Duh, stupid question. Of course you don’t.
Not being able to do something you loved because your brain won’t let you—it’s enough to make you want to punch things.
But punching things is what got me into the mess I’m in now.
So what do I do with that?
If it can’t go out, it goes in.
And when it goes in, you just want to numb it. But that only works for a while, until it erupts to the surface like a volcano that’s been dormant.
Times like this I feel like I’m going to be alone with it forever.
Alone forever.
Alone.
ThunderGeek out.
Farida still hasn’t called or texted me when I wake up the next morning. I try texting her again.
ME: Hey … are you okay? I’m so sorry.
ME: Really want to talk.
I stare at my phone, hoping to see the little speech bubble that she’s texting me back, but there’s nothing.
Then I get a text, but not the one I wanted.
KEN: You should probably avoid the Argleton Astros Junior Class Facebook page for a day or two.
That, of course, has the opposite effect of what he intends, because I have to know what’s being said, even though I know it’s going to hurt. And it does. Big time.
Now I can understand why Farida isn’t calling me back. Not only has she been dragged into this mess, but she can see that people want me to pull out of the race. I’ve failed her before the first ballot’s even been cast.
If I want to get to school on time, I need to get out of bed and start getting dressed, but I just can’t do it. It’s as if my body is being crushed to the mattress by an overwhelming weight of dread and despair.
Because of me, my brother is facing felony assault charges and my best friend and her family have been put at risk, even though they’ve done absolutely nothing wrong.
I look up the Yelp page for Tigris. Sure enough, there are hundreds of hateful reviews, calling the El-Rahims terrorists and worse. How do people even think of such messed-up stuff, let alone write them on a restaurant review site? Who are these people? They write under screen names, like anonymity makes it okay to be offensive. Do they live far away or are they our neighbors? It makes me afraid to go out of the house because I don’t know if behind every supposedly “nice” neighbor’s face there’s someone who thinks that way.
It’s the same story on the Tigris Facebook page. I report all the nasty comments, but that doesn’t feel like enough. They’re all time-stamped starting after last night’s news broadcast, which means that it’s because of me and my stupid decision to take Rob to the movies that they’re there in the first place.
“Stella! What are you doing messing around on your phone?” Mom exclaims. She’s standing in the doorway of my bedroom, wearing her work clothes and a frown. “Is Farida driving you? Because at this rate you’re going to be late and I’ve got an early meeting, so I can’t if she’s not.”
“No, Farida’s not driving me. She’s not even answering my texts. Not that I blame her. Have you seen what people have been writing on the Tigris Yelp and Facebook pages since the news broadcast? It’s horrible!”
Mom stills. “Like what?”
I hand her my phone, and she scans the Facebook page, her eyes widening in dismay as she reads the awful things people have posted there.
As I see the expressions crossing her face, I feel so smothered with guilt it’s hard to breathe. If only I’d just let Rob be, sitting on the sofa, playing his game. What made me think that I could help him?
“I always knew there were some people who thought this way, but seeing so many of these … it makes me feel like I don’t even know the country I served anymore,” Mom says.
“It’s scary,” I say.
“If you’re scared, just imagine how the El-Rahims must feel,” Mom points out.
I’ve been thinking about that ever since I woke up and saw the hateful comments. It makes me feel guilty for saying what I do next.
“Mom, I can’t go to school today. I need a day off.”
“Stella, school is your job. You can’t just decide to randomly take a day off. Do you think Farida is going to be getting a day off? I don’t. If she can face it, so can you. Friends support each other, especially best friends like you and Farida. “
“Rob takes days off. He’s been skipping classes a lot recently.”
“We’re not talking about your brother. We’re talking about you.”
“Now you want to talk about me? Whenever I want to talk, you and Dad are too busy talking about Rob.”
“That’s not fair. You know he’s going through a tough time right now and—”
“And that doesn’t affect me? You and Dad expect me to keep on being the perfect daughter because Walkers don’t quit,” I say, so overflowing with pent-up anger and resentment I’m not sure I could stop now if I wanted to—and I don’t. It’s a relief to finally say these things to my mom’s face instead of just swallowing them like a foul-tasting medicine. “I’m so sick of it. Because it does affect me. Not as much as it does my best friend, but still. I just can’t handle going to school today. The entire junior class thinks I should be disqualified from running for class president because Rob broke Wade’s nose.” I pause only long enough to breathe. “And you’re telling me I’m not being fair?”
I want my mom to understand me. I want her to say, “I get it. Dad and I have been preoccupied with Rob, and I understand how that feels unfair, and we will try to give you more time because we love you, and, sure, take a mental health day, sweetie.”
But that’s not what happens. At first she seems to register surprise, and then something else—I’m not sure if it’s hurt or anger. Finally, her face becomes a mask—calm, emotionless, businesslike. It’s Valerie Jones-Walker, MD, who says, “I just told you I had an early meeting and you decide to dump this on me now? Stella, Rob’s condition, this situation, it affects all of us. I have to go to work and you have to go to school. Get up and get dressed. We’ll talk about this later.”
She closes my door, and I throw a pillow at it because I’m so angry. But, like a true Walker, I obey orders, getting dressed in under three minutes, throwing on the first pair of jeans I find and a super-soft purple T-shirt. I jam my feet into my boots and start stuffing books into my bag. I just might make the bus if I skip breakfast and run.
But as I come out of my bedroom, Rob’s standing in his doorway, car keys in hand.
“I’ll drive you.”
“It’s okay, I can make the bus.”
“Shut up and get yourself something to eat. I’ll drive you,” he says, heading to the stairs.
The walls are thin, and in my anger, I wasn’t exactly whispering. Guilt washes over me as I follow him downstairs and grab a granola bar, a banana, and a juice box.
Rob’s already pulled the car out of the garage. Heavy metal blasts from within even though all the windows are rolled up. It assaults my eardrums when I slide into the front seat, but I don’t complain. It’s protection for both of us so we don’t have to talk.
And we don’t, till we’re halfway to school and stopped at a red light. My forehead’s pressed to the passenger window, trying to cool down my racing thoughts as I wonder if I should ask Mr. Walsh for his advice about staying in the race, and if Farida will talk to me, worrying about what’s happening with her family, and just how awful today is going to be and—
Rob switches off the radio, and the silence hits like a club after the booming bass and shredding guitars. “I’m sorry.”
I turn to him, but he’s still looking straight ahead at the light. “For what?”
“For messing up your life. For messing up the family. For being a mess, period.”
He’s speaking in a monotone. Is this how Jason sounded? Has what I said made Rob feel so bad that he might feel like life isn’t worth living?
“I was just venting this morning, Rob. I didn’t say it to make you f
eel guilty. I know you’re going through a tough time. It’s just—”
“Don’t make excuses. Just take the apology, Stella, all right?”
“But … are you okay?” I can’t help asking.
He laughs. “Oh, I’m just great.”
His sarcasm cuts to the heart of me. The light changes and he puts his foot down on the gas a little too hard so I jerk back in my seat.
“Look, I know it was a stupid question, but are you going to kill us both to make the point?”
He doesn’t apologize, but he does ease off the accelerator.
“Are you … ?” I can’t finish the thought.
“Not planning on it today, but thanks for asking,” Rob says.
“What about tomorrow? What about the next day?”
I count the seconds of his silence in anxious heartbeats. Finally, he says, “I’m not planning on doing anything, but let’s just take it one day at a time, Stella. That’s the only thing I can do right now.”
Not very reassuring, but that’s apparently all he’s willing to give me, because he turns the radio back on, and we don’t exchange another word until he says, “See you later,” when he drops me at school.
“I’m holding you to that,” I tell him.
He half smiles and drives away. But I take his “see you later” as a promise, one that he better not break. Because I have to find the courage to walk into school right now, and that’s hard enough to do without worrying about my older brother.
Is this how Rob felt when he walked into a potential combat situation? I wonder as I approach the school entrance, conscious of my elevated heartbeat, dry mouth, sweaty palms, and the sense that everyone who looks in my direction might be hostile.
Turns out, my instincts weren’t wrong.
Scooter Douglas hocks a loogie in my direction as I walk past. The blob just misses me and lands on the ground at my feet. I do some fancy footwork to avoid stepping in it.
“Terrorist lover,” he says.
“Un-American traitor,” Dave Eberhardt adds.
“Get out of the race,” Scooter says. “No one’s gonna vote for a traitor.”
Do I ignore them or respond? Sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me isn’t true. Being called these things hurts—a lot.
I walk on a few paces and then turn back.
“You’ll just have to wait and see about that, won’t you?” I tell them. “Because like it or not, that’s what democracy is all about.”
They keep calling out, “No traitor for class president!” and “Get out of the race!” and “Terrorist lover!” as I continue into the building.
I’d planned to find Farida to make sure she’s okay and try to talk things through with her, but instead, I go straight to Mr. Walsh’s room.
He looks up as soon as I walk in.
“Ah. I wondered if I’d see you this morning. How are you and Farida holding up?” he asks. “Someone forwarded me a link to the latest news story, so I’ve seen it.”
“You and everyone else in the entire world, it seems like.”
“Some of the other national cable shows picked it up this morning. If I were you and Farida, I’d take your social media accounts private for now, if you haven’t already,” Mr. Walsh advises me. “They’ll be scouring those for anything they can find.”
I hadn’t even thought of that. Ugh.
“That’s another strike against me in the class president campaign,” I think out loud. “Since that’s how we do most of the campaigning.”
“True,” Mr. Walsh says. “But I still think it’s the prudent thing to do.”
“Mr. Walsh, do you think I should pull out of the race?” I ask. “Scooter Douglas spit at me and called me a terrorist lover on the way into school this morning. He said no one would vote for a traitor.”
“Oh, he did, did he?” His mouth thins to a narrow line. “Sounds like Mr. Douglas needs to take a trip to the main office. Has he said anything to Farida?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen her yet.”
“I’ll check in with her to see how things are going,” he says. “And I’ll take care of reporting Scooter Douglas. But before I do that—do you think you should pull out of the race?”
I should have known he’d throw the question right back at me.
“Part of me feels like I should, because I don’t have a chance. I mean, even if I’m the best candidate in the world, there’s all the stuff going on with my brother, and now Farida’s been pulled into this disaster.”
“I’m sensing there’s a ‘but’ …”
“But that would be like letting the bad guys win. Because they aren’t telling the truth about what happened. I don’t think Chris should benefit from the lies. Or Amy, for that matter. I don’t want to give up, because then it feels like they’ve won because of the situation.”
“It sounds to me like you already have your answer,” Mr. Walsh says. “You don’t need my advice.”
“But how do I fight back?”
“Right now, they’re controlling the narrative. You’ve got to create a more compelling story,” he says.
“You mean, like … lie?”
He chuckles. “You kids today are so literal. No, I mean tell the truth, but in a more compelling way to grab the interest of your peers,” Mr. Walsh says.
“So … you mean, like, propaganda? Or what my parents call PsyOps?”
His eyes widen and he shakes his head. “PsyOps? Let’s dial it back a bit, shall we?”
“So what do you mean, then?”
“I mean figure out the main theme of your campaign and create a good narrative,” he explains. “After all, what’s been the most effective way of transmitting information since the beginning of time?”
I know where this is going.
“Storytelling?”
“You got it. That’s how you hook people. You have to be able to tell a good story.”
I thank him for his advice and head off to my first class, texting Farida, begging to talk to her before AP Gov.
But I’ve made my decision now.
I’m not going to withdraw from the race, no matter how many people spit at me and call me names. They don’t get to tell my story. Or Farida’s story. We’re going to tell our own.
That is, if Farida’s still talking to me.
Farida finally agrees to meet me after second period, so we can talk as we walk to AP Gov. For one nanosecond, I imagine asking her to skip class so we can really talk things through, but neither of us is the class-skipping type, and besides, it’s not the kind of thing a candidate for class president should do, especially when she is already at a major disadvantage in the race.
When I see her waiting outside my classroom, I want to hug her, but she’s holding her books in front of her like a barrier and has her arms wrapped around them. She looks closed off, not that I can blame her after what’s happened.
“Hey,” she says.
“Hi,” I say back. I feel awkward, not sure where to start.
Farida takes care of that for me. “So how’s your morning been? I’ve had my parents telling me all about the crap that’s been threatening the restaurant, my little brother was up with an anxiety attack half the night because he’s afraid some of the crazy online threats people have made toward us and the restaurant might actually come true, and now I get to come to school worrying whether a bunch of idiots will call me a terrorist. So it’s all been super fun.”
I hear the frustration in her voice and I feel my heart drop.
“Has anyone?”
“No. Not yet, at least. But it’s only been two periods. How much do you want to bet it happens before the end of the day?”
Since Scooter Douglas spit at me and called me a terrorist lover before school even started, that’s not a bet I’m willing to take.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “Poor Yusef. This is so messed up and I feel awful for you guys. I know you warned me this would happen, but I still didn’t
think it really would.”
“Well … it did,” she says. “My parents are coming in to meet with Principal Hart later today. They want to talk about the stuff people have been saying at school—not just to me, but to other kids.”
She stops walking and fixes her gaze on me. “The only thing that surprises me is that after all these years of being my best friend, you’re still surprised.”
I nod in embarrassed confirmation. Farida continues down the hall, and I fall in beside her.
“See, I can explain it to you, time after time after time, but you still don’t get it. I told you what it was like in the car that morning, when I asked why Mayor Abbott would say Rob sympathized with radical Islamist extremism. I thought maybe when you woke up to that graffiti on your house, maybe you’d finally get it,” she says. “That you were beginning to know how awful it feels to be thought of as the enemy in your own country.”
“I thought I got it then, too,” I say.
“Yeah. But you didn’t. You don’t know what it’s like constantly dealing with people asking, ‘Where are you from?’ And then when you reply Virginia, having them say, ‘No, where are you really from?’ Because what they mean is, ‘Why aren’t you white?’ Or having them ask stuff like, ‘How can you really be Muslim if you aren’t wearing a hijab?’ or ‘How can you live without eating bacon? It’s so delicious!’”
I cringe at the last question, because I’m pretty sure I’ve said that to her at least once, and Ken has, too. And I’m afraid to ask her the next question, because I’m going to sound stupid and insensitive, but I have to do it in order to clear the air. “So … what else am I missing?”
Farida laughs. “What is Stella missing? Let me count the things …” she deadpans in a parody of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “Sonnet 43.” “Well, first of all, how can you have been so shocked that having an Iraqi American BFF would be held against you? Where have you been since first grade? We always seem to be the bad guys, even if we’re not. How many movies have we gone to see where the people who look like me are the bad guys?”
She’s right. “This had nothing to do with you,” I protest.
Anything But Okay Page 14