A Very Large Expanse of Sea(22)

Finally, he said: “So you’re trying to tell me that what I said was stupid, huh? I only just got that.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m sorry. I’m usually more direct.”

And he laughed. He looked away. Looked back at me. “Am I making this weird? Should I stop asking you these questions?”

“No, no.” I shook my head. Smiled, even. “No one ever asks me these questions. I like that you ask. Most people just assume they know what I’m thinking.”

“Well, I have no idea what you’re thinking. Like, ever.”

“Right now,” I said, “I’m thinking you’re so much ballsier than I thought you’d be. I’m kind of impressed.”

“Wait, what do you mean, than you thought I’d be?”

I couldn’t help it, I was suddenly laughing. “Like, I don’t know. When I first met you? You seemed really—timid,” I said. “Kind of terrified.”

“Well, to be fair, you’re kind of terrifying.”

“Yeah,” I said, sobered in an instant. “I know.”

“I don’t mean”—he shook his head, laughed—“I don’t mean because of your scarf or your religion or whatever. I just mean I don’t think you see yourself the way other people do.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “I’m pretty sure I know how other people see me.”

“Maybe some people,” he said. “Yeah. I’m positive there are horrible people in the world. But there are a lot of other people who are looking at you because they think you’re interesting.”

“Well I don’t want to be interesting,” I said. “I don’t exist to fascinate strangers. I’m just trying to live. I just want people to be normal around me.”

Ocean wasn’t looking at me when he said, quietly, “I have no idea how anyone is supposed to be normal around you. I can’t even be normal around you.”

“What? Why not?”

“Because you’re crazy intimidating,” he said. “And you don’t even see it. You don’t look at people, you don’t talk to people, you don’t seem to care about anything most kids are obsessed with. I mean, you show up to school looking like you just walked out of a magazine and you think people are staring at you because of something they saw on the news.”

I went suddenly still.

My heart seemed to speed up and slow down. I didn’t know what to say, and Ocean wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“Anyway,” he said. He cleared his throat. I noticed he’d gone pink around the ears. “So you went to twelve different schools?”

I nodded.

“Damn.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It sucked. Continues to suck.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I mean, it doesn’t suck right now,” I said, staring at our feet. “Right now it’s not so bad.”

“No?”

I glanced up. He was smiling at me.

“No,” I said. “Right now it’s not bad at all.”





12

Twelve

Ocean and I split up for lunch.

I think he might’ve joined me, if I’d asked, but I didn’t ask. I didn’t know what he did for lunch, who his friends were, what his social obligations might be, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know yet. At the moment, I just wanted space to process our conversation. I wanted space to figure out what to do about Mr. Jordan’s class. I wanted time to get my brain on straight. I was no longer hungry, thanks to the stack of pancakes I’d eaten at IHOP, so I headed straight to my tree.

This had been my solution to the lonely lunchtime problem. I’d grown tired of both the bathroom and the library, and enough time had passed that I no longer felt too self-conscious about eating alone. This school had a couple of green spaces, and I’d picked one at random to make my own. I chose a tree. I sat under it, leaning against the trunk. I ate food if I was hungry; but mostly I wrote in my journal or read a book.

Today, I was late.

And someone else was sitting under my tree.

I hadn’t been looking at people, as was my unfortunate habit, so I hadn’t noticed the person sitting under my tree until I nearly stepped on him.

He shouted.

I jumped back. Startled. “Oh,” I said, “Oh my God, I’m sorry.”

He stood up, frowned, and I took one real look at his face and just about fell over. He was, wow, he was possibly the most good-looking guy I’d ever seen. He had warm brown skin and hazel eyes and he looked distinctly Middle Eastern. I had, like, a Spidey-sense for that sort of thing. He was also clearly not a sophomore, whoever he was; he was maybe my brother’s age.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hey,” he said back. He was looking curiously at me. “You new here?”

“Yeah. I transferred in this year.”

“Wow, cool,” he said. “We don’t get a lot of hijabis in these parts. That’s pretty brave,” he said, nodding at my head.

But I was distracted. I never thought I’d hear any kid at this school use the word hijab so casually. Hijab was the word for a headscarf in Arabic. Hijabis was a sort of colloquial term some people used to describe girls who wore hijab. There had to be a reason he knew that.