I was still smiling long after he disappeared from sight.
I felt strangely buoyant, more like a real person than I’d felt in a long time. I tried to hold on to the feeling as I wended my way through the parked vehicles, but my luck abruptly ran out.
It was moments like this that made me believe in fate.
It seemed impossible that coincidence alone could account for the thousand tiny decisions I’d made today that nudged my feet into this exact position, at precisely this hour, into the wrong person at the wrong time. Everything around me seemed suddenly to be happening in slow motion, the scene pulling apart to make room for my thoughts, my unprocessed emotions. And then, all at once, the moment hurled itself back together with a gasp.
Mine.
My breath left my body in a single, painful exhalation as my back slammed into metal, my head spinning.
A girl was standing in front of me. My ears were still ringing from the impact, from the severe turn my body had to make in order to now be flattened against a parked vehicle. I counted four heads—three girls, one guy. The one who shoved me had long, dirty-blond hair that moved when she did, and I was staring at those limp yellow waves when she stabbed me in the collarbone with a single finger, her face contorting as she shouted.
I felt my mind dissolve.
My brain retreated from my body, panic shutting down my nervous system. Everything seemed to disconnect inside of my skull. I heard her words as if from a distance, as if I were someone else watching this happen to someone else. I listened as she told me to go back to where I came from, listened as she called me a filthy towelhead, stared at her as she stared at me, her eyes bright with a violence I found breathtaking.
And then, suddenly, she stopped.
She was done, all done, just a couple of angry sentences and that was it, the moment was over. I frowned. I’d thought, for some reason, that there’d be more, something new. I’d been stopped at least a dozen times by people who’d all spoken these exact same lines to me, and I was beginning to realize that none of them talked to each other, compared notes, jazzed things up.
She jerked back, let me go.
I straightened too quickly, nearly stumbled. Blood rushed back into my head, my nerves fired back to life. Sounds seemed suddenly too loud, the ground too far. My heartbeat was strange.
The girl was frowning at me.
She was frowning at me like she was confused, maybe disappointed. And then—so suddenly I could practically see the moment she answered her own question—her eyes lit up.
“Oh my God, you don’t even speak English, do you?” She started laughing. “Oh my God, you don’t even fucking speak English.”
She laughed again and again, hysterically now, a hyena. “This fucking piece of shit doesn’t even fucking speak English,” she said to the sky, to the moon, to her friends, and they laughed and laughed and laughed.
This wasn’t new, either.
People always assumed I wasn’t born here. They always assumed I wasn’t American, that English wasn’t my first language.
People, I knew, thought I was dumb.
I didn’t care.
I closed my eyes, let the pain leak from my body. I waited for them to get tired of me, waited for them to leave. I waited, quietly, because there was nothing else I could do.
I’d promised my mom I’d never engage with bigots, never talk back, never make a scene. Shayda had refused to make such promises to my mother, so my mom had turned to me instead, begging me to be reasonable, to walk away, to exercise the self-restraint that Shayda refused to employ. So I’d promised. Sworn it. I took the hits to my pride for my mother, for my mother alone. She was the reason I seldom spoke these days, the reason I didn’t fight.
My mother.
And the police, if I’m being honest. The police and the FBI. The CIA. DHS. The Patriot Act. Guantanamo Bay. The No Fly List.
When I opened my eyes again, the group was gone.
I collected myself, gathered my bones. I walked to class on unsteady legs, clenched and unclenched my shaking hands. I felt my heart grow harder as I moved through the halls, felt it get heavier.
One day, I worried, it would simply fall out.
Twelve
I sat in the wet grass after school, pulled my knees up to my injured chin. I was perilously close to something that felt like a flood, oceans dammed behind my eyes. I did not hope for a ride home today; I was merely tired. My father had been unable to work for nearly a month now, and my mom had taken a part-time job at Macy’s to help with the pressure on our finances, which meant that my sister’s mercy was the axis upon which my world turned—which meant my world was oft static, merciless.
I lifted my head, took a deep breath, drew the scent of cold wind and wet dirt into my body.
Petrichor.
It was a strange word, an excellent word.
You know there’s a word for that, right? Ali had said to me once. For that smell. The smell of water hitting the earth.
I’d been standing in the backyard of my old house breathing in the drizzle when Ali said those words, walking toward me in the dark. Our living room had a sliding glass door that opened to the yard, and he’d left it open in his wake; I’d looked past him, past his milky, silhouetted stride to the glow of bodies in the living room, all of them laughing, talking. Remnants of conversation carried over to us in the darkness, and the effect was unexpectedly cozy. Ali’s family had come over for dinner, but I’d disappeared after dessert, wanting to escape the commotion for a moment with the evening breeze.
“You left the door open,” I’d said. “All the bugs are going to get inside.”
He’d smiled. “It’s called petrichor.”
I shook my head, smiled back. “I know what it’s called.”
“Right.” He laughed. Looked up at the sky. “Of course you do.”
“Ali, the mosquitoes are going to eat everyone alive.”
He glanced back. “Someone will close the door.”
I’d rolled my eyes at him, started heading for the house. “They’re not going to notice until it’s—”
I jumped back, suddenly, when my foot sank into a muddy patch of grass, and promptly collided into Ali, who’d been following me inside. I’d been wearing a silk dress that summer day, but when he touched me, I might’ve been wearing nothing at all. The delicate fabric did little to dull the blow of sensation; I felt his hands on me like they were pressed against my skin, like I was naked in his arms.
I’d felt it, too, when he became aware of me, of the shape of me under his hands. When we collided he’d caught me from behind; I couldn’t see his face. Instead, I’d felt his weight pressed up against my own, heard the change in his breath when we touched, when his hands froze where they’d landed. One of his palms was flat against my stomach, the other holding fast to my hip. He let go of me slowly, with excruciating care, like he’d caught a crystal bowl in midair. His fingers grazed my torso as they retreated, skated across my belly button. We’d both gone quiet, the sounds of our breathing amplified in the silence.
Ali had finally drawn back but I felt the whisper of his touch at the base of my spine, felt his chest move as he inhaled, exhaled. Softly—so softly it was little more than an idea—his fingers traced the indentation at my waist, the curve of my hips. He said, “God, Shadi, you’re so beautiful sometimes I can’t even look at you,” and I’d just stood there, my heart jackhammering in my chest, my eyes closing on a sound, a desperate sound that escaped my lips, shattered the dream. I’d come back to myself with a terrifying awareness, walked back into the house without a word, without looking back.