A Very Large Expanse of Sea(11)

I didn’t like it. It made me feel weird.

So I tried to keep things simple.

jujehpolo: Why don’t we just do the homework?

Another ten seconds.

riversandoceans04: Okay

And we did.

But I felt something change between us, and I had no idea what it was.





5

Five

The next morning, my brother, who had a zero period and always left for school an hour before I did, stopped by my room to borrow the Wu-Tang CD I’d stolen from him. I’d been putting on mascara when he started knocking on my door, and he was now demanding I give him back not only his CD but his iPod, too, and I was shouting back that his iPod was far more useful to me during the school day then it had ever been for him, and I was still making this argument when I opened the door and he suddenly froze. He looked me up and down and his eyes widened, just a little.

“What?” I said.

“Nothing.”

I let him inside. I gave him the CD he was looking for. He kept looking at me.

“What?” I said again, irritated.

“Nothing,” he said, and laughed. “You look nice.”

I raised an eyebrow. This was a trick.

“New outfit?”

I looked down at what I was wearing. My sweater wasn’t new. But I’d bought these jeans from the thrift store last week and had just finished altering them. They’d been a few sizes too big for me, but the quality of the denim was too good to pass up. Besides, they’d only cost me fifty cents. “Sort of,” I said. “The jeans are new.”

He nodded. “Well, they’re nice.”

“Yeah. Okay,” I said. “Why are you being weird?”

He shrugged. “I’m not being weird,” he said. “The jeans are nice. They’re just, uh, really tight. I’m not used to seeing you in pants like that.”

“Gross.”

“Hey, listen, I don’t care. They look good on you.”

“Uh-huh.”

“No, I mean it. They look nice.” He was still smiling.

“Oh my God, what?”

“Nothing,” he said for the third time. “I just, you know, I don’t think Ma is going to like seeing your ass in those jeans.”

I rolled my eyes. “Well she doesn’t have to look at my ass if she doesn’t want to.”

Navid laughed. “It’s just—sometimes what you wear doesn’t really match, you know? It’s a little confusing.” He gestured, vaguely, at my head, even though I hadn’t put on my scarf yet. Still, I knew what he was trying to say. I knew he was trying not to be judgmental. But the conversation irritated me.

People—and often guys—liked to say that Muslim women wore headscarves because they were trying to be demure, or because they were trying to cover up their beauty, and I knew that there were ladies in the world who felt that way. I couldn’t speak for all Muslim women—no one could—but it was a sentiment with which I fundamentally disagreed. I didn’t believe it was possible to hide a woman’s beauty. I thought women were gorgeous no matter what they wore, and I didn’t think they owed anyone an explanation for their sartorial choices. Different women felt comfortable in different outfits.

They were all beautiful.

But it was only the monsters who forced women to wear human potato sacks all day that managed to make headline news, and these assholes had somehow set the tone for all of us. No one even asked me the question anymore; people just assumed they knew the answer, and they were nearly always wrong. I dressed the way I did not because I was trying to be a nun, but because it felt good—and because it made me feel less vulnerable in general, like I wore a kind of armor every day. It was a personal preference. I definitely didn’t do it because I was trying to be modest for the sake of some douchebag who couldn’t keep his dick in his pants. People struggled to believe this, because people struggled to believe women in general.

It was one of the greatest frustrations of my life.

So I shoved Navid out of my room and told him it was none of his business what my ass looked like in my jeans and he said, “No, I know—that’s not what I meant—”

“Don’t make it weird,” I said, and closed the door in his face.

After he left, I looked in the mirror.

The jeans were nice.

The days continued to dissolve, and quietly.

Aside from breakdancing, pretty much nothing had changed except that Ocean was suddenly different around me in bio. He’d been different ever since that first, and only, AIM conversation we’d had, over two weeks ago.

He talked too much.

He was always saying things like Wow, the weather is so weird today and How was your weekend? and Hey, did you study for the quiz on Friday? and it surprised me, every single time. I’d glance at him for only a second and say Yeah, the weather is weird and Um, my weekend was fine and No, I didn’t study for the quiz on Friday and he’d smile and say I know, right? and That’s nice and Really? I’ve been studying all week and I’d usually ignore him. I never asked him a follow-up question.

Maybe I was being rude, but I didn’t care.

Ocean was a really good-looking guy, and I know this doesn’t sound like a valid reason to dislike someone, but it was reason enough for me. He made me nervous. I didn’t want to talk to him. I didn’t want to get to know him. I didn’t want to like him, which was harder than you’d think, because he was very likable. Falling for someone like Ocean, I knew, would only end badly for me. I didn’t want to embarrass myself.