Tell Me How You Really Feel

by Aminah Mae Safi

  Rachel really needed to watch the road and not Sana’s mouth. That was definitely what needed to happen. Rachel was so busy, so determinedly focused, that she missed whatever Sana had been saying. She knew this because Sana pinched at her arm.

  “Ouch. What was that for?”

  “You were ignoring me.”

  “Right, that’s totally an acceptable reason to go around pinching someone.”

  “I’m an only child, I’m used to getting all the attention.”

  “I’m an only child as well and I can assure you that is not always the case.” Rachel snorted.

  “Aren’t you at least going to tell me what you think?”

  Rachel looked over and Sana was batting her eyes theatrically. At least, it looked like she intended the move theatrically, but the batting of Sana’s eyes, even as a bit of a joke, just did things for Rachel that she wasn’t quite sure how to process.

  Rachel fixed her eyes on the road. “Think about what?”

  Not your mouth. Not almost kissing you. Not your stupidly long eyelashes. Definitely not your near-black eyes.

  Sana sighed so performatively that Rachel could hear the eye roll that went along with it. “The fro-yo. What did you think of the fro-yo?”

  “It was good.” Rachel was determined. She was staying safe, staying aware of traffic. She would not be distracted. She would not let her thoughts be distracted. She was driving Sana’s mom’s car. She had to give the driving one hundred and ten percent of her attention.

  “Good? Just good?” Sana was clearly incredulous.

  But Rachel didn’t have any extra willpower to spend on Sana right now, not even fighting with her, no matter how much fun it was to fight with her. Looking over at Sana was like pointing a camera directly at the sun. The light cleared away the entire picture, left no room for anything but itself in the frame. Rachel couldn’t stare straight into the sun and drive at the same time. That way was how accidents happened. Bad ones.

  “It was good,” said Rachel.

  “No,” said Sana. “It was the best. I can’t believe you didn’t think it was the best. You ate yours in like four seconds; how could you not think it was the best?”

  “A truly dizzying argument, I’m not sure how I could possibly respond.” Rachel gripped the wheel tighter. She was holding at nine and three and she was using a signal before changing lanes.

  “Man,” said Sana. “You’re a safe driver. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who was so thorough about checking their blind spots before.”

  Rachel snorted. They had nearly made it back to Rachel’s house. They were in the neighborhood now. Fewer cars, less traffic. Rachel could almost relax. But she still didn’t. She knew better than to relax right at the end of any journey.

  And that’s when a cat with a long bushy tail ran into the middle of the road. Rachel tried to brake but she was going to hit it, going to kill a cat.

  She couldn’t kill a cat.

  She might be the most terrible director in the world to work with, she might have originally written a movie about how Helen of Troy was the worst and then cast the girl who reminded her most of Helen of Troy as the lead of the show, but she wasn’t someone who killed animals if she could help it.

  So Rachel swerved.

  She swerved, and as she did, she watched everything go in slow motion. Somewhere in the back of her mind she heard Papa’s voice telling her that if the choice was between swerving and hitting an animal, to hit the animal. But it was too late now. There was a telephone pole right there, right in their path. It took less than half a second to realize they were going to hit it. Maybe it took five minutes to realize they were going to hit it, realize that she could do nothing to stop it. Time was doing funny things right now. Speeding up and slowing down. Like she watched them hit the pole before they did. Like it happened twice. Same with the airbags. Same with hearing Sana thud against them.

  God, was Sana okay?

  But the words didn’t come out. Rachel was groggy, disoriented. But also, somehow, hyperaware of everything that had happened. She was trapped between the airbag and the seat. She moved her jaw. She took a deep breath. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” said Sana, equally disoriented, equally visiting from some land other than this one. “There’s a thing. Behind your seat.”

  Somehow, Rachel knew what she meant. She could get her left arm around, it hadn’t been pinned the way her right one was. In the back of her seat pocket was one of those windshield-shattering things. But it had a razor attached to it. Rachel punctured her airbag. Then reached for Sana’s.

  She looked Sana in the eye then, once the airbag was down. “You sure you’re okay?”

  “Yeah,” said Sana. “I just can’t move my left arm.”

  18

  Suffer Love

  Rachel

  Rachel couldn’t believe it. She jangled her leg against the brightly lit, overly clean linoleum floor. Emergency-care clinics always had floors that were at once stained and overly clean. Must come with the territory of constantly shuffling in people with an assortment of severe but not-quite-life-threatening ailments. The scent of the place alone was enough to burn through and preserve her nostrils forever.

  But still she jangled her leg, like she was the boyfriend, girlfriend, loved one in some terrible episode of CSI. Close up onto the leg. Pan up. Stay with her face. Her worried, nervous face. The face of someone who is trying to prepare themselves for what they cannot possibly know, cannot possibly prepare for, yet are trying to anyway.

  It was only a broken arm.

  That’s what she’d been telling herself, over and over and over again. Only a broken arm.

  But Rachel had been the one driving. She’d been driving and she’d never gotten in an accident, despite being able to drive a year before most of her peers because her dad worked and she needed to get to school so she’d declared a hardship with the state.

  Sana was only getting a cast and she had only broken her arm and she was fine, fine, fine.

  It was all Rachel’s fault.

  The nurse came out into the hallway. He had on fun, printed scrubs and was clearly about to tell Rachel something when what could only be described as gale-force Santa Ana wind blew through the emergency-care-clinic doors.

  The woman had dark, wild hair pulled back into a tight ponytail. She wore jeans with a thick, black, practical sort of belt that a walkie-talkie was still attached to. She wore a dark T-shirt that could have been black but also could have been navy. Her skin was deep brown. She was also, despite what was a clear attempt to appear somewhere between casual and professionally neutral, so stunningly good-looking that nearly everyone in the waiting room decided to stare at her. It was Sana’s mother. Rachel recognized her from the photos in Sana’s home.

  Also, she had Sana’s eyes.

  “Where the hell is my kid?” Her voice was direct and frantic all at once. It was not the kind of tone anybody messed with, especially not in an emergency-care clinic.

  The nurse directed his attention to Sana’s mom at once. “And you are?”

  “Farrah. Farrah Akhtar.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, we don’t have anyone with that last name in right now.”

  “Don’t ma’am me, kid, I’m not in the mood. Just because I kept my name doesn’t mean she’s not my kid. Khan. Sana Khan.”

  The nurse took in the sight of her then—steely-eyed, sharp cheekbones, an outfit built for no nonsense, built for function on a set. She had on flare jeans, not because they’d come back in style again, but because she’d clearly never let go of them in the first place. Even Rachel could tell that by the fraying on the bottom of the hem.

  The nurse gave a nod. “Right this way.”

  Sana’s mom blazed through the double doors, and the nurse followed. Rachel had been asked to wait outside since she wasn’t family, even though it wasn’t serious. But she took the nurse’s distraction and Farrah’s intensity as an opening. Rachel slid through the doors
as they swung shut.

  Sana sat upright on a doctor’s table. Her feet were thudding against the wood and making a gentle swish, swish of paper sound. Her left arm was now encased in plaster and whatever that netting, wrapping material they used was, in neon pink. She smiled as she looked up at the opening door, clearly expecting someone.

  Whoever she’d been expecting, her mother wasn’t on the list. Sana’s smile dropped. “Hi, Mom.”

  “Don’t you dare hi, Mom me.”

  But Sana, who seemed like the kind of girl who had good sense and who Rachel knew was the kind of girl who generally did what she was told, didn’t stop there.

  “Mom, I’m okay.”

  “Your arm is broken. You broke your arm.”

  “It was an accident. There was a cat in the road. I had to swerve.” Sana stopped swinging her legs.

  What.

  Sana hadn’t been driving. Rachel had been driving. In fact, even though Sana’s eyes hadn’t once flickered toward Rachel, Rachel knew that Sana had noticed her enter, knew that Sana knew she was here. Sana could easily get out of at least half the trouble by saying Rachel had been driving while Sana finished her yogurt.

  As it was, Sana was making sure all eyes in the room stayed firmly on her.

  “You know better than to swerve because a cat runs into the road.” Sana’s mom put her hand on her hip.

  “She didn’t,” said Rachel.

  Unfortunately, this caused all the eyes in the room to turn to Rachel. She couldn’t know for certain why she’d said it. She didn’t want to watch Sana get grilled all over again by her mom. Not when it was Rachel’s fault. Rachel’s responsibility.

  “I was driving. I was the one who swerved.” Rachel said it louder this time.

  Farrah looked between Sana and Rachel for a long moment, her head swiveling on a pivot. “And you are?”

  “Rachel Recht?”

  “And how long has this been going on?” Farrah put her hand on her hip.

  Rachel was dizzy. How long had what been going on?

  “Nothing is going on, Mom. We were getting fro-yo.”

  Farrah seemed to be rendered speechless. She lifted her eyebrows and stared disbelievingly at Sana.

  “We were working on a film project,” said Rachel lamely.

  But Farrah was done with Rachel. She didn’t seem to care that Rachel had been the one driving. She had that single-minded, focused intensity that Rachel had noticed in Sana during filming. Once Farrah got ahold of her target, she wasn’t one to let go, that much Rachel was sure of.

  “You’re sneaking around behind my back, letting strange girls drive my car, doing God knows what, going God knows where, and saying it’s a school project? Is that about the sum of it?”

  “It is a school project,” Rachel tried interjecting. But nobody was listening or paying much attention to her.

  “Do you want family to intervene? Do you want me to have to tell Dadu and Mamani that I have no idea where the hell you are when I’m filming on set? Because they’ll make you stay with them. Don’t think because you’ve finally hit eighteen they wouldn’t make you stay with them.”

  “They can’t intervene. I’m not supposed to be dating according to them.” Sana raised her eyebrows.

  “Neither was I. They still intervened.”

  “That was different. You know that’s different.”

  “It was almost exactly the same.”

  “Not even close!”

  The two women stared each other down.

  “I was filming a project and grabbing frozen yogurt. It was the kind of accident that could happen to anyone. How much trouble can I get into eating frozen yogurt?” asked Sana.

  “You’d be surprised, kid.”

  “But you wouldn’t.” Sana crossed her arms. “You’d know exactly how much trouble I could get into getting frozen yogurt. Worried I’m going to go out and come home knocked up?”

  Farrah’s eyes went wide. Sana’s expression didn’t back down. Rachel could tell that Sana had crossed some invisible line. Some point of no return in the fight. Even the nurse had stopped fussing with his equipment to watch. The force of these two women was like watching a clash of titans. Amazons. Warrior women. Goddesses. Ancient and powerful—typically unknowable and unseen by mere mortals.

  That’s when a man came crashing into the room. Slim, below average height, but again, powerfully good-looking. A salt-and-pepper streak running through his hair. He wore an expensive, well-tailored suit and he had all of Sana’s bone structure.

  Dear God, was anyone in their family even mediocre-looking?

  “I came as soon as I heard,” said Sana’s dad. “How are you? Are you okay?”

  “Your daughter went on a date without telling me, then let the other girl drive, and now she’s got a broken arm.”

  “It wasn’t a date,” Rachel tried, but nobody was listening, and Rachel had never felt more like an interloper or an intruder. She slowly backed out of the room, unable to hear anymore. Felt like her ears were ringing, but that couldn’t be. She hadn’t been going fast enough to cause any concussive damage. The emergency clinic tech double-checked her while they were putting Sana through X-rays.

  If she was fine, why couldn’t she hear the rest of their conversation? Why was it difficult to breathe? Why did she have to get out, get out of this room, get out of this clinic, before she passed out, or vomited, or something.

  Rachel took big gulps of air when she reached outside the sliding glass doors. She put her head between her knees and kept breathing deeply until she could hear again, until the nausea passed, until that closing-in, dizzying sensation floated away.

  Then she got out her phone. “Papa? Yeah, it’s me. I need a ride home.”

  Sana

  Sana watched as Rachel left the room. Sana didn’t blame her. She glared at her mother. Farrah glared back.

  “Look.” Massoud held out his arms. He was clearly trying to find a way to keep the peace. “Everybody’s upset right now. Tensions are understandably running high. Sana, your mom is worried because she didn’t know you were out and then next thing she knows she’s getting a call about your arm being broken. Farrah, Sana is going through a lot since she still hasn’t put down her deposit and I think you should cut her a little bit of slack on this, okay?”

  “What deposit?” asked Farrah.

  Oh no.

  Massoud looked at Sana, his face wild with uncertainty. He’d assumed, as anyone might assume, that she had told her mother that she was having second thoughts about Princeton. His voice was quiet. “You didn’t tell her?”

  Sana shook her head. Shame was flooding through her and she didn’t have words. She’d told her mother nothing.

  “Tell me what? Didn’t tell me what?” Farrah was too confused to hold on to her anger, at least in her voice.

  Massoud looked at Sana for some kind of cue. But she didn’t have one. She was without words, without an answer for Mom’s question. Without answers for herself. If she had them, she wouldn’t have this problem in the first place. She’d have put down her deposit like a normal person who was excited to be accepted into an Ivy League school. Sana didn’t answer.

  Farrah thought she wouldn’t. She turned back to Massoud again. “Somebody tell me what the hell is going on.”

  “Sana didn’t put down her deposit for Princeton.”

  “I heard you the first time. I just don’t understand.” The look on Farrah’s face was like the wind had been knocked out of her.

  “I didn’t put down the deposit.”

  “No,” said Farrah. “I heard you giving your commitment. I heard you.”

  Sana swallowed. It was so difficult to breathe right now. Her chest had gone tight, her throat was smaller somehow—closing up and shutting down. She swallowed again, hoping that would push down the feeling rising up through her ribs, clenching everything from her waist to her throat. “That’s not the deposit.”

  The nurse took the tray of instruments and p
ut them over on another counter, away from everyone. Their voices were approaching a shout, approaching the edge of unforgivable things that could never be unsaid. Or maybe they had already passed that point.

  Farrah flung her arm out. “And when is the deposit due?”

  “May first.” Breathe in, breathe out. It was fine. Everything was okay. This was what happened when Sana thought about the future. Her vision pinholed, her throat closed up, and her chest compressed until the weight of a small car rested on it. The tips of her fingers went numb, like blood forgot to flow there when she was in this state. Like her body forgot how it worked once breathing became difficult.

  “Thank God.” Farrah slumped into the one extra chair in the room. “We can still get it in.”

  “No.” It took a moment before Sana recognized that voice as her own.

  “No?” It was the second time Farrah had looked punched in the gut. Lost. Without an anchor. Her voice was at a whisper. “Why the hell not?”

  Sana shook her head. She didn’t want to say about the fellowship. She wasn’t ready, wasn’t ready at all. “No. I can’t.”

  “You told them you would. You pulled your other applications.” No question there. Just a raw, horrified statement. Farrah stared at Sana.

  “I can’t,” said Sana.

  “No.” Farrah shook her head. “You won’t.”

  “Get out!” Sana wanted to throw something, honestly at anybody at this point. Maybe that’s why they kept the tray of instruments out of the patient’s reach. The safety of others.

  “Whoa, I just got here,” said Massoud.

  “Not you!”

  Massoud looked around himself, bewildered that Sana could be talking to anyone else.

  Farrah, meanwhile, had known what Sana meant almost instantly. Hurt flashed across her features, but not for long. Quickly a quiet rage coated her expression, pushing her eyebrows together, pursing her lips, giving her cheekbones a feral quality.

  “You’re gonna put this on me, then? It’s your dream. It was always your dream.”