Love from A to Z(28)

I imagined walking into it, like walking into a snow globe, and being immersed in the installation. Becoming a part of it.

The jar had given me this idea. When I’d wanted to go back home to Ottawa so badly, Mom had brought a little of Ottawa to me.

Imagine if I transformed this room into the place where someone would want to escape to?

? ? ?

As I painted the ceiling cobalt blue, standing on a ladder, the phone in my pocket vibrated with another message.

Zayneb?

I couldn’t look at it. Her message. Her messages.

There was something about her that drew me in so quickly and intensely.

A few things, really.

For example, her bravery at the saluki shelter yesterday.

I can’t believe that I hadn’t figured out she was scared of dogs. Hanna told me she’d thought so when we were returning from Ariel’s pen. “I saw her face when Ariel was running around. She was standing back there shaking. I think she’s just doing this for us. Visiting the shelter with us.”

And sure enough, when we got out into the foyer, I noticed the change in Zayneb. She was a completely different person from the one who’d been in the room with Ariel. She was relaxed, smiling.

She’d swallowed her fear to accompany us. Whoa.

And then, on the ride back to drop her off after the shelter, I got that tingling sensation I’d been getting on and off since September. Up my arms and legs, like tiny shocks were running through, the tingling that had forced me go to the doctor in early November. Paresthesia.

I’d concentrated on looking out the window, on giving no sign to Dad that something was happening inside me.

The feeling left me before we neared Ms. Raymond’s building. Zayneb’s drop-off.

Then I got to thinking: Was there any use? Of just hanging around with her? When it wouldn’t come to anything?

I couldn’t even say a word to her when she got out of the car.

I was trying hard not to so obviously shake off the sensations that had just invaded my body minutes before.

She’d stood there for a bit, then looked up at me and waited a few seconds before saying salaam.

And I’d thought, No.

It isn’t the time to begin something with someone so interesting.

Someone so cute who I am completely attracted to.

Her eyes when she speaks excitedly are captivating, hard to tear away from. And the way she keeps rearranging her lips when she’s listening. Like she wants to open them to speak but is still making up her mind on what she wants to say.

I could look at her all day.

Add to this how frank and open and sure she is, and there, just like that, she had a hold on me.

That’s exactly why I need to avoid her. I was getting drawn so fast and so hard that I was forgetting the things I had going on, the things I had to deal with.

I’d just stood there yesterday, grim, muttering a salaam. Steeling myself within, closing the door.

Bye, this girl I met on a plane who showed up at my house, who showed up in my heart.

There’s nothing ahead for us and nothing comes out of wishing it weren’t so.

I’m pragmatic that way, have always been so, through everything. Including Mom’s passing.

I guess you could call it my survival mechanism.

The dull ache spreading behind my forehead reminds me I need some of that pragmatism to transfer to dealing with my illness, too.

? ? ?

After spurts of the phone buzzing on and off, things completely stopped, and it became silent while I painted the entire ceiling blue and the walls a white base.

Then the door opened.

Connor stood there. “The cleaning lady let me in. Where were you, bro?”

I put the paint roller in its tray and wiped my hands on the old T-shirt I had on. “That was you messaging?”

“Incessantly.” He looked around at the room. “What’s this? Guest bedroom?”

“No.” I kept my answer simple. None of the other guys understood that I liked to make stuff. They got it when I showed them something cool I’d made, but this sort of stuff? That was actually art? They wouldn’t be on board. Except maybe Tsetso, who did digital drawings.

“We’re meeting for lunch, then catching a movie. At Villaggio, like old times.”

“Gotta finish in here.”

“Come on, Adam.” He carefully tested the door trim for wet paint before leaning on it. “You gotta come out with us. Tsetso’s leaving on Friday, and he’s got a bunch of family stuff, so today’s it for him.”

“I’ll go over to his place tomorrow or something.” I moved the roller in the paint tray, avoiding his eyes.

“Okay, I’m staying here then to help you so you can come too. I’ll just tell the other guys we’ll meet up later.” He crossed his arms.

I looked at him. Connor is the kind of guy you can’t stand, because of his know-it-all, wisecracking ways, but then you just put up hanging around with—because, behind the bravado, he has a strange, deep well of concern for others. That he is okay openly expressing.

“Are you doing this because of today?” I asked. “Because of my mom?”

“Yup. You’re not going to be here on your own.”

“What if I need to be on my own?”

“Then be on your own tonight.” He cracked a smile. “When your dad and Hanna get home.”