A Very Large Expanse of Sea(14)

This was a seriously messed-up school assignment.

“Your turn,” I said, glancing at Ocean, whose attitude toward me had changed, rather dramatically, in the last week.

He’d stopped talking to me in class.

He no longer asked me generic questions about my evenings or my weekends. In fact, he’d said no more than a couple of words to me in the last few days, not since that afternoon I saw him in the dance studio. I often caught him looking at me, but then, people were always looking at me. Ocean at least had the decency to pretend he wasn’t looking at me, and he never said anything about it, for which I was secretly grateful. I much preferred silent stares to the loud assholes who told me, unprompted, exactly what they thought of me.

But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little confused.

I thought I’d had Ocean pretty figured out, but suddenly I wasn’t so sure. Aside from the unusual name, he seemed to me like an extremely ordinary boy raised by extremely ordinary parents. The kind of parents who bought canned soup, lied to their kids about Santa Claus, believed everything they read in their history books and didn’t really talk about their feelings.

My parents were the exact opposite.

I was fascinated by canned food simply because that miracle of Western invention was never allowed in my house. My parents made everything from scratch, no matter how basic; we never celebrated Christmas, except that sometimes my mom and dad took pity on us—I received a box of envelopes one year—and my parents had taught us about the atrocities of war and colonialism since before I could read. They also had no problem sharing their feelings with me. They relished it. My parents loved telling me what they felt was wrong with me—it was what they called my unfortunate attitude—all the time.

Anyway, I couldn’t really get a bead on Ocean anymore, and it bothered me that it even bothered me. His silence was what I thought I wanted; it was, in fact, exactly what I’d been working toward. But now that he really had ignored me, I couldn’t help but wonder why.

Even so, I thought his silence was for the best.

Today, though, was a little different. Today, after a twenty-minute stretch of perfect quiet, he spoke.

“Hey,” he said, “what happened to your hand?”

I’d been trying to tear open a seam in a leather jacket last night and I’d tugged a little too hard; the seam ripper slipped and sliced open the back of my left hand. I had a pretty intense bandage taped over the space between my finger and thumb. I met Ocean’s eyes. “Sewing accident,” I said.

His eyebrows pulled together. “Sewing accident? What’s a sewing accident?”

“Sewing,” I said. “Like, sewing clothes? I make a lot of my own clothes,” I said, when he didn’t seem to understand. “Or, I mean, often I’ll just buy vintage and do the alterations myself.” I lifted my hand as proof. “Either way, I’m not great at it.”

“You make your own clothes?” His eyes had widened, just a little.

“Sometimes,” I said.

“Why?”

I laughed. It was a reasonable question. “Well, uh, because the clothes I really want are out of my price range.”

Ocean only stared at me.

“Do you know anything about fashion?” I asked him.

He shook his head.

“Oh,” I said, and tried to smile. “Yeah. I guess it’s not for everyone.”

But I loved it.

Alexander McQueen’s fall line had just hit stores and, after a lot of begging, I’d convinced my mom to drive me to one of the fancy malls around here just so I could see the pieces in person. I didn’t even touch them. I just stood near them, staring.

I thought Alexander McQueen was a genius.

“So—did you do that to your shoes?” Ocean said suddenly. “Like, on purpose?”

I glanced down.

I was wearing what used to be a pair of simple white Nikes, but I’d drawn all over them. And my backpack. And my binders. It was just something I did sometimes. I’d lock myself in my room, listen to music, and draw on things. Sometimes it was random doodles, but lately I’d been experimenting with graffiti—tagging, specifically—because some tagging techniques reminded me of highly stylized Persian calligraphy. I wasn’t like Navid, though; I’d never graffitied public property. Not more than twice, anyway.

“Yeah,” I said slowly. “I did that on purpose.”

“Oh. That’s cool.”

I laughed at the look on his face.

“No, really,” he said. “I like it.”

Still, I hesitated. “Thanks.”

“You have another pair like that, too, huh?”

“Yes.” I raised an eyebrow. “How’d you know?”

“You sit in front of me,” he said. He looked me right in the eye and he almost smiled, but it looked like a question. “You’ve been sitting in front of me for two months. I stare at you every day.”

My eyes widened. And then I frowned. I didn’t even have a chance to say the words before he said— “I didn’t mean”—he shook his head, looked away—“wow, I didn’t mean that, like, I stare at you. I just meant that I see you. You know. Shit,” he said softly, and mostly to himself. “Never mind.”

I half laughed, but it sounded weird. “Okay.”