A Very Large Expanse of Sea(13)

He shook his head.

I stared at him.

Finally, he took a deep breath. “You really weren’t kidding,” he said. “About the breakdancing thing.”

I laughed. Looked at him incredulously. “You thought I would lie about something like that?”

“No,” he said, but he seemed suddenly uncertain. “I just, I don’t know. I didn’t know.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Are these your friends?” Ocean said. He was staring at Jacobi, who was shooting me a look that said Who’s the guy? and What’s going on? all at the same time.

“Sort of,” I said.

“That’s cool.”

“Yeah.” I was so confused. “Um, I should go.”

Ocean nodded. Stood up straighter. “Yeah, me too.”

We said awkward goodbyes. As soon as he was out of sight, I closed the door.

Jacobi was the only one who noticed me talking to Ocean that day, and when he asked me about it, I said it was nothing, just a kid from class who needed something. I wasn’t even sure why I lied about it.

I was totally perplexed.





6

Six

Things in my life began to find a rhythm.

I was settling into a new routine in this town, and my anxieties about being friendless at school were beginning to fade. I was no longer a shock to the system; instead, I’d become a regular fixture at school, one that most of my classmates could now comfortably ignore. People still enjoyed referring to me as the Taliban as I walked by, and every once in a while I’d find an anonymous note in my locker telling me to fuck off back to where I came from, and occasionally someone would take the time to point out that towelheads like me didn’t deserve to live in their country—but I tried not to let it bother me. I tried to get used to it. I’d heard somewhere that people could get used to anything.

Luckily, breakdancing kept me busy in the best possible way.

I loved everything about it: the music, the moves, even the history. Breakdancing started back in the 1970s in the South Bronx, New York, and slowly, over time, made its way across the country to Los Angeles. It was an iteration, a simultaneous arm and evolution of hip-hop, and, coolest of all—it was originally used as an alternative to physical violence. In their fights over territories, gangs would have breakdancing battles to determine ownership—and that’s why the term battle still exists today. Breaking crews don’t compete; they battle. Each crew member delivers a performance.

Best b-boy—or b-girl—wins.

I threw myself into the work, hitting the gym nearly every day. When we didn’t have access to the school’s dance studio we’d break down oversize cardboard boxes in abandoned streets and parking lots, set up a boom box, and practice. Navid would drag me out of bed way too early on weekend mornings to do ten-mile runs with him. We started training together, regularly. Breakdancing involved extremely taxing physical work, but it was work that filled me with joy and purpose. In fact, I was so focused on this new life outside of school—and so tired after practice every day—that I hardly had time to be angry about all the assholes littered everywhere.

The educational aspect of school was pretty boring.

I’d figured out a long time ago how to get As without trying; my secret to success was that I genuinely didn’t care. I felt no pressure to perform, so I usually did fine. I’d stopped caring about school a few years ago, right around the time I was old enough to realize that caring about a school—its teachers, its students, its walls and doors and many hallways—nearly always ended in heartbreak. So I just stopped. I stopped remembering things. People. Faces. In time, the institutions and their many names all blurred together. Mrs. Someone was my first grade teacher. Mr. Whatsisname taught third grade. Who knew.

I was required by law and the wooden spoon my mom liked to whoop my ass with to show up every day, so I did. I showed up, I did the work, I dealt with the dependable, unrelenting microaggressions from the masses that influenced the emotional weather patterns of my day. I didn’t stress about getting into a good college because I already knew I couldn’t afford to go to a good college. I didn’t stress about AP classes because I didn’t think of them as any different from regular classes. I didn’t stress about the SATs because who gave a shit about the SATs. Not me.

I don’t know, I guess I always thought I’d turn out okay, no matter how badly my many schools tried to mutilate me. And I held on to that feeling every day. Two and a half more years, I thought. Just two and a half more years until I could get the hell away from this existence organized by school bells that, let’s be honest, didn’t even ring.

They beeped.

This was what I was thinking as I peeled another layer of soggy cat flesh away from soggy cat muscle. I was thinking about how much I hated this. How I was already anxious to get into the gym again. I was getting better at holding the crab pose now—I’d almost managed to hold my body weight up on my elbows yesterday—and I wanted to see if I’d make more progress this afternoon. I was headed to my first live breakdancing battle this weekend, and I wanted to feel like I knew something when I got there.

I finished my shift with the cat and peeled off my gloves, tossing them into the trash before washing my hands—for good measure—in our lab station’s sink. So far, our discoveries had been underwhelming, which was how I liked them. One of the groups in our class discovered that the cat they’d been dissecting had died pregnant; they’d found a litter of unborn kittens in her uterus.