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 howI’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 downhis 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.
I stared at the printed sheet in front of me now, the ink swimming. My eyes felt perpetually hot, overheated, my heart poorly digested in my gut. I tapped my pencil on the page, stared at a block of text I was meant to analyze, a painting I was meant to recognize. For the third time in the last half hour, I felt a pair of eyes on my face.
This time, I did not pretend them away.
This time, I lifted my head, looked in their direction. The eyes quickly averted, the familiar face bowed once again over her paper, hand scribbling furiously at nonsense.
Due to the nature of the art history course—and the interminable amount of time we spent staring at slides—our class was held in the only amphitheater on campus. We were all arranged in an incomplete circle, our raised seats gradually descending toward a single podium in the middle of the room behind which was a massive screen. The teacher currently stood sentinel in the center, watching us closely as we worked. Our class didn’t have assigned seats, but I always sat toward the back, where the desks were illuminated by only dim lighting, and when Zahra glanced my way for the fourth time, I marveled that she could see me at all.
Her attention toward me did not bode well.
