A Nearly Normal Family(54)

But behind these fa?ades, we’re a lot alike. I’ve always seen myself reflected in Amina. Inside, we’re the same flesh and blood. We just choose to show different things to the outside world. That’s how it works. We all have our secrets, depths and darkness few others are allowed to see. If you only dig a little deeper, it’s easy to find some scary shit in every single person. Amina is no exception.

I truly wish she had been there at confirmation camp. I honestly believe things would have turned out differently. Not just camp—everything.

The butterfly effect, it’s called. A single beat of a butterfly’s wings can have enormous consequences and affect everything that happens.

But Amina didn’t even dare to ask her parents if she could come. I’m sure her mom would have been fine with it, but her dad is Muslim. Not that I’ve ever seen him do anything related to Islam. Rather the opposite. Dino loves beer and would never get it into his head to fast or kneel facing Mecca. Plus, Allah would definitely have an opinion about the four-letter words Dino would bellow at our handball games.

But it didn’t matter; Amina wasn’t going to ask if she could come to camp. She was Muslim and it was important to say that you were Muslim even though no one really cared. Shit, at home they even ate hot dogs and ribs, but at school she always got her food “pork free.”

I’m sure Amina would have stopped me. If only she had been there, at that camp by the little lake. She would have told me what a dumb fucking idea it was. She would have shaken some sense into me, would have been all big-sistery and convinced me to stay in our room and play cards with the other confirmands.

I wouldn’t have gone with Robin if Amina had been there.

Maybe I wouldn’t be sitting here now.

Butterfly effect.



* * *



On summer vacation between seventh and eighth grades, we traveled to some Danish backwater town for a handball championship. As usual we brought home the gold and I was the top scorer. We slept on air mattresses in a sweaty, snore-filled classroom, and on two of the nights there were dances in a tent in the schoolyard.

From day one, Amina and I got stalked by a gang of Croatian guys who were a few years older, with irresistible eyes and muscular arms that made my mouth water. At first we tried playing hard to get. We ignored them or teased them, mostly because that was what we were expected to do, what all girls are always expected to do. But during our last group-stage match, they sat in the bleachers wolf-whistling every time Amina or I got the ball, and that night we followed the Croatians away from the dance. We sat in a big circle down by the beach; gulls were wheeling above the treetops and the waves washed white scum onto the sand. The guys were passing a cigarette around, and it wasn’t until it reached my hand that I realized it wasn’t a regular one.

“No strong,” Luka said in English.

His green cat eyes glittered in the dark. I had wanted him from the moment I saw him. Amina, though, had her eyes on the Croatian goalkeeper.

I took a few drags. I coughed and laughed and the voices around me grew slow and tinny, but otherwise not much happened.

As soon as the joint reached Amina, she began to squirm.

“She doesn’t want to,” I said.

Luka and the others looked at me curiously.

“You have to respect her,” I said, reaching for the joint.

An hour later I was lying on my back in a hidden hollow with Luka kissing my neck full of hickeys before he put his fingers inside me and tried to charm me with lines from porn movies.





* * *



A summer vacation. When I think back on it now, it feels like an eternity, but it really was just one summer. Our lives shifted into a higher gear and it was like the whole world opened up.

I was fourteen, and everything was an adventure. In my own eyes, I was practically an adult and certainly didn’t need any parents interfering in my life. I had more and more trouble controlling my outbursts of emotion and every day felt like a battle.

Mom mostly avoided everything, hiding out, working late, and getting headaches. But not Dad. He would go all over town to chase me down when I didn’t come home on time. I knew he went through my pockets, and every night he was standing there in the entryway like a goddamn bouncer.

“Blow,” he said, bending over so I could exhale into his face.

“Again.”

He sniffed the air like a dog and stared at me with skepticism.

“You haven’t been smoking, have you?”

The funny thing was, I’m pretty sure Dad wouldn’t have recognized the smell of weed even if you lit a spliff under his nose.

His worry wasn’t totally unfounded, though. After the Denmark trip, I’d gotten a taste for weed and soon I was lighting up every day. It rubbed out my thoughts, made me weightless and free.

Ironically enough, I was still more afraid of my mother.

“Promise not to tell Mom,” I said, holding Amina in both arms.

“I swear.”

“On the Koran?”

“On whatever book you want.”

Amina and Mom had always had a special relationship somehow, and that summer it was like they became even closer. I would come home and find them sitting in the yard, laughing at something they could never quite convince me was that funny.

I had gotten to know a group of guys from Landskrona who could get alcohol and pot. They shared everything with me and I felt more alive than ever before. One night I ran away from home and slept under the stars out on the island of Ven. I lost my virginity in a prickly bush and had a two-week relationship with a Danish guy called Mikkel.