“I don’t understand.” I did not want to understand.
“She’s been cutting herself,” he said sharply, angrily, as if he hated me for forcing him to say it out loud, to say it to a child. “She’s self-harming. I think she needs to be in therapy.”
He gave me something, a piece of paper with something written on it, and assured me there would be more information in her file, with the nurse, or someone, somewhere. He’d recommended a doctor, a program. Grief counseling.
“She’s going to be okay,” he said, clapping a hand on my shoulder. I nearly fell to the ground. “She just needs time. And she needs support.”
I carried the tea tray into the living room with trembling hands, glass shuddering against metal, jangling against itself. My mother was smiling at something my sister was saying, her delicate hands clasped in her lap. She was a beautiful woman, lithe with big, dark eyes. Few others had the privilege of seeing her like this, her long hair curling around her shoulder in a single brown wave. She looked up as I entered. Smiled wider.
“Bea beshin, azizam.” Come sit down, my dear.
She thanked me for making tea, thanked me when I poured her the cup, thanked me again when I handed it to her. She was trying too hard, and it was making my heart pound.
“I’m sorry I scared you,” she said in Farsi, her eyes shining. She laughed, shook her head. “Anyway, khodaroshokr”—thank God—“everything is fine. The doctor said I just need to get more sleep. This tea is excellent, by the way.”
It was not. I’d taken too long to bring it out, and the temperature of the tea had dropped just below what was acceptable, which was a tea so boiling hot it burned your throat. If my mother were herself she would’ve sent it back.
Even my sister seemed to realize that.
“The tea is cold,” Shayda said, frowning.
This was a gross exaggeration. The tea was plenty hot, hot enough for any sane person. It just wasn’t boiling hot.
“The tea is fine,” my mother said, waving dismissively. She took a sip. She was still speaking in Farsi. “Your father is doing better, by the way. They think he might come home soon.”
“What?” I blanched. I nearly dropped my cup. “But I thought they said his situation was critical. I thought—”
“You are unbelievable, Shadi.”
I looked up, surprised, to meet my sister’s eyes.
“You can’t even hide your disappointment. What, were you hoping he’d die? What kind of a horrible person hopes for their father to die?”
I felt that familiar, stinging heat rise up my throat again, press against my teeth, sear the whites of my eyes.
The nurse found cuts on her wrists and on her legs, the doctor had said. Some were relatively fresh. Has she ever said anything to make you think she might be a danger to herself?
My mother shook her head. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said in rapid-fire Farsi. “That’s a slanderous thing to say about a person.”
“And yet, she doesn’t deny it’s true.”
My mother turned to me, eyes wide. “Shadi?”
Heat knotted together at the base of my throat. I shook my head, about to lie a perfect, beautiful lie when the doorbell rang.
I jumped to my feet.
I was happy for the interruption, but also, I was the only one among us still wearing a scarf. I touched my head absently, the wilted silk somehow still intact. I marveled at that, at how I’d forgotten to take it off. I’d forgotten to do all kinds of things. Forgotten to eat, for example. Or shower. I’d forgotten to bandage the cut on my knee, forgotten to wash the blood off my chin.
That was the first thing my mother said to me when she saw me, the first thing she did. She took my chin in her hand and yelled at me, demanded to know what I’d done to my face, as if my wound were greater than hers.
She doesn’t know I’m telling you this, the doctor had said. She begged me not to tell you or your sister.
I swallowed against the rising heat, swallowed against the stinging burn. I moved toward the front door and heard the rain howl, lash against the windows. I reached for the handle just as my mother laughed, the soft trill wrenching apart my heart.
I opened the door.
For the second time today, someone stood before me and held aloft my ugly blue backpack. Ali’s clothes were wet. His hair was soaked. His eyelashes were sooty, glittering with damp. In the warm glow of the porch light, I saw him as I hadn’t earlier: hyperreal, many-dimensional. He was tall, even imposing, his skin a golden brown without blemish, the lines of his face sharp, beautiful. What was once a clean shave had given way to a 10 p.m. shadow, adding an unexpected depth to his appearance. He’d probably not looked in a mirror in hours. He probably had no idea what he looked like, no idea the picture he presented. A single drop of rain dripped down his forehead, slid along his nose, tucked itself between his lips. He prized them open.
“You forgot this in my car,” he said quietly.
My eyes were filling with tears again, had been threatening to fill all night. I pushed back the army with almighty force, felt their fire travel down my esophagus, set my insides aflame.
“You okay?” Over and over again, he asked me this question. He was staring at me ruthlessly, his eyes lingering on my face, the cut on my chin. I felt the friction between us as palpably as I felt the pounding in my heart. He was angry. Afraid. He stared at me with an authority I found surprising, with a concern I’d not felt in a long time. I watched him swallow as he waited. His throat was wet; the movement was mesmerizing.
“Please,” he whispered. “Please answer me.”
I didn’t lift my head.
“Are you okay?”
“No,” I said, and took the bag.
I heard his exhale; it was a tortured sound. “Shadi—”
“Who is it?” my mom asked, her voice carrying over from the living room. “Is it a package?”
“Bye,” I said softly, and closed the door in his face.
Nine
Were I a fly perched upside down, legs clinging to a fiber ceiling, I would’ve seen a sea of hairy heads bent over papers placed atop desks, human hands clenched around number two pencils, each seat showcasing a similar scene save one.
Mine.
My silk head turned in sharp, erratic movements, my mind unable to settle. I had an exam today in my AP Art History class, an exam for which I’d not had the opportunity to prepare. I fell asleep last night in molting silk, fully dressed and freezing, awoke in my own blood. The wound on my chin had ripped open as I slept and I found evidence of this fact on my pillow, in my hair, smeared across my eyelids. In my dreams my teeth rotted, fell out of my head, I screamed the screams of dreams that made no sound and sat straight up at the screech of my alarm, my chest tight with terror.
It seemed my constant companion, this feeling, this word.
Terror.
It haunted me, tormented me, terror, terrifying, terrorist, terrorism, these were my definitions in the dictionary along with my face and surname, first name, date of birth.
I’d made more of an effort than usual this morning, convinced, somehow, that eyeliner would detract from the bandage on my chin. I didn’t want the world to know my secrets, didn’t want my wounds torn open before the masses, and yet, there was no escaping notice. I’d already had to listen to someone make a joke they thought I didn’t hear, something low, a laugh, a tittering: “Looks like someone punched Osama in the face last night,” followed by an “Oh my God, Josh, shut up,” all neatly rounded out by another chorus of laughter. I was a turkey carved up every day, all manner of passersby eager for a piece. My flesh had been so thoroughly stripped I was now more bone than meat, with little left to give up but my marrow.