Panic.
Eventually, the bottleneck broke. We’d arrived at my locker. I dropped my backpack to the floor, spun around to face him, felt the metal frame press against my shoulder blades. Ali was staring at me with the strangest look on his face, something close to delight.
“I didn’t know this was yours,” I said quietly. “My mom found it in her car.”
He touched one of the bright-blue drawstrings, wound it around his finger.
“Yeah,” he said, meeting my gaze. “This is mine.”
A wash of heat colored my cheeks and I closed my eyes as if it made any difference, as if I could stop us both from seeing it.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know.”
“Hey, don’t apologize, I don’t—”
Carefully, without disturbing my scarf, I pulled the hoodie over my head and handed it to him, practically shoved it at him.
“Shadi.” He frowned, tried to give it back. “I don’t care if you wear it. You can have it.”
I was shaking my head. I didn’t know how to say even a little bit without saying everything. “I can’t.”
“Shadi. Come on.”
I turned around, turned the combination on my locker. Wordlessly, I unzipped my backpack, swapped out my books.
Ali moved closer, bent his head over my shoulder. “Keep it,” he said, his breath touching my cheek. “I want you to keep it.”
I felt my body tense with a familiar ache, a familiar fear. I couldn’t move.
“Hey.”
I straightened at the sound of Zahra’s voice.
“Hi,” I said, forcing myself to speak. My heart was now racing for entirely new reasons.
Zahra stepped closer. “What are you guys doing?” Then, to me, with an approximation of a laugh: “Why did you justgive my brother your sweater?”
“Oh. My mom actually found it in her car this morning.”
Zahra frowned. My answer was not an answer.
“I, um, thought it belonged to Mehdi,” I amended. “But it belongs to Ali. I was just giving it back to him.”
Zahra looked at Ali—whose face had shuttered closed. He glanced at me before he shoved a hand through his hair, balled the sweatshirt under his arm.
“I’ll see you later,” he said to no one, and disappeared into the crowd.
Zahra and I stood in silence, watching him go. My heart would not cease racing. I felt as if I were standing, in real time, in front of a ticking bomb.
Boom.
“What the fuck, Shadi?”
I tried to explain: “I didn’t know it was his. I was running late and I’d forgotten my jacket and—”
“Bullshit.”
“Zahra.” My heart was pounding. “I’m not lying.”
