Mae went back to her room after a while and started to prepare to leave home again. Sitting on her bed, she got her laptop out and went on to Facebook, searching for that post which now felt like so long ago. The video was still there, the comments going on for what seemed like for ever, but less frequent now. The last comment was dated over a month ago. Mae had tried to ignore the video back then. Then she got drunk and tried to forget it had ever happened, but as experiences go, that was a pretty bad one, wasn’t it? Hadn’t she learnt that you can’t ignore things? That you have to face them, head-on?
She sat down and began to write:
Six months ago I was publicly shamed for doing something that a lot of women do: apply make-up on the train. I’m not sure why this guy was so offended. Was it because ‘women should pretend they don’t wear make-up’, or because I was South Asian and it annoyed him even more? Why do people expect women to be strong and independent on one hand, while doing everything they can to bring them down on the other?
Mae’s thoughts grew momentum and with each sentence she felt her anger come back. A new kind of controlled, straight-thinking anger. She finished her post, adding what had happened at The Crypt, how easily things can spiral if you don’t take a moment and step back. She decided to wait a few hours before looking over it again. Mae carried on organising things for university, letting Ji Su know she’d be back.
Ji Su: Yes! I can’t wait! We’re going to have so much fun. Hope you’re coming back alone but no judgement. Not a lot anyway. Xx
Mae: ALONE. Thx 4 the support tho. Joke. I get it. Dont hv any room in ur flat 4 me do u? Dorms packed.
It turned out that while Ji Su didn’t, she did know someone looking for a flatmate and gave Mae their number. Mae didn’t wait to contact them and dropped them a message that very minute. Then she went back to her Facebook post to read it over.
‘Hashtag, FaceIt.’
She took a moment, rather happy with this inventive hashtag, before she pressed the ‘share’ button.
Two weeks later Mae was gathered with her family once more, in the living room, for her farewell party. Her Facebook post had been shared over two thousand times and she’d even got messages from people she went to class with last year. Ilyaas had followed her into the kitchen to give her a present.
‘It’s just a notebook,’ he said. ‘For your classes and stuff. Be cool to learn about horses.’
‘Thanks,’ she said, looking at the abstract cover. ‘Yeah, I can’t wait. I mean, it’s going to be so fun.’
‘Can I still message you and stuff?’
She looked at his face that had gone a shade of red.
‘Yeah. Sure.’
Ilyaas seemed to breathe a sigh of relief as Fatti came in to bring in more drinks.
‘You okay?’ she asked Ilyaas.
‘Yeah. Yeah,’ he said, smiling. ‘Can I go hold Adam?’
‘Of course,’ said Fatti.
‘Thanks,’ he said as he left.
‘Progress then?’ asked Mae.
‘Typical now that they’re going back to their mum’s, but yes. Aima’s still, well, you know … but I’ve said they should come back for Christmas and guess what? They didn’t say no.’
When Mae went to leave, everyone decided to bundle up in their cars and drop her at the station, waving goodbye from the platform. Mae noticed her mum dry her eyes with the corner of her sari. As the train pulled away Mae thought of all the things that she had gone through in the past year. Who she had been and who she might become. She thought of the people that had come into her life, how walking into the stable that day, and Alison giving her that book, had changed the course of her education. She should write her a thank you card or something. Her heart was already hurting less when it came to thinking about Abdul-Raheem, and then there was her family. Still there, not quite the picture of perfection, but then whose was? This time Mae’s excitement about the future superseded her nerves, and as she saw her family shrink into the distance, she felt the world open up for her.
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1 Kala: ‘Aunty’ (maternal aunt).
The Hopes and Triumphs of the Amir Sisters Page 25