“Stop,” I interrupt, nausea rising in my throat. I won’t discuss what happened to Mama in this hallway.“Don’t.”
“Fine,” she snaps. “I didn’t shut up talking about you to the girls. They were actually excited to meet you. And yes, they knew you’re a Muslim and a hijabi. They knewallof that. It wasn’t a surprise for them. This is New York, not freaking Alabama! You’re the one who’s trying to find a problem with everything.”
My grief is tangible. I can extract it from my heart and body and hold it in my hands. “No, you’re right, Lexi. It’s not their fault. It’s mine. Does that make you feel better?”
She scrunches her nose, and I know she’s holding herself backfrom crying. “That’s great. Shut down like you always do. Sometimes you’reimpossibleto be friends with.”
And with that she leaves. I stand in the corner, her last sentence playing like a loop in my brain.
A random loud laugh jars me back to life. The hallways have slowly started emptying. I move to leave, but then I remember I need my physics textbook. I borrowed it from the library rather than shelling out over a hundred dollars to buy a copy. I’m marking the pages I need to photocopy.
When I reach my locker, I’m the only one in the hallway. As I fiddle with the lock, a sense of dread fills me. Like I can see my future, but I’m not sure what it is. I look over my shoulder hastily and shove my hand in, grabbing wildly at the textbook.
I sense it happening before it does. A heavy hand grips my shoulder, and I twist around, a second too late. My back sharply bangs against the locker.
It’s not Mason, but one of his friends.
“You okay?” the mismatched blob says. His face sharpens and wavers, the shadows engulfing his face. His hand is still on my shoulder, the heat from it burning me.
“Fine,” I say, trying to sidestep, and his hand slips somewhere it shouldn’t, grazes my chest, and I hit my head against the locker trying to get away. Blood…blood…
“Holy shit, okay!” He holds up his hands in surrender. “That sounded brutal. Just wanted to introduce myself properly.”
His hand slipped. He didn’t touch anything.
This boy I’ve never spoken a word to.
“I’m Adrian,” he says. “I know your name, so I thought it was only fair you learned mine.”
I press myself firmly against the locker, the lock digging into my back, but I don’t mind. I need to feel myself on land and not falling down something bottomless.
He gives me a curious look before walking away.
At home, I stand in front of my parents’ room. Baba is still at the gas station, and my ears are still ringing from what happened by the locker. In this moment, I want Mama more than ever. Slowly, I open the door and step in.
Mama’s side of the bed is untouched, just like the last day she made it.
Baba sleeps on his side, unable to move like there’s a barrier preventing him.
Everything in the room still has her touch, and I allowed myself to go through her things only once after her funeral. I made it as far as her hijabs and the messily drawn doodles on a notebook before I broke down. She would draw little comic strips. Stories that didn’t make sense sometimes but did for her. A rabbit looking for a carrot, and the carrot ends up on a spaceship without the rabbit in it.
They always made me wonder and imagine the world through her eyes.
But this time, I find comfort in the ghostly remains in this room.
The assortment of lipsticks, the blushes, the mascara bottles all neatly placed beside one another. I sit at her vanity, the edges of the oval mirror in front of me covered with fake ivy intertwining between the gaps of the Syrian arabesque frame. She even had little lights put on either side to create a soft glow. I turn them on, marveling at the way it creates a certain feel in the room. This vanity and mirror were part of her bridal gifts, shipped all the way from Arwad.
The wood is Syrian, she said brushing the top.It’s a part of home here. We had a brilliant carpenter in the village, and my aunt commissioned it from him.
I’ve always thought it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
She’d put me and Amal side by side when we were kids. We’d smear lipstick outside the lines of our lips and apply too much rouge to our cheeks.
There are blessings in this vanity, girls, she said, watching our reflections with a secret smile. There were tired lines on her face, but her eyes twinkled like all the stars in the sky.You’ll always find them here because it’s home. That’s what my aunt said.
Mama, there is no such thing as magic, Amal said, frowning.
Not in the way you’re thinking, was all Mama said, but I held on to those words. To the stories she told us about her family. When I drew and painted, it was a blessing, making things that weren’t there appear. Making the colors dance.
