inward bigotries. Bam! Mind blown.
I wanted to test Amir. Test his knowledge. I scooched down the couch, just a tad, to better hear him.
He murmured another line. Perfectly.
I made a point to whisper the next line with him.
He did the same. All of a sudden we were in a quote-for-quote competition. He inched toward me, too. Soon it felt like we weren’t even at Vanessa’s at all, like there wasn’t a party upstairs. I started to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” he asked me.
“That you know every line of this movie.”
He turned with a smile and leaned even closer, as if he were letting me in on a secret. “It’s not the movie. It’s Edward Norton. I love that guy.”
In that moment I was so Amir-struck that I almost forgot that we were speaking. I nodded mutely and stared back into his dark eyes…vulnerable maybe, but not lost. Then we turned back to the screen and sat snuggled against each other like that right up until the crucial scene where the two main characters, Tyler Durden (Norton) and Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter) hold hands and watch their world collapse. “You met me at a very strange time in my life,” says Tyler Durden.
I turned to Amir. Without warning, he leaned in and kissed me. His long hair tickled my cheek. I pulled away, then leaned back in, returning his kiss, intoxicated. I had no idea how long we’d been making out when Vanessa appeared at the top of the stairs and drunkenly cackled, “Oh my God! I knew it!”
We jumped apart, faces flushed, moment ruined.
Vanessa then proceeded to turn off the lights, which for some reason shut down the massive TV system, too. Amir and I exchanged a few awkward giggles. We fumbled our way out of the darkness, holding hands. I let go only when we reached the kitchen, so I could stop by the sink to splash cold water over my red-hot face. I couldn’t stop smiling. Lisa and Kerry snickered and blew kisses at me from the doorway, and I still couldn’t stop. Then my back pocket buzzed. I assumed it was my parents checking up on me. But when I pulled out my phone, I saw Amir’s face.
My silly smile grew even wider. Vanessa had given him my digits in advance. That figured.
The next time we hung out alone, we made a point not to tell her beforehand.
* * *
—
Alone in the driveway now, I reached for my back pocket again. But I couldn’t bring myself to pick up the phone. What could I say that he didn’t already know? “Hey, I just lost my best friend to a one-way ticket from Dulles to Dubai because her dad can’t make a living anymore because people hate ‘Mooslims’ and that’s the shitshow we’re living now.”
No doubt he would answer with something annoyingly positive.
Amir had friends in the UAE. Online friends, like mine. Fellow musicians. (The tragic difference: I kept my online friends hidden from him, even after we became an official thing.) Amir plays the oud, one of the oldest instruments known to man. Literally: like beginning-of-time old. It’s a Middle Eastern guitar, a cousin to the lute. He would never admit how talented he is, but he first met these friends because of videos he posted—just him playing alone in his room. Naturally the cool people he met led him to believe that the UAE was a cool place: international, open-minded, stress-free. He kept insisting that Mariam was off to greener pastures. I knew he was trying to make me feel better. But I didn’t need gentle reminders of how lucky I was, that we were, that my parents were tenured professors at George Mason and his were comfortably retired…that we had stability. I didn’t give a shit about any of it. I wanted my friend. I refused to put on a happy face because I didn’t have to flee, myself.
How would you act, Amir? If you lost your soul brother, if you had a soul brother?
I took a deep breath and wiped my damp cheeks with my free hand. Definitely best not to call him. Why take it out on him? I shoved my phone in my pocket. No…better to wallow alone in a coma of self-reinforcing misery, and mine craved only one type of company: fresh buttermilk scones.
* * *
—
Twenty-three hours later (I’d been counting), I sat in our cushioned bay window, staring out at Mason Terrace. I hadn’t slept much. I hadn’t really moved much, aside from periodic scone binges. Luckily, my sisters and parents were thoughtful enough to leave me alone. All on our street was leafy green and springtime sunny, as it had been yesterday. Yet lifeless. Deserted. Abandoned. I was about to pull out my phone for the millionth time (to do nothing) when I heard a car approaching.
I sat up straight. There was a glint of shiny black metal at the cul-de-sac entrance. My heart jumped.
For a blissful delusional moment, I thought Mariam’s family had come back. A Ramadan miracle? Yeah, right. Stupid me. Funny that this was Friday, May 1. Mayday, mayday, mayday…No, it wasn’t Dr. Muhammad’s beat-up sedan. It was a new pickup truck hauling a trailer, its rear a collage of bumper stickers. I SERVED IRQ. I SERVED AFG. POW-MIA.
Military folk, like a lot of our neighbors.
After a brief pause at Mariam’s mailbox, my new neighbors pulled into the driveway where we’d said goodbye, rolling right over the past and my memories. I felt my breath catch. My fists clenched at my sides. I was itching to see their faces. I wanted to know who these infiltrators were. Okay, yes, I knew that they were simply the owners of a new home. (Mariam’s home.) Her family had sold it; this family had purchased it. Still, I wanted to stop them. The second they opened the front door—a door through which I’d passed nearly every day of my life—the whole thing would be official, irreversible.