Home > An Emotion of Great Delight(6)

An Emotion of Great Delight(6)
Author: Tahereh Mafi

I knew no one was coming for me.

My shoulders sagged as I opened my eyes. I sighed as I looked him over, sighed because I already knew what he looked like. Thick brown hair so dark it was basically black. Deep brown eyes. Strong chin. Sharp nose. Excellent bone structure. Eyelashes, eyelashes, eyelashes.

Classically Persian.

He rolled his eyes at my indecision. “I’m Ali, by the way. I’m not sure if you remember me.”

I felt a flash of anger. “That’s not funny.”

“I don’t know,” he said, looking away. “It’s a little funny.” But his smile had vanished.

Ali was my ex–best friend’s older brother. He and his sister, Zahra, were the two people I did not want to think about. My memories of them both were so saturated in emotion I could hardly breathe around the thoughts, and barreling face-first into my past wasn’t helping matters in my chest. Even now, I was barely holding it together, so assaulted were my senses by the mere sight of him.

It was almost cruel.

Ali was, among other things, the kind of handsome that transcended the insular social circles frequented by most members of Middle Eastern communities. He was the kind of good-looking that made white people forget he was terrorist-adjacent. He was the kind of brown guy who charmed PTA moms, dazzled otherwise racist teachers, inspired people to learn a thing or two about Ramadan.

I’d once hated Ali. Hated him for so effortlessly straddling the line between two worlds. Hated that he seemed to pay no price for his happiness. But then, for a very long time, I didn’t.

Didn’t hate him at all.

I sighed. My tired body needed to lean against something or else start moving and never stop, but I could presently do neither. Instead, I sat back down, folding myself onto the concrete with all the grace of a newborn calf. I picked up the forgotten lighter off the ground, ran my thumb over the top. Ali had gone solid in the last thirty seconds. Silent.

So I spoke. “Do you go to school here now?”

He was quiet a moment longer before he exhaled, seemed to come back to himself. He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Yeah.”

Ali was a year older than me, and I’d thought for sure he’d go out of state for college. Zahra rarely fed me details on her brother’s life, and I’d never dared to ask; I just assumed. The Ali I’d known had been effortlessly smart and had big plans for his future. Then again, I knew how quickly things could change. My own life was unrecognizable from what it was a year ago. I knew this, and yet I couldn’t seem to help it when I said—

“I thought you got into Yale?”

Ali turned. Surprise brightened his eyes for only a second before they faded back to black. He looked away again and the harsh lamplight rewarded him, casting his features in stark, beautiful lines. He swallowed, the slight, near-imperceptible movement sending a bolt of feeling through my chest.

“Yeah,” he said. “I did.”

“Then why are y—”

“Listen, I don’t really want to talk about last year, okay?”

“Oh.” My heart was suddenly racing. “Okay.”

He took a deep breath, exhaled a degree of tension. “When did you start smoking?”

I put down the lighter. “I don’t really want to talk about last year, either.”

He looked at me then, looked for so long I thought it might kill me. Quietly, he said, “What are you doing here?”

“I take a class here.”

“I know that. I meant what are you doing here”—he nodded at the ground—“soaking wet and smoking cigarettes?”

“Wait, how do you know I take a class here?”

Ali looked away, ran a hand through his hair. “Shadi, come on.”

My mind went blank. I felt suddenly stupid. “What?”

He turned to face me.

He met my eyes with brazen defiance, almost daring me to look away. I felt the heat of that look in my blood. Felt it in my cheeks, the pit of my stomach.

“I asked,” he said.

It was both a confession and a condemnation; I felt the weight of it at once. It was suddenly clear that he’d asked Zahra about me, about my life—even now, after everything.

I had not. I’d tried instead to forget him entirely, and I’d not succeeded.

“Listen,” he said, but his voice had gone cold. “If you already have a ride, I’ll leave you alone. But if you don’t, let me drive you home. You’re bleeding. You’re shivering. You look terrible.”

My eyes widened at the insult before the rational part of my brain even had a chance to process the context, but Ali registered his mistake immediately. Spoke in a rush.

“I didn’t— You know what I mean. You don’t look terrible. You look—” He hesitated, his eyes fixed on my face. “The same.”

I felt death bloom bright in my chest. I’d always been the kind of coward who couldn’t survive even the vaguest suggestion of a compliment.

“No. You’re right.” I gestured to myself. “I look like a drowned cat.”

He didn’t laugh.

I’d learned, recently, that some people thought I was beautiful. Moms, mostly. The moms at the mosque loved me. They thought I was beautiful because I had green eyes and white skin and because a huge swath of Middle Eastern people were racist. They were blithely unaware of the fact; had no idea that their unabashed preference for European features was shameful. I, too, had once been flattered by this kind of praise, just until I learned how to read a history book. Beyond this select group of undiscerning moms, only one person had ever told me I was beautiful—and he was standing right in front of me.

With some difficulty, I got to my feet. The pain in my knee had begun to ebb, but my body had stiffened in the aftermath. Carefully, I bent my joints. Rubbed my elbows.

“Okay,” I said finally. “I would appreciate the ride.”

“Good call.”

Ali stalked off; I followed.

He led me straight to his car without so much as a backward glance, and suddenly it was right there, right in front of me: the silver Honda Civic I’d seen before.

The one that nearly killed me.

 

 

Last Year

 

 

Part II

 

 

My concerns over the hoodie had been mostly forgotten. The steadily plummeting temperatures forced me to abandon my reservations and focus, instead, on my gratitude for the extra layer.

I shivered when the lunch bell rang.

I stood up, gathered my things, pulled on my backpack. It was much warmer inside the school than outside it, but even with artificial heating I remained on the edge of uncomfortable, huddling deeper into the soft material. I pushed into the crowded hallway and tugged the too-long sleeves over my hands, crossed my arms against my chest. It seemed unlikely that the sweatshirt belonged to anyone but Mehdi, but even if it didn’t—who would know? It was the most ubiquitous variety of black hoodie. I was definitely overthinking this.

Still, I couldn’t deny the frisson of feeling that moved through me at the thought of the alternative: that the sweatshirt belonged to someone else, to someone I knew, to someone strictly off-limits to me.

I took an unsteady breath.

Zahra and I had only one class together this semester, and since I’d been running late this morning, we hadn’t yet crossed paths. Our parents still carpooled a couple days a week, but our previously braided schedules had begun, slowly, to part, and I wasn’t sure what that meant for us. More than anything else, I felt uncertainty.

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