As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow (38)

I chew my tongue. “It’s not.”

“How can you be so sure? You, the most paranoid person I know.”

I sit on my bed, putting on my warmest socks. The cold evening has already seeped through the cracks in our walls and into our bones. “I’ve seen proof of the survivors. He has photos and videos of them in Europe. It’s not a scam. If everyone were dying then no one would be taking the boats.”

That’s not true and I know it, but I’d rather Layla believe the lie.

“I still don’t like it,” she says stoutly.

“Neither do I, Layla, but we need to leave,” I repeat weakly. Because if we don’t, then what I did today was for nothing. I shattered my Hippocratic oath. Muddied my moral compass and snapped its arrow. Samar’s and Ahmad’s faces flash in my mind. I can’t stand seeing another broken child. The scars on my hands begin to tingle and I rub them. This is all just in my mind. I know it. The guilt is manifesting into a phantom pain.

“I want to leave,” I add quietly. Low enough for Layla to pretend she doesn’t hear me. But she does. She takes my hands in hers. Her touch is soft, and the pain vanishes.

“I can’t save them,” I continue to whisper, staring at our joined hands. In my room, I feel safe spilling my thoughts. There’s no one to judge me. Only my sister is here. “I couldn’t save a little boy. I couldn’t…” I shudder in a breath, pushing down a sob. “Everyone is dying. Nothing I do works. My brain hurts. I haven’t slept well in over a year. I feel like I’m screaming into an abyss that just swallows everything up. Soon enough it will swallow me too.”

I look up and Layla lets go of my hands to brush my hair back. She shakes her head, smiling gently. “It won’t swallow you.”

I give her a watery smile. “You have more faith in me than I do. Layla, I miss doing nothing. The days when I would just lie in bed watching movies. Or when we’d talk on the phone for hours. Remember those?”

She nods. “The dictatorship aged us all even before the revolution started. But now I feel like I’m about ninety years old.”

“Wish I felt ninety. I look about a thousand,” I scoff.

Layla gives me a pointed look. “No you don’t.”

I shrug and fiddle with my sleeves. “So which necklace do you want to give him? I’m thinking the one with the bow in the middle.”

Her nose wrinkles. “I don’t care about the necklace. Choose whichever you want. Nothing is worth more than you and Baby Salama.”

Her tone drips with sadness. I don’t like it. I want to bring back some of the easiness we’re owed; an escape from the ever-creeping melancholy. So I say, “Kenan walked me home today.”

She gasps. “What? And you didn’t lead with that!”

Bingo.

She holds my face in her hands, forcing me to look up.

“Kenan,” she says solemnly, staring me in the eyes, and my face instantly becomes hot.

“Ha!” she exclaims. “You like him!”

I wrench away from her grasp. “Excuse you? I have never in my life—wow, you—like you even know—shut up!”

She falls on my bed, grinning. “Look at your face! It’s a ripe tomato.”

“It’s not,” I retort, running to the mirror all the same. I look petrified but not in an I’m-about-to-die way.

“I’ve never seen you so nervous.” She laughs, letting her hair fall from her scrunchie completely and running a hand through it. “Even at university with that cute guy from dentistry.”

I groan and flop onto the bed beside her. She looks down at me with a twinkle in her eyes.

“No, wait, I remember his name. Sami.” She taps a finger against her chin. “He liked you.” She rests her head against her palm. “And you quite liked him. But not like this, young Salama. No, your heart was waiting for Kenan, wasn’t it?”

I hug my pillow over my head, and she laughs.

“Embrace the feelings,” she sings.

“Even if I had them,” I say, my voice muffled against the pillow, “nothing would happen. He wants to stay here. I want to leave.”

I feel Layla getting up and peek under the pillow at her. She doesn’t look troubled at all. Instead, there’s a knowing look on her face.

“A lot can happen between now and when we leave.” She twirls around the room. “A lot of what ifs and maybes and mights.”

She stops and clutches a hand over her heart. The dusk throws shades of orange and pink on her and she looks ethereal in the soft glow. Like she has one foot in the afterlife and one foot here.

“Feelings give you hope, Salama.” She smiles. “Don’t you think we could use a bit of that now?”

I nod.

“So.” Her blue eyes are luminous. “Do you like him?”

I play with the hem of my sweater. “The circumstances aren’t exactly screaming romance, Layla!”

She flicks my nose.

“Ow! What did you do that for?”

“What did I say?” she demands. “I said, feelings give you hope. There’s nothing wrong with finding comfort amid what’s happening, Salama.”

I rub my nose. “Say I did like him. Our choices are limited. Where would we go, Layla? Stroll around the destroyed market? Or maybe go outside Old Homs, dodge bullets to the Orontes River, and have a picnic by its bank? Plus, we don’t have a chaperone! My parents and Hamza aren’t here.”