His jaw flexes, and then he stands, pacing around for a minute. “There’s—I want your help.”
“Yes?”
“I think—no, I do. Iwant—” He goes quiet, and pink smatters all over his cheeks.
“Jamie, what is going on?”
He looks away from me, training his eyes on the floor. “I want—I want to become Muslim.”
Forest Green
I don’t move, notquite understanding the words he’s saying.
He finally looks up at me, eyes wide. There is more than anxiety happening behind his eyes, and there’s a determination in the angles of his face. Still, I can see these words terrify him.
“Wh-what?” I ask.
He clears his throat. “I’ve been thinking about it for so long.Waybefore I met you. And I’ve researched and read people’s experiences, and it just clicked with me. I just—I liked what I read, so I researched more.”
My breaths come in and out in short puffs. “I—what?”
His shoulders slump, and the red deepens on his cheeks. “I thought you’d be happy. I thought—” He looks away, one hand covering his face, angling away from me.
“No,” I say quickly. “No, no, I am. I just—are you sure?”
He turns toward me, and there’s no more frenzy in his expression.
“I’m sure,” he says steadily. “This isn’t a decision I made overnight. I told you I was raised Confucian, and there’s so much I like about it. The ideologies are something I believe in. I think everyone would agree on them. To live as a good person. But I always wondered aboutthis universe. How things came to be and what happens after. You know if the percentage of oxygen was one degree higher, we’d all burn? And if it was lower, we’d suffocate.”
His voice becomes dreamlike. “So I started looking a long, long time ago. In ninth grade, we had a project on different countries and their histories. I got Algeria but somehow fell into a research hole going through different Muslim countries. I watched videos of mothers from Bosnia and Iraq and how they were after their children died in genocides. Their steel strength mixed with the grief. I read stories of people who lost everything, but they kept saying alhumdulilah.” He looks at me to check the pronunciation, and I nod. “Algeria is called the country of the million and a half martyrs. I wanted to know why. To find out about these people who didn’t just die for their country but for their religion as well. And it’s the same in every Muslim country.” He goes quiet, staring faraway. “It made my world bigger, you know? I’ve never believed in anything this fiercely. I want to. I looked more into Islam. I saw so many similarities with what Confucianism believes in.”
He takes in a deep breath, closing his eyes for a second. “Bà Ngo?i raised me to think for myself. She never forced me to practice the way she does, but she would let me decide. And I always joined her. I liked how it brought us closer. You know there are Vietnamese Muslims? Not just converts but a whole ethnic minority community called Cham. I mean, there are Cham who practice Hinduism, but the Muslim Cham are Muslim. They’re both Vietnamese and Muslim.” He swallows hard. “I was… worried being Muslim would replace being Vietnamese, but that’s not a thing. I am both. I mean, Icanbe both.”
He glances at me, his Adam’s apple dipping. It’s as if someone has raised the contrast because all the colors come back full force for one glorious minute. I see the striations the green makes, the slow heartbeat of the red, the endless horizon of the blue. The yellow in his hair that reminds me of dandelions, and his brown eyes that reflect the sunlight to create an amber shade. And that sunrise-orange color ofhis. He’s incredibly beautiful in this moment. I realize I’ve always seen him as gorgeous; I just never put the thought into words.
My breath vanishes. I stand, reaching out a hand toward the colors, and they wash me whole in all the hues.
“Jihad?” Jamie asks.
I blink, distracted. “Don’t you see it?” I ask in a hushed voice.
He looks around. “What?”
“The colors.”
Realization dawns on him. “What do you see?”
I try to capture every second of this. “Everything. Some are so bright. Others so deep. I see every little change in them. The brown wood on that easel isn’t just one color. It’s many different shades. But every main color flows differently. Like musical notes.” I tear my gaze away from them to look at him. He’s watching with me an expression I don’t really know what to call. But it’s soft and gentle, and it’s been so long since someone looked at me like that. “I can see you. All of you.”
He smiles. “What’s my color?”
My heart stutters. “Orange. Like the sunrise.”
His eyes light up. “What do you see?”
“It’s red in your heart and soul but branches out into orange. It’s a rich shade. I’ve only seen it once during the summer. A sunrise, and my whole room was bathed in orange. It was so warm.”
His lips part, and he takes a step toward me.
