A Girl Like That(73)

“I don’t know if I’m capable of loving anyone,” I said honestly. “I like you, Porus. I like you a lot. But love … I’ve never done it before. I don’t even know if I have it in me.” I was scooped out.

Porus’s grip tightened on the steering wheel. “I really want to marry you, you know. In fact, you made me a very tempting offer. But I can’t take you up on it. I want you to fall in love with me first.”

“Ha.” I rolled my eyes, but my lips curved into a smile. “You’re going to have to wait a long, long time. Maybe until I’m very old and walking with a cane. Maybe for eternity.”

“Eternity.” He laughed and my foolish heart skipped a beat. “I like the sound of that.”

There was a pause before he spoke again. “Look, why don’t you come live with me for a few days? We can talk to your aunt and uncle together.”

“Porus.” I turned to stare at him. “I can’t. Your mother won’t—”

“I’ll handle my mother,” he said firmly.

“But I don’t want to be a burden.”

“Now you’re being melodramatic.”

“I’m not!” (Okay, I was.)

Porus smirked at me. Then his face grew serious again. “Jokes aside, it’s okay to rely on other people, Zarin. You don’t always have to fight alone.”

Had another boy said the same thing, I might have dismissed this. But with Porus I knew it wasn’t pretty words and empty promises. He always meant what he said. He’d proven it to me, time and again. I studied his face for a moment longer: eyes squinting against the sun’s glare, the curved bridge of his nose, his soft lips parted in a curse for the driver ahead of him, the stubble peppering his strong chin.

I thought about what he had suggested. Not only was the idea of staying with Porus for a few days somewhat soothing, it also allowed me to imagine things that I wouldn’t have dared to days earlier. Porus wasn’t as hot-tempered as I was. Masa and Masi liked him. With his support, maybe Masa would listen to me about what had happened with Rizvi. And about everything else that was happening at school as well. Maybe they both would.

“Zarin?” Porus asked quietly.

“Okay,” I told him, feeling a little relieved even as I spoke. “Yeah, okay, I’ll stay with you. But no funny business. You’re sleeping on the couch.”

I ignored the warmth that flooded my cheeks when he smiled at me.

Then, suddenly: “What the— Why is he stopping?”

The trailer had jerked to a stop. Hazard lights blinked like a pair of yellow eyes. Porus braked—“One thousand one, one thousand two”—and came to a stop; the Nissan’s hood was a good foot away from the jutting rods.

“Phew,” Porus said, and turned to grin at me for a split second. In that moment, the driver of the car behind us lost control and slammed the Nissan’s rear end, sending us flying toward the flatbed. Iron rods broke the windshield. I screamed. There was deep pain. And then there was nothing.





THE COLLECTORS





Mishal

Four days after the accident, a classmate who lived two blocks away from Zarin said she saw a mover’s truck outside the building Zarin once lived in.

“I saw her uncle there, watching them put a heavy bed in the truck. They’re selling mostly books and clothes and some furniture. We went to have a look. The clothes were really ugly; you’d think a boy was wearing them, not her! But there was this pretty little lamp with green leaves. It was a good price too, only ten riyals. But Ammi said no. She said she didn’t want anything that once belonged to a dead girl.”

Death. An event that had made Zarin more popular than life ever could have.

“Do you think she … you know … killed herself?” Alisha Babu looked pale. “Because of what was happening?”

Because of what we did, you mean, I thought.

“And killed that boy with her?” Layla snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous. It was an accident. An accident, okay? Her aunt and uncle will probably get a lot of money out of the insurance.”

Now Layla was the one being ridiculous. But I didn’t say anything about that.

In the week after the accident, Alisha, Layla, and I met at my house after school every day under the guise of doing homework and talked about the things we knew about Zarin and the things we didn’t. “The Collectors,” Layla called us with a laugh. Which was essentially what we had become. Collectors of the news, rumors, and mysteries surrounding Zarin Wadia’s death, of the bits and pieces of information about her that seemed to be floating in from time to time like debris from an interesting shipwreck.

It was on one of these days, after one of these meetings, that I found Abdullah up in his room tossing some old magazines and newspapers into a box.

“You can come in,” he said, when he saw me lurking outside. “I don’t have anything X-rated in here, little sister.”

I stepped in. A few issues of National Geographic, Time, and Sports Illustrated, an old copy of the Saudi Gazette in which Abdullah’s letter to the editor had once appeared.

“Giving them to Father’s new charity,” he informed me. He scratched at his beard, growing darker now, fuller. The skin on his cheek came up red. “If you have some books or magazines, you can give them too.”