A Very Large Expanse of Sea(62)



I didn’t.

On New Year’s Eve I sat in the living room with my dad, who was reading a book. My dad was always reading. He read before work in the mornings and every evening before bed. I often thought he had the mind of a mad genius and the heart of a philosopher. I was staring at him that night, and staring into a cold cup of tea, thinking.

“Baba,” I said.

“Hmm?” He turned a page.

“How do you know if you’ve done the right thing?”

My dad’s head popped up. He blinked at me and closed his book. Removed his glasses. He looked me in the eye for only a moment before he said, in Farsi, “If the decision you’ve made has brought you closer to humanity, then you’ve done the right thing.”

“Oh.”

He watched me for a second, and I knew he was saying, without speaking, that I could tell him what was on my mind. But I wasn’t ready. I still wasn’t ready. So I pretended to misunderstand.

“Thanks,” I said. “I was just wondering.”

He tried to smile. “I’m sure you’ve done the right thing,” he said.

But I didn’t think I had.





33

Thirty-Three

We went back to school on a Thursday, my heart lodged firmly in my throat, but Ocean wasn’t there. He didn’t show up for either of the classes we had together. I didn’t know if he’d gone to school that day, because I never saw him, and I suddenly worried that maybe he’d transferred classes. I couldn’t blame him if he had, of course, but I’d been hoping for a glimpse of him. Of his face.

School was, otherwise, anticlimactic. I’d become a photoshopping error, and our two weeks away on break had given everyone some kind of amnesia. No one cared about me anymore. There was new gossip now, gossip that didn’t concern me or my life. As far as I could tell, Ocean had been returned to his former status. There was no longer any need to panic, as I’d been surgically removed from his life.

Everything was fine.

People went back to ignoring me in the way they always had.

I was sitting under my tree when I saw that girl again.

“Hey,” she said. Her long brown hair was tied up into a ponytail this time, but she was still unmistakably the same girl who told me I was a terrible person.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to say hi to her.

“Yes?”

“Can I sit down?” she said.

I raised an eyebrow, but I said okay.

We were both silent for a minute.

Finally, she said, “I’m really sorry about what happened. With that picture. With Ocean.” She was sitting cross-legged on the grass, leaning against my tree, and staring out toward the quad in the distance. “That must’ve been really awful.”

“I thought you said I was a terrible person.”

She looked at me, then. “People in this town are so racist. Sometimes it’s really hard to live here.”

I sighed. Said, “Yeah. I know.”

“I kind of couldn’t believe it when you showed up,” she said, and she was looking away again. “I saw you on the first day of school. I couldn’t believe you were brave enough to wear hijab here. No one else does.”

I broke off a blade of grass. Folded it in half. “I’m not brave,” I said to her. “I’m scared all the time, too. But whenever I think about taking it off, I realize my reasons have to do with how people treat me when I’m wearing it. I think, it would be easier, you know? So much easier. It would make my life easier not to wear it, because if I didn’t wear it, maybe people would treat me like a human being.”

I broke off another blade of grass. Tore it into tiny pieces.

“But that seems like such a shitty reason to do something,” I said. “It gives the bullies all the power. It would mean they’d succeeded at making me feel like who I was and what I believed in was something to be ashamed of. So, I don’t know,” I said. “I keep wearing it.”

We were both quiet again.

And then—

“It doesn’t make a difference, you know.”

I looked up.

“Taking it off,” she said. “It doesn’t make a difference.” She was staring at me now. Her eyes were full of tears. “They still treat me like I’m garbage.”

She and I became friends after that. Her name was Amna. She invited me to have lunch with her and her friends, and I was genuinely grateful for the offer. I told her I’d look for her around school tomorrow. I thought maybe I’d ask her to go to the movies sometime. Hell, I might even pretend to give a shit about the SATs when she was around.

It sounded nice.

I saw Ocean for the first time the next day.

I’d gotten to the dance room a little early, and I was waiting outside for Navid to arrive with the key when Yusef showed up.

“So this is where the magic happens, huh?” Yusef was smiling at me again. He was a big smiler. “I’m excited.”

I laughed. “I’m glad you like it,” I said. “Not many people even know what breakdancing is, which is kind of heartbreaking. Navid and I have been obsessed with it for, I don’t know, forever.”

“That’s really cool,” he said, but he was smiling at me like I’d said something funny. “I like how much you like it.”

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