A Missing Peace

by Beth Fred

  “You’re not?”

  I shook my head.

  “Then why are you so hung up on Iraq?”

  The question about the mantilla didn’t bother me, but this irked me. “It’s my home. And Muslims are not the only people who live there.”

  “So you’re Christian?”

  I nodded.

  “But Christian girls don’t wear the scarf thing.”

  “I’m Assyrian.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Syrian Christian. Think Catholic. In fact, I go to the Catholic church because there isn’t an Assyrian church around. It’s basically the same.”

  “But when people at school call you a raghead, you never say anything.”

  I shrugged. “It’s part true. Some things are cultural for all of us, kind of like atheists here still celebrate Christmas.”

  Caleb nodded.

  The pizza came, and with it, the mood lightened. We got off the subject of my mantilla, and Caleb started cracking jokes. They weren’t very good, so I laughed at how bad they were. Once I laughed too soon and he said, “I haven’t got to the punch line yet.”

  “It’s okay. I already know it’s bad.”

  Caleb grinned and threw a piece of lettuce at me. I was having fun for the first time in I couldn’t remember how long, and tonight I was asking the questions.

  “What do you want to do after high school?”

  He grinned. “You won’t like it.”

  “Okay?”

  “I’ll probably enlist. But I haven’t signed yet. I was All-State this year, so I have a couple of big athletic scholarships my mom wants me to use instead. What about you?”

  “I want to be an engineer.” I grabbed another slice of pizza.

  “What kind?”

  “Civil. I want to build things, not destroy them.”

  “Impressive.”

  “I guess.”

  There was a game room in the back of the restaurant. Caleb and I had been so busy talking neither of us paid any attention to who might be back there, until Kailee appeared in front of our table.

  “Hi, Caleb,” she cooed without even acknowledging I was there.

  “Kailee,” he said.

  Now Kailee looked at me. “Are you the reason he had to take off so early on me Friday night?”

  I tried to hide my emotions, but I was peeved. The thought had crossed my mind that Caleb was late because he blew me off for Kevin’s party, but to have it confirmed like this flustered me. “How would I know?”

  A brunette appeared behind Kailee. I’d seen her around school, but I didn’t have any classes with her, so I didn’t know her name.

  “Are you the new girl from Iraq?” she asked.

  “I guess.”

  “I thought you talked funny,” she said.

  “Actually, I speak correctly.”

  “How did you learn English so fast?” Kailee asked.

  “Kailee,” Caleb scolded. He wasn’t really defending me, but at least he wasn’t defending her. Then again, what was there to defend me from? They were patronizing me, but they hadn’t said anything blatantly insulting. Yet.

  “I’ve spoken English since kindergarten,” I said. “I speak Aramaic and Spanish, too.”

  The brunette looked impressed, but Kailee said, “Weird. Why would you need all that in Arabia?”

  Arabia? Oh my God. “Important languages. Besides, a person has to be really dense not to want to learn beyond their needs, don’t you think?” I smiled at her.

  Kailee glared at me. “Caleb, can I talk to you?”

  “You’re doing a pretty good job of it,” he said.

  “Alone,” she snapped.

  Caleb rolled his eyes, but stood. “I’ll be back,” he said to me. He followed Kailee to the open entrance of the game room, leaving me with this brunette whose name I didn’t know.

  “They were together for six months, you know. But everyone knew they were going to get together. People had been waiting on it since junior high. He loves her.”

  “Good for him,” I said. “But when I talk about her, it never seems like it.” That last line came out more defensive than I meant for it to. Why did I care anyway? I had no interest in Caleb Miller. He was just my government partner.

  I glanced back to the entrance of the game room. Kailee had her hands on her hips, her face pointed up at Caleb, and though I couldn’t hear what she was saying, he was being scorned. Caleb’s face was blank, his hands were to his sides, and he was completely relaxed, not at all annoyed. Maybe, the nameless brunette was right. By the time they walked back toward us, Kailee seemed pacified.

  She smiled at me. “Well, we were just leaving.” She looped her arm through her friend’s. Three steps away from the table, she let out a boisterous laugh. When I looked up, she met my eyes. Kailee and her minion were laughing at me.

  Once they had left, Caleb apologized for them. Interesting, he didn’t apologize for disappearing with Kailee on me. And I waited on him for half an hour Friday night, because he was with her.

  After our encounter with Kailee, the night unraveled.

  “M, you ready to head out?” he asked.

  “My name is Mirriam.”

  Hurt flickered in his eyes. “You didn’t have a problem with it earlier.”

  “You didn’t disappear with Kailee earlier.”

  He chuckled. “She asked to talk to me. What could I do?”

  “Tell her no?”

  “Yeah, because Kailee so often takes no for an answer.”

  I shrugged. “Whatever. Let’s go.”

  When I met Caleb, he seemed like a jerk. Sometimes he was a jerk. But this was the most fun I’d had since before my life was irreversibly altered. The only person I really talked to here was a guy that blew me off two days ago to hang out with a girl who referred to me only as “raghead.”

  I shouldn’t talk to anyone. That was how I got through life in Maryland, and I could make it through life here the same way. I would finish the year. Finish the project with Caleb, keep study sessions to a minimum, and not talk or joke during them, and then be done with this place. Maybe, I could go to college in the UAE.

  “What do you think, Mirriam?” I had no idea what he was talking about. I’d been lost in my own thoughts. Before I could formulate a response to say this without telling him that, I was pulled from my thoughts by the squeal of screeching tires. A pair of headlights came right at us from a foot away.

  I grabbed Caleb’s arm and screamed as I leaped onto the curb.

  He never even saw it, and if the screaming tires caught his attention, he didn’t act like it. Caleb was six feet tall and bulky. He was a football player. I couldn’t drag him out of the way.

  I clasped his arm, tugging him to the side, when the car slammed into him. He flipped in the air and landed on the street. The car rolled over his legs and spun out of control. It hit a tree and backed up.

  Caleb lay in the road with his legs twisted like a pretzel. Blood poured into the street. I had no idea where this car was headed and doubted the driver knew. Screams and cries tore out of my throat. I hoped Caleb was alive. I couldn’t leave him in the street like this—leave him here to be hit again.

  I ran into the road and grabbed his hand. Caleb let out a low moan before screaming a string of swear words. Good. At least he’s alive.

  “I’m sorry, Caleb.” I sobbed. “This will probably hurt.”

  I closed my eyes and pulled with every ounce of strength I had. The car came toward us again, and I knew I was moving too slowly, but he weighed a ton. I couldn’t move any faster. We barely reached the edge of the curb when the car whizzed past us again.

  This time it didn’t hit us—just sped away. I pulled Caleb past the curb and onto the grass.

  “You’ll be okay. I promise,” I whispered, kneeling beside him. I took out my cell and frantically hit 9-1-1. I reported the accident, and the dispatcher asked me all kinds of stupid questions like what kind of car was it? How would I kno
w? It was pitch black. “God, my friend is hurt. He’s torn up. Can you just get someone here to help him, NOW?” I hung up on her. I didn’t have time for such nonsense. I needed help.

  I pulled Caleb’s head into my lap. When the ambulance arrived, I was sitting in the grass making Caleb talk to me, so he would stay awake, his head still in my lap. Two men loaded him on the stretcher, and I jumped in behind him. No one asked if I was coming. I just went. The men talked to each other as if I wasn’t there. I was okay with that. All I wanted was for Caleb to be all right. I heard one of the paramedics tell the other, “He’s stable,” and I knew he would be okay.

  In the back of the ambulance, I held onto Caleb’s hand and stared at his mangled body, when it hit me. This was the first friend I’d had since we left Iraq, and I stood by and watched him be pulverized.

  But the longer I stared at Caleb, his face contorted in pain, the stronger that sense of déjà vu I had the first time I saw him returned. I had seen this face somewhere before we moved to Killeen.

  Chapter 9

  Mirriam

  When they unloaded Caleb’s stretcher at the hospital, I ran along with him. As we past the nurse’s station, a short tan woman looked right at me with a horror-stricken face and fear in her eyes. Ommy rushed out of the nurse’s station. When the paramedics parked Caleb in a room, she was there beside me.

  “Mirriam?!” She asked me if I was okay in Arabic, followed by a string of other questions. I almost wondered if I was in trouble for being out with a boy after dark. But she didn’t say anything about it, just told me she was proud of me for helping him. She hugged me tight and said she had to get back to work. She glanced at Caleb and told him she would call his mom. His only response was a small nod.

  I took his cell phone out of the pocket of his jeans, and my cheeks grew warm. I had never been this close to a guy before, and Caleb did strange things to me sometimes. Things I didn’t understand, for reasons I didn’t know.

  “Mirriam?” I looked at Ommy. “You’re awfully comfortable around this young man.”

  “We need his phone. I don’t know his mom’s number.” I handed my mom the phone, and she called his mother from his contact list.

  Caleb was conscious during all this, but he randomly screamed out in pain, completely oblivious to what was going on. To make matters worse, it turned out his mother was a crisis counselor for the military base. She was talking a soldier out of suicide a town away. She couldn’t leave right then, and even if she could, it would be thirty-five minutes before she could get to the hospital.

  Caleb’s face was pale. His legs looked like a jumbo pretzel, and there was so much blood. I couldn’t leave him like that, so I stayed. I sat in the hard plastic orange chair beside his bed until his mother came. However long that might be.

  But a doctor came and kicked me out. I moved to the waiting room. I prayed he would be all right, even though I knew it wasn’t fatal. He was too conscious for that. The bleeding had stopped. Caleb would survive this. I knew that. I’d seen people survive much worse. I just hoped he would walk again.

  My brother called, and I picked up on the first ring.

  “Mirriam?” There was an urgency in his voice that wasn’t normal, a frantic sound reserved for only certain occasions. Like the day I came home covered in blood.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Where are you? I’m coming to get you?”

  “At the hospital.”

  “Oh my God. Are you okay? Mirriam, tell me you’re okay.”

  My chest tightened. Something was wrong.

  “I’m fine. What happened?”

  “Why are you at the hospital?”

  “Caleb got hit by a car, and I was with him.”

  “Thank God.” Abrahem sighed. “Is he okay?”

  “What is going on? Tell me what happened.”

  “Have you heard from Ommy?”

  “She’s here. She’s working. What’s going on?”

  “Don’t worry about it.” He clipped the call.

  I was torn. I needed go see what happened to Abrahem, but at the same time, I couldn’t leave. Caleb was here alone, and when the doctor came out of that room, he was going to need someone.

  Half an hour later, a slender brunette woman rushed up to me in the waiting room. “You must be Mirriam.”

  I stood. “Yes.”

  She grabbed me and hugged me. “Where is he? I’m sorry. I mean thank you, so much. Where is he?”

  I walked his mom to Caleb’s room. She knocked twice, but there was no answer. She opened the door. I glanced inside. Caleb’s chest rose and fell in normal patterns, but even in his sleep a pained expression covered his face.

  “Can I tell him I’m leaving?” I asked. “I won’t wake him up.”

  Mrs. Miller’s eyes watered as she nodded. “Of course, sweetheart.”

  I crossed the room to Caleb’s bed, leaned over, and gave him half a hug. “I have to go help my brother. Goodnight, Caleb.”

  As I headed for the exit, I heard my mother shriek my name and turned to face her. “You cannot tell me you’re seriously thinking of walking home in the dark after your friend got hit by a car tonight? Why were you out after dark with a boy?”

  “He’s my partner for a Government assignment.”

  “You were studying?”

  “Yes, Ommy.” I hope she believes that.

  She nodded. “Mirriam, I hope that is the entire story. I know things are different here, and kids do lots of things they shouldn’t. But you cannot forget who you are.”

  I called my brother who sounded fine now. Chipper actually.

  “Can you pick me up from the hospital?”

  “Sure.”

  “What happened earlier?”

  “It was nothing. I overreacted.”

  It was dark, so I didn’t notice. I didn’t see it until the next day. Usually, I was out of bed by eight every day of the week, but last night was a long night, so I slept until ten. I figured nearly being run down by a car was an excuse to be late for school, so I wasn’t that worried about it. After all, Killeen High’s wonder boy could vouch for me. I got up and showered, threw on some jeans and a three-quarter-sleeve shirt, grabbed my book bag, and headed out.

  Something told me Caleb wasn’t coming home for a few days. I figured I’d take the books we got to the hospital, in case he got bored. I’d hang around if he wanted me to and do my calculus while I was there.

  But when I walked outside the house, Abrahem was running a paint roller over the garage door. Before I could ask why he decided to randomly paint the garage door, the answer slapped me in the face.

  It was metallic pink, the same color as one of the two convertibles in the student parking lot. It said, ‘RAGHEADS GO HOME!’ in looped letters. The single exclamation mark at the end was dotted with a heart.

  I dropped my backpack. “Oh my God. Were you home?”

  “I came home after it happened. It’s no big deal. We already knew we weren’t wanted here.”

  “Should we call the police before you paint it?”

  Abrahem laughed. “It’s a military town. You think the police are on our side?”

  “True. But I know who did this.”

  “I don’t think it’s going to happen again. You don’t have anything to worry about.” He pushed the roller up and down.

  “What makes you think that?”

  “I just know.”

  “How?”

  He smiled. “Just do.”

  The air squeezed out of me.

  It was my fault we had to leave Iraq. Kailee Hill was out to get me, and I didn’t even know why. If we had to leave here, that would be my fault, too.

  I lost all interest in going to see Caleb. It wasn’t like I forgot about him. More like, I couldn’t breathe. I had to think. I forced myself to pull my backpack off the ground and retreated to my room, where all sorts of taunting thoughts raced through my head.

  I wondered if bumping into Kailee last night was r
eally a coincidence. It was a small town. It was possible.

  The image of Caleb and Kailee in the game room entrance the night before took root in my head—Caleb pacifying her, followed by the brunette’s words, “He loves her, you know?”

  It hit me like a ton of bricks.

  With both Ommy and Abrahem working night shifts, I should have been the only one home last night. I could ask my brother to confirm, but I had a feeling there were things I didn’t see. Things he’d already cleaned up.

  Caleb got me out of the house last night, so his girlfriend could vandalize it. And I was stupid enough to fall for it.

  This new revelation stung. I’d fooled myself into thinking I was too tough to be hurt anymore. I really believed that I’d seen it all, but I was wrong. On top of the betrayal, guilt ate at me. Should I really be upset about this when Caleb got hit by a car last night?

  Chapter 10

  Caleb

  It all happened so fast I couldn’t even process it. I was walking home with Mirriam, and I knew she must be upset by what Kailee had said to her, but if she was, she hid it well. She was no ray of sunshine on that walk, but she was Mirriam, and she was no more caustic than usual.

  Then out of nowhere, she squealed my name. She grabbed my arm with both hands. Ten tiny fingers gripped my bicep, and I was about to turn to her and ask if she was pretending to be scared to have a reason to touch me, when I saw it. Two beams of light shone through the dark, right in front of me.

  I knew we needed to get out of the way. I was more worried about Mirriam. She was so small that she seemed breakable, but before I could react, I was knocked to the ground. It took a moment for the pain to register. At first, I knew something huge had crashed into my body and knocked the ground out from under my feet. All at once, Mirriam was telling me I was okay between sobs, tires screeched, and headlights veered toward me again. I was wet. My body leaked in more than one place. I couldn’t see it, but I didn’t have to. It was blood.

  Mirriam locked a hand around each of my wrists. She apologized, and then asphalt and earth dragged across my body. The scrapes against my legs were the worst. I wanted to yell at her—to tell her to leave me alone. Every movement hurt, and she needed to get out of the way. But I couldn’t force the words out.