“What a horrible drawing,” I say. “I’m sorry I made you ugly, because you’re not.”
“It’s okay,” he says. “It’s the thought that counts, and I believe we share the same thoughts.”
I’m breathless, and I’m sure I’m going to pass out. Shakira opened her big mouth, and I’m glad she did, because now he knows and there are no secrets between us. Being out in the open feels unreal, but also pleasant. It also feels painful …
The pain on the inside of my cheeks from my braces is more pronounced. When he comes closer I’m flustered, and then his lips are over mine. My first kiss. His soft lips. I want to melt. I close my eyes and part my lips slightly, relishing the kiss despite the prickling braces. He disengages from me and my eyes are swimming from the intensity of the moment. I hope he didn’t feel my braces. Why did I have to get braces right before my first kiss? My parents are always trying to ruin my life, intentionally or accidentally. And is my breath okay during my fast?
“Peter,” I say.
“What?” he whispers.
“Uh, umm—”
Peter grabs my face and gazes at me as if I’m a crystal ball. He makes me feel like I’m the world to him. Kiss me again, I think. And he does.
After the second kiss, which is sweeter and better than the first—practice makes perfect with anything—I don’t know what to say next. We look into each other’s eyes. Peter runs his fingers through my hair (thank God it’s tangle-free, or else I’d be embarrassed). Other than the braces, I think I’m in good shape. I’m wearing an icy-blue satin shirt and navy-blue skirt with black boots. My hair isn’t frizzy since the weather has cooled off a bit. My breath has to be okay because of the super-strong strawberry lip balm I’m wearing. I have some shimmer on my eyes and cheeks. I’m having a pretty day.
“Peter—” I say.
“What?” he asks.
“Umm.” I’m tongue-tied. What am I supposed to say after this?
“Was it okay, what I just did?”
“Yeah. Of course.”
Peter smiles. Were we simultaneously worrying about whether we like each other or not? Sometimes I can’t figure people out. Both of us have been silently suffering for nothing.
“Peter,” I say.
“What?”
Am I going to say his name like an idiot over and over again? I simply don’t know how to talk to him after the kiss. Before, when we were lab partners, I could tell him whatever was on my mind (except for my crush on him), but now his kisses have stunned my brain. I should tell him that he’s a good kisser or that I like him too, but my mouth feels numb. Yet someone knows what to say.
The room becomes darker as a shadow steps over the threshold. Peter turns around and we’re both facing Lisa. She has tears falling across her cheeks, creating white trails against the blusher and bronzer she’s wearing. She’s trembling and falls to the side, leaning against the doorjamb. Her hands fumble against the wall as she balances herself upright. I want to grab her to steady her, but I know that at this point she won’t want me anywhere near her.
“How could you!” Lisa gasps.
“Lisa, it’s not what you think!” I say.
“You can’t even date him! Your parents don’t allow you to date! You can’t have him and you’re taking him anyway!”
“Lisa!” I yell, rushing toward her. But she’s faster than me and runs out of Mr. Gregory’s room. I see the hem of her pink skirt flutter away from me and then it disappears altogether.
Peter tags along behind me. “What’s going on?” he asks. I look at his frowning face. How can boys be so dense? Doesn’t he realize that for the past few weeks Lisa was throwing herself at him, wanting him just as badly as I wanted him?
“She likes you,” I say. “And I betrayed her.”
“But I don’t want Lisa,” he says. “I want you.”
I shake my head. He doesn’t understand that Lisa is my bestest friend ever and I just hurt her. As badly as I want Peter, I don’t think he’s worth losing Lisa over. “I have to go,” I say.
“But, but—wait.”
Something then dawns on me. “Hey, you were the one leaving all those stupid chocolates on my seat!” I say.
“Yes,” he admits. “You once told me that chocolate was your favorite food. So I put them on your seat or had a friend do it for me.”
“You almost made me cheat during my fast!”
“Almira, please, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to eat them now. You said you could eat after sunset, so I assumed you were holding them until then.”
“Don’t you know how tempting that was to me? If I ate one of those chocolates, it would have ruined everything! You obviously have never fasted before.”
“Fine! But you printed that picture for me! And you drew me. We were both thinking about each other!”
He’s right. We were both trying to impress each other, give little tokens of affection, throw around hints. But I don’t have time to argue or agree with him. I sprint through the school, trying to find Lisa, but she’s nowhere in sight. Mr. Gregory calls for me several times from outside his room. “Almira! Almira!” I don’t respond as I search through each hallway on every floor. It’s after school, and there are small groups of students who hang around for football practice, the dance club, and all the other activities we have. I go into the bathrooms to see if Lisa is hiding in a stall, crying her eyes out, but she’s not in any of them.
“Almira,” I hear. This time it’s Peter’s voice. Peter wants me romantically. Mr. Gregory wants me as a helper. Mom is thinking that I’ll be coming home soon. I feel like I’m being pulled in different directions, but the only direction I want to go in is toward Lisa.
I shake uncontrollably as I walk home. This has to be the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. I don’t know if Lisa can ever understand that it’s Peter’s choice of who he likes and doesn’t like. If he doesn’t want her, then why can’t I have him? I’m not even sure if I should like him anymore, since he tried to ruin my fast by tempting me with chocolate, but that wasn’t his intention. He had found something I adored and decided to use it as a trail leading to his heart, but it was so wrong to leave it everywhere. Eat me, eat me, the chocolate beckoned, and I had to resist it. I also have to resist him if I want to keep Lisa as a best friend.
It’s still out of this world that things have happened so quickly, from an unexpected kiss to unexpectedly stabbing Lisa in the back. I place one foot in front of the other in a daze—from being hungry, from being kissed, from questioning the integrity of the kiss (did he feel my stupid braces?), from wondering if I’m bestfriendless. I rarely go home alone. Lisa usually walks with me or rides with me in Mom’s car. I even wish that Mom could be here so that I don’t feel so lonely. I would even tolerate her singing to drive out the loneliness.
I stop by Lisa’s house and her older cousin answers the door. Lisa came home, she says, but then she stepped out. She says to try the pizza place nearby. We live in a thick block of houses with parallel streets that look identical in quaint suburbia, but Lisa and I happen to live on the outskirts of the neighborhood, close to a few businesses. I sprint to the pizzeria. Breathlessly I look around, but I can’t find Lisa. The cashier gives me a dirty look. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks about me. It only matters what Lisa thinks. I look at the busy street in front of me. There are restaurants, cellular stores, and drugstores spanning several blocks. Lisa could be in any one of those stores. She could be at the beauty supply store to buy hand cream or at the bookstore buying books on how to drop disloyal friends. I walk back and forth for a few more minutes and then go home.
Lisa’s line is busy, so I go on IM to search for her.
AlmiraRules: Lisa are you there?
Nothing.
AlmiraRules: Lisa, please talk to me.
The
re’s no answer. She probably has me on her block list, so that she’ll never hear from me again. Me on her block list? I never thought it would be possible, yet the day has come. What a stupid thing I’ve done! Yes, Peter is a dreamboat and the hottest guy who has ever paid any whit of attention to me, but he isn’t the world. Okay, maybe he is. But no, I can’t put him before my bestest friend, the one who I tell everything to, the one who holds me when I cry, the girl who makes me laugh because she thinks cheesecake is made from mozzarella rather than from cream cheese.
I wait for an hour with other computer windows open, checking my email and doing research for homework, but there’s still no message from Lisa in my IM box. I’m persona non grata to her. Then I see something. I rub my eyes behind my glasses, thinking it’s a mirage, but it is indeed GorgeLisa on my screen.
GorgeLisa: LEAVE ME ALONE FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE!
AlmiraRules: you don’t mean that. i’m sorry. the kiss meant nothing
GorgeLisa: BACKSTABBER
AlmiraRules: you know you’re my best friend and that i’d never intentionally hurt you
GorgeLisa: SNAKE IN THE GRASS
GorgeLisa: you can’t even date him because you’re muslim and he’s not. that’s the stupidest thing, wanting something you can’t have and you just had to stab me in the back for your own satisfaction
GorgeLisa: you know what your parents and grandfather will think, but you don’t care
GorgeLisa: YOU KISSED HIM FOR NO REASON BECAUSE YOU WON’T EVER HAVE HIM
AlmiraRules: stop saying these things, i know i can’t have him, but he kissed me
I burst into tears. My best friend hates my guts. She thinks I’m dirt. We’ll no longer talk, IM everyday, or go out shopping together. All because of Peter, who has never IM’ed me or even really asked me out. And Lisa is being so mean, reminding me of how different I am compared to other teenagers: good Muslim girls don’t date boys, especially if they’re infidels. All of a sudden I feel this wall come between me and the rest of my classmates, as if I’m an alien from outer space that has nothing in common with them.
AlmiraRules: Lisa, call me
GorgeLisa: kiss him if it makes you feel better, but you’ve lost me forever
AlmiraRules: this is unfair. you won’t even let me make things right
GorgeLisa: it can never be right
AlmiraRules: don’t say that!
GorgeLisa: I PUT YOU ON CALL BLOCK. BUH-BYE
I cry harder. Peter made me feel beautiful and wanted, and now I feel ugly and hated and weird and Muslim. Other than Shakira, who looks like a beauty queen, I’m the only one in my school who’s fasting and can’t date boys. I momentarily wonder if Shakira is allowed to date, but it doesn’t really matter. She can have any guy she wants. But I missed this one opportunity to have a boy I really like, who is interested in me as much as I am in him. The whole situation blew up in my face.
Later on that night Mom asks me what’s wrong because I look sad, but I tell her nothing is wrong. I don’t want to explain to her that a boy kissed me, because I don’t know if she’ll freak out or not. Mom doesn’t seem too traditional, especially after clashing with Grandpa, but many times she’s told me I’m too young for a boyfriend. Mom and Dad will find a husband for me if I want to be with someone after high school. How stupid. I find Peter, but loving him means losing Lisa and possibly angering my family. I’m in a bind with everyone.
The next day at school, Lisa avoids me the entire time. She doesn’t sit next to me in class, she looks away from me, she doesn’t ask me for the answers to our assignments, and she steers clear of me. I’m now invisible to her. It’s like we’ve never met, never stayed over at each other’s houses, never stood up for each other, never shopped together, never laughed together. There’s an identical universe where Lisa and Almira never met way back in kindergarten and never became best friends. But this universe doesn’t exist. I know that it doesn’t. I have to break Lisa’s resistance.
I approach her several times and she ignores me. “Hi, Lisa,” I say, and she walks straight to her locker without glancing at me. Everything about her is stiff: her walk, her shoulders, and even her hair doesn’t bounce like it normally does. I turned her into a statue. I hope that somewhere deep within her she has some warmth and forgiveness that she can shower on me. I sensed that it wasn’t going to be easy to win back Lisa, but I didn’t know it would be this difficult. I thought her face would soften up and that she’d say a few words the more I tried to reach out to her, but she isn’t doing any of these things.
I see Maria between bells and ask her what I should do. “Just give her time,” she says, squeezing my hand. “We all have a beef with our friends sometimes. Friendship isn’t perfect.” She’s right, but I’ve never had this big a rift before with a good friend. I just have to try and rekindle our friendship.
“Wasn’t the homework hard?” I ask Lisa during history class. She focuses on the teacher’s forehead and pretends I didn’t open my mouth. “Lisa, meet me at the library,” I say in the hallway. “I have something important to say to you.” I stand in front of the library thinking that Lisa and I can walk to class together and catch a few minutes of quality time, but she never shows up. The fifth time I approach her she says, “We’re no longer friends.”
My heart sinks to the floor. We’re in the hallway between classes. I look at her, but she won’t look at me and she coolly walks away, her bony shoulders gaining distance from me. We were once everything to each other, but now we’re nothing. I feel so low, like the way Nicole Richie must have felt when Paris Hilton no longer wanted to have anything to do with her and they had to tape The Simple Life separately, rather than doing scenes together. That whole season was awkward. There were some funny scenes and I laughed, but it wasn’t as enjoyable. Something was wrong. Everyone could see it. Why weren’t they together during their antics? There was even sadness in Nicole’s big brown eyes that belied her false happiness and flirtatiousness. But then the two made up. I wish the same for Lisa and myself.
After those harsh words, I rush to the bathroom, afraid that tears will fall. I don’t want anyone to see me crying. My eyes are watery all day and my head is down, sinking to the ground.
During lunch Shakira asks if she can sit next to me in the library. I say yes. We share a table, spreading our books everywhere, and we study silently. We don’t exchange one word. We aren’t friends, not yet anyhow, and we’re probably sitting together for the same reason. To avoid loneliness. She feels like an outcast, with no female friends but plenty of male admirers, and Lisa no longer wants me. Even though we’re quiet during lunch, absorbed in doing our homework, her presence is welcome to me. My eyes meet hers a few times and there’s no longer any hostility sparking off of her. She’s been tamed by being blackballed and I’m mourning my lost friendship with Lisa. Docile for different reasons, we find comfort with each other.
We walk to class together afterwards. Shakira says, “I saw Peter’s drawing of you.”
“He showed it to me,” I say.
“It wasn’t an assignment, since he already drew me.”
“I know.”
“He likes you.”
“I thought he liked you.”
“I don’t think he does. Anyway, he knows that I go out with Luis.”
“Your parents let you date?” I ask.
“No,” she says, shrugging her shoulders. “I tell them I’m out with friends and then I go and see him. My parents are strict and I have a grandfather who would go ballistic. He already nitpicks about the way I dress and the makeup I wear.”
“My granddad does the same thing!”
“At least he doesn’t live with me.”
“Mine doesn’t live with me either.” That’s a plus. Grandpa doesn’t live with us, but at least he could have a cordial relationship with my mom.
Peter sits next to me in science. He smiles and tries to make me laugh, but we do our lab solemnly. I’m not even in the mood for him. For Peter. My crush. The boy who bestowed a kiss on me. The man of my dreams. Lisa sits two rows behind us since we don’t have assigned seats. Mr. Gregory gives both of us quizzical looks, because we always sit next to each other. Well, not anymore. All day long people have been looking from me to Lisa, from Lisa to me. They even ask me about our obvious separateness, but I dodge questions. It’s nobody’s business. There are already rumors swirling around. I can hear things behind my back, that Lisa caught me kissing her boyfriend, that I’m a traitor … when Peter was never her boyfriend to begin with.
“Almira, when are you going to stop acting this way?” Peter asks me. “You’re withdrawn today.”
“When Lisa talks to me again I’ll be better,” I say.
“I’m sure she’ll get over it.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“I didn’t know she liked me,” Peter says. “I thought she was being friendly, and I never shared those feelings with her. I don’t think I led her on.”
It’s strange how some people think they’re not leading others on, but in fact they are, even though it’s accidental. Peter isn’t aware of his own powers to hypnotize girls. “I know you didn’t mean any harm,” I say.
“Do you want to go to the movies with me Saturday?” he asks.
Bestest. Ramadan. Ever. Page 17