A Very Large Expanse of Sea(23)

“Are you Muslim?” I asked.

He nodded. “Hey, why were you about to step on me?”

“Oh,” I said, and felt suddenly awkward. “I usually sit here during lunch. I just didn’t see you.”

“Oh, my bad,” he said, looking back at the tree. “I didn’t realize this was someone’s spot. I was catching up on some homework before class. Needed a quiet place to work.”

“The library is pretty reliable for that sort of thing,” I said.

He laughed, but didn’t offer to explain why he’d bypassed the library. Instead, he said, “Are you Syrian?”

I shook my head.

“Turkish?”

I shook my head again. I got this a lot. There was something about my face, apparently, that made it so people never really knew where to place me on the map. “I’m Persian.”

“Oh,” he said, his eyebrows high. “Cool, cool. I’m Lebanese.”

I nodded, unsurprised. In my experience, the hottest Middle Eastern guys were always Lebanese.

“Anyway,” he said, and took a deep breath. “It was nice to meet you.”

“You too,” I said. “I’m Shirin.”

“Shirin,” he said, and smiled. “Nice. Well, I hope I see you again sometime. I’m Yusef.”

“Okay,” I said, which was kind of a stupid thing to say, but I didn’t really notice in the moment. “Bye.”

He waved and walked away and I was not too proud to watch him go. He was wearing a tight sweater that did little to hide the fact that he had the body of an athlete.

Damn. I was really beginning to like this school.

Bio was my last class of the day. I was expecting to see Ocean, but he never showed up. I dropped my bag on the floor and looked around the classroom. I sat in my seat and felt distracted. When we were sent to our lab stations, I cut into my soggy cat and couldn’t stop wondering where he was. I even worried, for a second, that something bad might’ve happened. But there was nothing to be done about it.

When the bell rang, I headed to practice.

“So I heard you cut class today,” was the first thing my brother said to me.

Shit.

I’d almost forgotten about that. “Who told you I cut class?”

“Mr. Jordan.”

“What?” Outrage, again. “Why? How do you two even know each other?”

Navid just shook his head. He almost laughed. “Mr. Jordan is our supervisor for the breakdancing club.”

“Of course he is.” Cool Teacher Mr. Jordan would’ve jumped at the chance to supervise a breakdancing club. Of course.

“He said he was worried about you. He said you got upset during class and ran out without a word.” Navid paused. Leveled me with a look. “He said you ran off with some dude.”

“What?” I frowned. “First of all, I didn’t run out of class. And second of all, I didn’t leave with some dude. He followed me out.”

“Whatever,” Navid said. “What’s going on here? You’re ditching class? Running off campus with random guys? Am I going to have to kick the shit out of someone tomorrow?”

I rolled my eyes. Carlos, Bijan, and Jacobi were watching our conversation with great fascination and I was annoyed with all of them. “Mr. Jordan was being an asshole,” I said. “He forced me and this other guy to stare at each other in front of the whole class, and then he told the guy to say, out loud, exactly what he was thinking when he looked at me.”

“And?” My brother crossed his arms. “So what?”

I looked at him, surprised. “What do you mean, so what? What do you think happened? It was humiliating.”

Navid dropped his arms. “What do you mean it was humiliating?”

“I mean it was horrible. He said I looked like nothing. That I basically didn’t even exist.” I waved a frustrated hand. “Whatever. It sounds stupid now, I know, but it really hurt my feelings. So I walked out.”

“Damn,” Navid said quietly. “So I really do have to kick the shit out of someone tomorrow.”

“You don’t have to kick the shit out of anyone,” I said, and slumped down on the floor. “It’s fine. I think I might just drop the class. There’s still time.”

“I don’t think so.” Navid shook his head at me. “I’m pretty sure you missed the window. You can still withdraw, but it’ll show up on your transcript like that, which m—”

“I don’t give a damn about my transcript,” I said, irritated.

“Okay,” he said, holding up his hands. “Okay.” My brother looked at me, genuinely sympathetic, for all of five seconds before he suddenly frowned. “Wait, I don’t understand one thing—why would you ditch class with a guy who thinks you don’t exist?”

I shook my head. Sighed. “Different guy,” I said.

Navid raised his eyebrows. “Different guy?” He glanced at his friends. “You three hearing this shit? She says it was a different guy.”

Carlos laughed.

“These kids grow up fast,” Jacobi said.

Bijan grinned at me and said, “Damn, girl.”

“Oh my God,” I said, squeezing my eyes closed. “Shut up, all of you. You’re being ridiculous.”