WINTER, 2008

Her name is Mia. She’s the heroine of the story. Her hair is auburn, and her eyes are green. Green eyes are the best eyes. Her best friend is Jack, a Tortured Soul with green eyes and black hair. He’s the love interest. Her other best friend is Alice, who has blonde hair and is friends with Jack as well resulting in a love triangle. Alice is prettier than Mia, but Mia has the bigger heart and Jack is sweet enough to see that. It’s based off of real life, of course.

            Sameer and Alif are both in love with me. Mostly Sameer. I like him even though he slapped my best friend in the line-up before class. I like him because he is a Tortured Soul and I’m his heroine. I see them both whisper about me in class. I try not look at them and play Hard to Get because if you show interest you look too desperate and that’s not good at all.

#

            So I’m in the schoolyard and I’m walking around and watching boys shoot basketballs into the metal soccer nets. This is how my recesses go. I think of what will happen to Mia next. What’s not usual is the sudden force that yanks my hands behind my back. A foot wraps around my left ankle and I think I’ll fall but I don’t, because of the hands. For a second, I’m relieved. When I see Sameer’s face in front of me I’m confused because he’s never looked like that before. That’s when everything gets quiet.

            The holder of my arms and leg says, “kiss her Sameer, hurry up.” I don’t hear the words, I feel them. He says it over and over again, I feel them again, hitting against my head from the inside. He’s saying so many things and I can say nothing at all. Nothing. Silent. And then it digests, and then I turn my head from side to side and bring my foot down on his. It’s Alif, the more he speaks the more I know, the quieter it gets all around me. He tries, Sameer does, but not hard enough. I think he knows his mother would hear about it if he did. He let’s go of me and they stand there looking at me and then they walk away and it’s so quiet and his mother will never know. Everyone’s watching me when I go back to class, but no one saw anything. I feel shorter than everyone in the entire world. I sit at the back of the class after that, so I can’t see or hear anyone, I just see the backs of their heads and hear echoes of their conversation.

#

            Jack kisses Alice, and Mia sees. She’s hurt and shocked and angry. So, when they are sitting in a tree and talking about life, she pushes him off and he breaks his neck and dies. I erase that last part in case Mama reads it.

#

Mama sighs and adjusts her rear end on the end of the bed. “But what’s her name baby?” she repeats. We’re talking about who I played with during recess. Which is no one but is Jessica because she smiled at me today. That’s almost the same thing.

            “My friend,” I say, a knot rolling through my stomach, tying itself around my intestines. There’s a Shania Twain album playing from the living room. We do that, put music on soft for background. Even the word ‘friend’ is difficult. Her name is Jessica, but I can’t.

             “Alright,” says Mama. I know she’s mad because her voice isn’t as sweet.

            I cross my ankles and pick the skins of thumbs with my pinkies. I’d rather be watching Aladdin. I don’t like Princess Jasmine, but I like everyone else. My fingers are on my stomach, squeezing the flesh and twisting it until it’s red.

            “Do you want to watch Aladdin?” asks Mama.

            “Yes,” I say, relieved.

            She asks me name of my teacher once more, just to try, but I grab my stomach again and she lets it go. “Dinner first,” she says, “then bathe and if we have time…” and she goes on about how I have to wake up early to see Daddy tomorrow.

            I sneeze.

“Alhamdulillah,” she says, and she leaves our bedroom. I throw myself against the mattress and stare at the ceiling. I have them all in my head, it’s not like I don’t know. Jessica. Alex. Pushma. Katie. Sameer. Alif. Alif. Sameer and Alif. I can’t get them out. It’s impossible.

“Mama,” I call out, “my stomach hurts again.” She doesn’t get there in time. We have to pull the bed sheets off and soak the carpet. She uses carpet cleaner, which I like because it smells like fresh clothes.

“Shit,” says Mama.

I cry enough that she feels bad for me and carries me to the shower.

 

WINTER, 2018

I’m naïve to think that turning eighteen would feel different. When I was eight and sitting in a pile of vomit and tears, I remember thinking that when I turned eighteen somehow everything would be better. The vomit and tears were part of my month to month life back then. But when I’m eighteen I would take care of myself. I’d be an adult, be tall, be free.

Of course, it was the same. Numbers don’t change you. And I’m five feet two.

My phone rings into my earbuds, and I turn it face down. My mom doesn’t hear it because she’s watching the news and there’s an important investigation that relates to the company my uncle works for. As I leave it outside and go into my room I think of one thing that has changed. I’m legally an adult. So if I ever commit a crime, the sentence will be a lot harsher.

I get a text from Zade then, “hey, come over tomorrow!”

I could say I can’t. But I’ve already done that for a month, I think she already suspects that something is wrong. Which it’s not.

#

I think Sleeping at Last’s version of ‘Make You Feel my Love’ is the best. There are so many covers of that song, and they’re all beautiful so I guess the real credit goes to the songwriter, Bob Dylan. You’d think his version would be my favourite because it came from the source. Organic. My mother always buys organic berries, tries to anyway. It’s something she finds value in spending her money on. I’m not sure about that. I like the regular strawberries just fine, and I like Sleeping at Last’s version better.

I tell Karima this and she looks at me blankly. “Okay,” she smiles. She always smiles like that when she’s uncomfortable. I should’ve asked about her day. I forget every time to ask about her day. It’s not the same as it was last year because I don’t see her every day. When you see someone every day you don’t ask about their day, you just talk to them.

            “How was your day Karima?” I ask.

            “Fine,” she says. So I think, what’s the point.

            I pull the piece of cinnamon gum I’ve been chewing out of my mouth and roll it between my fingers. We’re sitting in Zade’s common room and it’s dark because the lamp bulb blew. There’s not much to tell her. I show her an Instagram post I liked from Timothée Chalamet, eliciting the usual, “aww.”

We’re at the point where asking about updates is unnecessarily tiring and we’d much rather be alone. In spite of this I say things like how I have three essays due next week and she says I know because she has two of those classes with me.

            “Oh yeah,” I say. Sometimes I’m worried I’ll develop memory loss early in my life. I don’t want to think about it, but I do.

            “Have you been writing?” she asks.

            “Uh huh,” I say, shoving my hand around in the pocket of my bag for a tissue, “not anything special, a few blog posts, a few stories.” What I mean is nothing I love.

            I spit my gum into the tissue and roll it into a ball.

Zade comes out of her room wearing the cherry coloured lipstick we bought her for her eighteenth. “Let’s go?” she says in her newfound peppy voice. I hate her for three seconds and then I swallow and it’s okay.

“Yeah,” I say, in an equally disgusting manner. I glance sideways at Karima, who gives me a half-smile that I return in full.

Zade, Karima and I go to the café and sit for about an hour, talking about movies we haven’t watched and work we haven’t done. Then I say I have to leave because my aunt is coming over tonight which isn’t true. “I haven’t seen my aunt for a month,” which is true.

I put my earbuds in on the subway and listen to a playlist I made with songs that remind me of grade nine. That’s too annoying, so I change it to something hip-hoppy like Brockhampton, skip until I find the right beat. And there it is, that’s the saviour.

I’ve made ten Spotify playlists. It’s weird hobby, and it’s probably a waste of time. Organizing songs into categories when there are so many other playlists. But these are the songs that are stuck in my head as I wash the dishes, go to school, eat dinner, and if I didn’t have them, there’d be silence. Which is bad. Which is not okay.

When I get home, my mom has the place decorated with balloons and streamers. “What do you want to do tonight?” she asks as I wash my hands.

“Let’s watch Aladdin,” I say, and we laugh. Aladdin, the hero of my youth. I’d feel embarrassed for myself if my mother didn’t look at me the way she does. My mother, she’s the real hero of my youth. She says maybe I should Jasmine another try. I agree because Jasmine is essential to telling of Aladdin’s story; I haven’t been fair to her.

#

Her name is Aziza. She is a girl with a mother. Her hair is black and frizzy, and her eyes are brown. That’s all I’ve figured out so far.