by Tahereh Mafi
“What? No.”
He looked up.
“No. I’m not dating anyone.”
“Oh.” His shoulders slumped. We were sitting in the back seat of his car, facing each other, and he leaned against the door behind him, rested his head against the window. He looked worn-out. He ran a hand down the length of his face, and finally, finally, he said, “What happened? What happened between now and the last time we talked?”
“I think maybe I had too much time to think about it.”
He looked heartbroken. There was no other way to put it. And he sounded heartbroken when he said, “You don’t want to be with me.”
Ocean was so straightforward. Everything about him felt honest and decent and I really admired him for it. But right now his honesty was making this conversation harder than it needed to be.
I’d had a plan.
I’d had it all worked out in my head; I’d hoped to tell a story, paint a picture, illustrate very, very clearly why this whole thing was doomed, and why we should avoid hurtling toward the inevitable and painful dissolution of whatever it was we were building here.
But all my carefully thought-out reasons felt suddenly small. Stupid. Impossible to articulate. Looking into his eyes had flipped tables in my head; my thoughts were now tangled and disorganized and I didn’t know how else to do this but to throw my feelings at him in no particular order.
Still, I was taking too long. I was silent for too long.
I was fumbling.
Ocean sat up, sat forward. He leaned in and I felt my chest tighten. I could suddenly smell him—his particular, familiar scent—everywhere. I was sitting in his car, I realized, and it had only just occurred to me to look around, to get a sense of where we were, who he was. I wanted to catalog the moment, capture it in words and pictures. I wanted to remember this. I wanted to remember him.
I’d never wanted to remember anyone before.
“Hey,” he said, but he said it softly. I don’t know what he saw in my face, what he’d caught in my eyes or in my expression but he seemed suddenly different. Like maybe he’d realized that I’d fallen, hard, and that this wasn’t easy for me, that I didn’t actually want to walk away.
I met his eyes.
He touched my cheek, his fingers grazing my skin, and I gasped. Leaned back. It was unexpected. I overreacted. I was suddenly breathing too hard, my head full of fire again.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “I can’t do this.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” I said. “Because.”
“Because why?”
“Because it won’t work.” I was flustered. I sounded stupid. “It just won’t work.”
“Isn’t that up to us?” he said. “Don’t we have control over whether or not this works?”
I shook my head. “It’s not that simple. You don’t get it. And it’s not your fault that you don’t get it,” I said, “but you just don’t know what you don’t know. You can’t see it. You can’t see how different your life would be—how being with me, spending time with someone like me—” I stopped. Struggled for words. “It would be hard for you,” I said, “with your friends, your family—”
“Why are you so sure that I care what other people think?”
“You’re going to care,” I said.
“No I won’t. I already don’t.”
“You say that now,” I said, shaking my head. “But you don’t know. You’re going to care, Ocean. You’re going to care.”
“Why can’t you let me decide what I’m going to care about?”
I was still shaking my head. I couldn’t look at him.
“Listen to me,” he said, and he took my hands, and I didn’t realize until that exact moment that my own hands were shaking. He squeezed my fingers. Tugged me closer. My heart felt wild.
“Listen to me,” he said again. “I don’t care what other people think. I don’t care, okay?”
“You do,” I said quietly. “You think you don’t, but you do.”
“How can you say that?”
“Because,” I said, “because I always say that. I always say that I don’t care what other people think. I say it doesn’t bother me, that I don’t give a shit about the opinions of assholes but it’s not true,” I said, and my eyes stung as I said it. “It’s not true, because it hurts every time, and that means I still care. It means I’m still not strong enough because every time someone says something rude, something racist—every time some mentally ill homeless person goes on a terrifying rampage when they see me crossing the street—it hurts. It never stops hurting. It only gets easier to recover.
“And you don’t know what that’s like,” I said. “You don’t know what my life is like and you don’t know what it’d be like to become a part of it. To tell the universe you’re on my side. I don’t think you understand that you’d be making yourself a target. You’d be risking the happy, comfortable world you live in—”
“I don’t live in a happy, comfortable world,” he said suddenly, and his eyes were bright, intense when he said it. “And if the life I’ve got is supposed to be some example of happiness then the world is even more messed-up than I thought it was. Because I’m not happy, and I don’t want to be like my parents. I don’t want to be like everyone else I know. I want to choose how to live my own life, okay? I want to choose who to be with.”
I could only stare at him, my heart beating hard in my chest.
“Maybe you care about what other people think,” he said, and his voice was softer now. “And that’s fine. But I really, truly, don’t.”
“Ocean,” I whispered. “Please.”
He was still holding my hands and he felt safe and real and I didn’t know how to tell him that I hadn’t changed my mind, not even a little bit, and that the more he spoke the more I felt my heart implode.
“Please don’t do this,” he said. “Please don’t walk away from me because you’re worried about the opinions of racists and assholes. Walk away from me because you hate me,” he said. “Tell me you think I’m stupid and ugly and I swear this would hurt less.”
“I can’t do that,” I said. “I think you’re wonderful.”
He sighed. He wasn’t looking at me when he said, “That’s not helping.”
“I also think you have really beautiful eyes.”
He looked up, surprised. “You do?”
I nodded.
And he laughed, softly. He took my hands and pressed them against his chest and he felt strong. I could feel his heart racing under my palms. I could feel the outline of his body under his shirt and it made me a little dizzy.
“Hey,” he said.
I met his eyes.
“You don’t have anything offensive you’d like to say to me? Maybe make me hate you a little bit?”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Ocean. I really am. For everything.”
“I just don’t understand how you can be so sure,” he said, and his eyes were sad again. “How can you be so sure that this won’t work that you won’t even give it a chance?”
“Because I already know,” I said. “I already know what’s going to happen.”
He said, “You don’t know what’s going to happen.”
“Yes,” I said, “I do. I already know how this story goes.”
“No. You think you do. But you have no idea what’s about to happen.”
“Yes,” I said, “yes, I—”
And he kissed me.
It wasn’t the kind of thing I’d read about. It wasn’t quick; it wasn’t soft and simple. He kissed me and I felt actual euphoria, like all my senses had merged and I was reduced to breaths and heartbeats and repeating integers. It was nothing like I thought it would be. It was better, it was infinitely better, in fact it may have been the best thing that had ever happened to me. I’d never done this before but somehow I didn’t need a manual. I collapsed into it, into him, and he parted my lips and I loved it, I loved how he felt, how he tasted sweet and warm and I felt
delirious, I was pressed against the passenger door and my hands were in his hair and I wasn’t thinking about anything, I was thinking about nothing, nothing but this, but the impossibility of this when he broke away, gasping for air. He pressed his forehead against mine and he said Oh, he said, Wow, and I thought it was over and he kissed me again. And again. And again.
I heard the bell ring, somewhere. I heard it like I was hearing sound for the first time.
And then, suddenly, my mind was returned to me.
It was like a sonic boom.
I sat up too fast. My eyes were wild. I was nearly hyperventilating. “Oh my God,” I said. “Oh my God, Ocean—”
He kissed me again.
I drowned.
When we broke apart we were both breathing hard, but he was staring at me and he said Holy shit, but softly, like he was speaking only to himself, and I said, “I have to go, I have to go” and he just looked at me, his mind not yet fully awake and I grabbed my backpack and his eyes widened, suddenly alert, and he said—
“Don’t go.”
“I have to go,” I said. “The bell rang. I have to go to class.”
This was obviously a lie, I didn’t give a shit about class, I was just a coward, trying to run away, and I grabbed the handle, pushed the door open, and he said, “No, wait—”
And I said “Maybe we should just be friends, okay?” and I jumped out of the car before he could kiss me again.
I looked back, just once, and saw him staring at me through the window as I walked away.
He looked stunned.
And I knew I’d just made everything so much worse.
20
Twenty
I ditched bio.
Our time with the dead cat had officially come to an end—we’d be resuming regular bookwork for a while until we received our next lab assignment—but I still couldn’t face it. I didn’t know what I’d do if I saw him again. Things were still too raw. My body felt like it was now made entirely of nerves, like muscle and bone had been removed to make room for all this new emotion.
Things between us had officially spiraled out of control.
I’d been touching my lips all afternoon, confused and amazed and a little suspicious that I’d imagined the whole thing. The heat in my head wouldn’t abate. I had no idea what had happened to my life. But the insanity of the day only made me more anxious to get to practice. Breakdancing gave me focus and control; when I worked hard, I saw results. I liked how simple it was.
Straightforward.
“What the hell is going on with you?”
This was how my brother said hello to me.
I dropped my bag on the floor. Jacobi, Bijan, and Carlos were clustered in a far corner of the dance room, pretending not to stare at me.
“What?” I said, trying to read their faces. “What’s wrong?”
Navid squeezed his eyes shut. Opened them. Looked up at the ceiling. Ran both hands through his hair. “I told you to call him,” he said. “I didn’t tell you to make out with him.”
I felt suddenly paralyzed.
Horrified.
Navid was shaking his head. “Listen,” he said, “I don’t care, okay? I don’t care about you kissing some dude—I never thought you were some kind of a saint—but you have to be careful. You can’t just go around making out with guys like him. People notice.”
I finally managed to pry my lips apart, but when I spoke, the words sounded like whispers. “Navid,” I said, trying really hard not to have a heart attack, “what are you talking about?”
Navid looked suddenly confused. He was staring at me like he wasn’t sure if my panic was real. Like he didn’t know if I was only pretending to act like I didn’t know how on earth he’d found out I’d kissed someone for the very first time today.
“Cars,” he said, “have windows.”
“So what?”
“So,” he said, irritated, “people saw you two together.”
“Yes,” I said, “I understand that, but who cares?” I was nearly shouting at him, my panic transforming too quickly into anger. “Why would anyone care? Why would anyone tell you?”
Navid frowned at me, hard. He still couldn’t seem to decide whether or not I was screwing with him. “Do you even know anything about this guy?” he said. “This Ocean kid?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then I don’t know why you’re so confused.”
I was breathing too hard. I wanted to scream. “Navid,” I said carefully, “I swear to God if you don’t tell me what the hell is going on right now I’m going to kick you in the crotch.”
“Hey,” he said, and cringed, “there’s no need to get violent.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, and I really was shouting now. “Why would anyone give two shits about who I do or don’t decide to kiss? I don’t know anyone at this school.”
“Kid,” he said, and suddenly he laughed. “You don’t have to know anyone at this school. It’s enough that he does. Your boyfriend is kind of a big deal.”
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
“Whatever.”
And then, panic creeping up my throat, squeezing—
“What do you mean,” I said, “that he’s kind of a big deal?”
“He’s, like, their golden boy. He’s on the varsity basketball team.”
And I had to sit down, right there, my head suddenly spinning. I felt sick. Legitimately nauseous. I didn’t know anything about basketball. I didn’t care about sports, generally. I couldn’t tell you shit about who did what with the ball or how to put it in a net or why it was so important to people that it did—but I’d learned one important thing about this school when I first got here:
They were obsessed with their basketball team.
They’d had a banner season the year prior and were still undefeated. I heard it every day over the morning announcements. I heard the constant, almost daily reminders about how the season was starting in just two weeks, that we should remember to support our team, we should make sure to attend local and away games, we should show up to pep rallies in school colors because school spirit was a thing, apparently. But I never went to pep rallies. I’d never been to a school game, not ever, not at any school. I only ever did the things I was absolutely required to do. I didn’t volunteer. I didn’t participate. I never joined the freaking Key Club. Just today I’d gotten an email reminding me that in fifteen days—on the day of the first basketball game of the season—everyone was supposed to dress head to toe in black; it was the school’s idea of a joke: we were supposed to be pretending to attend the funeral of the opposing team.
I thought it was ridiculous.
And then—
“Wait,” I said, confused. “How can he be on the varsity team? He’s a sophomore.”
Navid looked like he wanted to slap me upside the head. “Are you serious right now? How is it that I know more about this guy than you do? He’s a freaking junior.”
“But he’s in two of my—” I started to say, and cut myself off.
Ocean was in my AP bio class. I was the one who was out of place there—I was actually a year ahead; normally AP bio was for juniors and seniors. The other class, Global Perspectives, was an elective.
Only freshmen weren’t allowed to take it.
Ocean was a year older than me. This would explain why he seemed so certain about college when I’d asked him about it. He’d talked about choosing a school like it was a real thing; something to worry about, even. College was coming up for him. He’d be taking the SATs soon. He’d apply to schools next year.
He was a basketball player.
Oh my God.
I fell back, supine on the scuffed floor of the dance room, and stared up at the recessed lighting. I wanted to disappear.
“Is it bad?” I said, and my voice sounded scared. “Is it really bad?”
I heard Navid sigh. He walked over to me, stared down. “It’s not bad. It’s just weird, you know. It’s good gossip.
People are confused.”
“Dammit,” I said, and squeezed my eyes shut.
This was exactly what I hadn’t wanted.
21
Twenty-One
When I got home that day I took comfort, for the very first time, in the fact that my parents never gave a shit about my school life. They were so oblivious, in fact, that I honestly wasn’t sure my dad even knew where my school was. My coming home an hour late from a Harry Potter movie, now that—that was something to lose their heads over—but to imagine that my American high school might actually be scarier than the mean streets of suburbia? This leap seemed, somehow, impossible.
I could never get my parents to care about my life at school. They never volunteered for anything; they never showed up to school functions. They didn’t read the newsletters. They didn’t join the PTA or help chaperone school dances. My mom only ever set foot on campus to sign the papers for my registration. Otherwise, it just wasn’t their thing. The only time they’d ever taken an interest was right after 9/11, when those guys pinned me down on my way home from school. Navid basically saved my life that day. He’d shown up with the cops just before those dudes could bash my head into the concrete. It had been a premeditated incident; someone had heard them talk, in class, about their plans to come after me, and tipped off Navid.
The cops never arrested anyone that day. The police lights had scared the guys enough to back off, so when the officers got out of the car I was sitting on the sidewalk, shaking, trying to untangle my scarf from around my neck. The cops sighed, told these two assholes to stop being stupid, and sent them home.
Navid was furious.
He kept telling them to do something, that those guys should be arrested, and the cops told him to calm down, that they were just kids, that there was no need to make this so dramatic. And then the officers walked over to me, where I was still sitting on the ground, and asked me if I was okay.
I didn’t really understand the question.
“Are you okay?” one of the cops said again.
I wasn’t dead, and for some reason I figured that must’ve meant I was okay. So I nodded.