“Really?” I snort.
“You’ll see.”
I pivot toward him. “You mentioned the jellyfish at Mama’s grave…Do you really believe that?”
“Absolutely,” he says without a shadow of a doubt.
I lick my lips, my hands clammy. “No. I don’t mean in a metaphorical way. The blessings I told you about. You actually believe what I said about my mom breathing underwater and talking to the jellyfish.”
He raises his eyebrows. “Yes, Jihad, I do. Do you?”
I nod. “Why?”
“Why do I believe?”
I nod again.
He glances up at the sky. “Why not?” Then he looks at me. “I just know you can too.”
Vermilion Red
The apartment istoo quiet when I get home, and even though the colors are beginning to show up there, they’re not as strong as they were on Coney Island. But I hold on to the joys of Jamie and the future awaiting me in Opus. I haven’t drawn anything for the murals in over a week, being busy with school and my sketchbook submission.
“I’m sending my sketchbook tomorrow,” I say on Monday to Jamie, who sits cross-legged opposite me on the art studio floor, with our food in front of us. He tried his hand at making yabra’a, which floored me. He sent me a video of the vine leaves in one plate and the minced meat and rice in another. He told me it can’t be more different than making cà chua nh?i th?t, a dish that involves stuffing meat in tomatoes, and he wanted to make something Syrian for me.
He watches me take a bite, anxiety in his eyes, and I don’t think he heard what I said. The yabra’a tastes amazing, and my eyes widen. “Um, is this the first time you’ve made this?”
He nods.
I stare at him. “This is perfect.”
His face breaks out into a relieved grin. “I was scared I left them too long on the stove.”
I take another one, dipping it into the yogurt. “This is the best thing ever.”
He watches me eat and nudges the Tupperware toward me. “Eat as much as you want. I made it for you.”
My cheeks burn, and I try not to think about what he wanted to tell me on the beach.
“So you filled all the sketchbook pages?” he asks. He was listening.
I nod. “I’m going to the post office after school tomorrow.”
He stabs his plastic fork into a yabra’a. “Shouldn’t you have done this last year?”
“The process has two steps. First is sending your application within the normal deadlines, as with all colleges. If they approve it, you go to the next step, which is sending in your art piece. Last year, I got cleared for the next step. If I’m admitted, I’ll be able to get the scholarship as well, because it was in my application. They want to see your work from your final semester, because what if you think of something to write or draw later that would get you in, but you didn’t have it by the standard application deadline? It would be a lost opportunity to you. So they operate on a rolling deadline.”
He looks impressed. “They’re going to love you.”
I blush. “I hope so.”
When I’m back home, I pick up my own sketchbook, thumbing the worn-out cover and smiling to myself at how many times I’ve cracked the spine open to draw in it, to write something, to paint something that spans several pages. I ended it with a tree taking up the last two pages, branches holding up different fruits, all found in Syria. A hopeful ending. The sketchbook is too big to put into an envelope, so I scour the apartment until I find a small cardboard box that will fit it.
I hardly sleep that night, my heart pounding. I think of how far I’ve come. How much I’ve lost and how close the end is. My hands tremble, and I press them to my chest. I roll over and call Amal. It rings for a bit before the line cuts off. We keep missing each other. Sighing, I tug at my hair strands, wrapping them around my fingers over and over again until I fall asleep.
At school, I’m so giddy I don’t even mind having gym before lunch.
I choose a locker in the corner, away from the other girls, and change into my gym clothes. I don’t have the same sweats as the rest of the girls. Mine are a pair I’ve owned for years and aren’t a part of the school uniform. But they’re such a similar gray color and style to the school ones that I hoped I’d be able to fly under the radar. I did have to get the official white shirt because the school logo is on it, and I wear a white long-sleeve shirt from home under it to hide my arms.
