Her eyes flashed. “I want you to stop talking to my brother.”
A cold weight drove into my chest, punctured a vital organ. “What?”
“I don’t know what you’re thinking or why you would even think it, but you have to stop throwing yourself at him. Stay away from him, stay away from me, and stay the hell out of my life—”
“Zahra, stop,” I said sharply. “Stop.” My heart was racing so fast I felt it pounding in my head. “I’m not talking to your brother. I saw him yesterday by accident, and he drove me t—”
“By accident.”
“Yes.”
“You saw him by accident.”
“Yes, I—”
“So you saw him by accident, he gave you a ride home by accident, you left your backpack in his car by accident, you were wearing his sweatshirt byaccident.”
I drew in a sharp breath.
Something flickered in Zahra’s eyes, something akin to triumph, and my composure broke. Anger filled my head with stunning speed, black heat edging into my vision. Throughnothing short of a miracle, I fought it back.
“I’ve told you a hundred times,” I said, “that I didn’t know it was his. I thought that sweatshirt belonged to Mehdi. And I don’t know why you refuse to believe me.”
She shook her head, disgust marring the face that was once so familiar to me. “You’re a shitty liar, Shadi.”
“I’m not lying.”
She wasn’t listening. “Every time I asked if something was going on between you and my brother, you’d always act so innocent and hurt, like you had no idea what I was talking about. I can’t believe you really thought I was that stupid. I can’t believe you thought I wouldn’t figure it out.”
“Figure what out? What are you talking about?”
“Ali,” she said angrily. “My brother. Did you think I wouldn’t put it all together? Did you think I wouldn’t notice what you did to him? God, if you were going to mess around with my brother the least you could’ve done was not break his fucking heart.”
“What?” I was panicking. I could feel myself panicking. “Is that what he told you? Did he tell you that?”
“He didn’t have to tell me. It was pretty easy to put the whole thing together.” She made a gesture with her hand. “One day he comes home looking like he got shot in the chest, and the next day he stops speaking to you forever.”
“No.” I was shaking my head, shaking it so hard I felt dizzy. “No, that’s not what happened. You don’t unders—”
“Bullshit, Shadi.” Her eyes were bright with an anger that scared me, worried me. I took an involuntary step back, but she followed.
“You lied to me for years. Not only did you hook up with my brother behind my back, but you broke his heart, and worst of all—God, Shadi, worst of all, you pretended to be so perfect and good, when that whole time you were actually just a slutty, lying piece of shit.”
I felt, suddenly, like I’d gone numb.
“I just wanted you to know,” she was saying. “I wanted you to know that I know the truth. Maybe no one else sees through all your bullshit—maybe everyone at the mosque thinks you’re some kind of a saint—but I know better. So stay the hell away from my family,” she said.
And walked away.
I stood there, staring into space until the final bell rang, until the chaotic hall became a ghost town. I was going to be late to my next class. I squeezed my eyes shut, tried to breathe.
I wanted, desperately, to disappear.
Zahra and I had been friends since I was eleven; I met her and Ali at the same time. Our family was new in town and my parents wanted us to make friends, so they sent me and Shayda and Mehdi to a Muslim summer camp, a camp none of us had wanted to attend. It was our shared loathing of spending summer afternoons listening to religious sermons that brought us all together. If only I’d known then that we’d usher in our end with a similar emotion.
Zahra had always hated me, just a little bit.
She’d always said it like it was a joke, a charming turn of phrase, like it was normal to roll your eyes and say every other day,God, I hate you so much, to the person who was, ostensibly, your best friend. For years, her hatred was innocuous enough to ignore—she hated the way I avoided coffee, hated how I took the evil eye seriously, hated the sad music I listened to, hated the way I turned into a prim, obedient child when I spoke Farsi—but in the last year, her hatred had changed.
