All We Have Left (2 page)

I wake that morning thinking about what to wear, the taste of candied dreams lingering even after I open my eyes. I slide out of bed and grab my clothes, accidentally kicking a stack of comics piled beside my desk, sending
Elektra
and
Batgirl
skidding across the floor.

I freeze, stuck with one leg in my pants. The ice maker thumps, and I can hear the gentle whir of the fan that Ridwan aims at his face while he’s sleeping, but nothing else.

Moving carefully, I slip my other leg into my pants and tie the drawstring at my waist. I go quietly toward the door and open it a crack, and then slap the light switch off as light pours out. I hurry to the bathroom, twisting my crazy-curly hair up into a makeshift bun to keep it from attacking my face, trying to be as quiet as possible. When I’ve finished,
my skin tingling and damp, I go out into the living room, letting my eyes adjust to the dull, gray light trickling through the front windows. It’s almost dawn, and I need to hurry.

I wind my way through the furniture to the front door, patting my pocket to make sure I have my key. Carefully, I unlock the deadbolt and slip out into the carpeted hall, shutting the door softly behind me.

I see the light through the window at the end of the hall begin to brighten, and I start to jog, feeling the smooth pull of my muscles. My head is full of messy, jumbled thoughts, and I wish so badly that yesterday had not happened, but that wish has never come true for me or anyone. Not even Lia with all her superhero powers can help me change what happened. But now everything is messed up, and I don’t know how to make it right.

I reach the door at the end of the hall and open it. Not caring about the noise now, I let it slam shut behind me and race up four flights of stairs, feeling the pleasant burn in my thigh muscles. I reach the top and fumble for my keys and then step through the roof door into the quiet, luminous dawn.

I stand for a moment, just breathing. Rainwater puddles under my feet, and the air feels cool and clean. There were storms yesterday, but today the sky is brightening into a soft blue and gold, decorated with just a few high lacy wisps of clouds. It’s going to be a beautiful day.

Traffic rumbles gently on the street below, and a flock
of swallows dart by in absolute silence, as if they too are in awe of the perfectness of the morning. A waft of wind brings the smell of the river, wet and salty, and I inhale all of it, the river, the faint smell of exhaust, the honey-gold air. I walk across the pebbly concrete and stand near the rail, gazing out at the Manhattan skyline. It’s an imperfect view, but I can see the blocky buildings across the river, the Twin Towers soaring high into the sky, the dawn soft and gold in their mirrored surfaces.

It’s getting late, and I still need to get ready for school. Already, the evidence of a waking city is all around me, the smell of coffee, quiet, sleepy voices through open windows, the sound of bus brakes screeching briefly before the bus accelerates.

I pull the scarf out of my pocket, and it unfurls in the hushed air. I slip the silk through my fingers for a moment, smelling the wax that my grandmother used to design the intricate patterns. I miss Nenek, suddenly and fiercely. I miss the girl I was when we lived in California and how simple everything was then.

I quiet my breathing and my heart, making my intention known to God. Raising my palms to my shoulders, I whisper, “
Allahu Akbar.
”

God is the greatest
.

Peace seems to flow into me, and I stand for a moment, eyes closed.

As I go through the familiar motions of prayer, bowing
and then kneeling, so I can press my forehead, palms, and knees to the old prayer rug my father stores up here for just these occasions, I feel serenity and quietness fill me.

“Say: I seek refuge in the Lord of the dawn,

From the evil of what He has created,

And from the evil of the utterly dark night when it comes,

And from the evil of those who cast (evil suggestions) in firm resolutions,

And from the evil of the envious when he envies.”

I chose this particular surah this morning because of the dawn, and because sometimes it seems like being who I want to be is so hard.

I begin to unwind the scarf from around my head, but my hands still. Can I do it? Is it time?

Something deep and irrevocable inside me says
yes
.

With shaking fingers I coil the scarf back around my head, letting the ends flutter behind me. I’ll have to find some pins to make sure it stays in place, but for now it’ll do.

While I was praying, the sky has turned a deep and almost endless blue. It stretches taut over the city buildings, and it seems like the tops of the Twin Towers will rip right through the rich fabric of the sky and reach all the way up to the stars. In that moment, I feel infinite, like I can be anything, and do anything, and I wish I felt like this all the time.

I let myself quietly into our apartment. My father, slim and quiet, is folding up his prayer rug as I come into the living room.

“Alia,” he says, his quiet eyes taking in my crumpled shirt and wet feet. My scarf.

“Ayah,” I say.

We stand for a long moment, and I wonder what he’s thinking. I used to be his Lala, the little girl who said and did anything, who would put my arms around his smooth neck and whisper,
I love you, Ayah. Forever and forever.

There’s a galaxy between us now, hung thick with stars of hurt and disappointment. I don’t want to hurt him, but there are so many things he doesn’t understand about me. I’m not that same little girl anymore.

“Have you changed your mind?” I ask simply.

Last night the argument had been fast and furious. Mainly between me and my mother, because even though we are both small, our words never are. Ayah had walked into the apartment while the words were flying, looking tired and drawn as he slowly pulled off his tie and folded it into a perfect square.

Mama wasted no time telling him that my principal had called to tell her that Carla Sanchez and I were caught in the girls’ bathroom smoking a joint. While some of this was true—yes, Carla and I had been in the girls’ bathroom, and,
yes, there was a joint involved—my mother has not given me a chance to explain.

“I’m trying to tell you,” I had yelled a thousand, a million, times, but my mother had talked right over me, and
I’m trying to tell you
was left spinning alone and unheard in the air between us.

In the end, it didn’t matter.

“You understand,” my father says now, and his words sound like coins dropped into a cool, quiet wishing well, “that we are talking about trust. We need to trust you. And you, Alia, you need to be able to trust yourself,
inshallah
.”

For Ayah, words are precious. Measured and weighed, and then shared as carefully as water rations in a desert.

“What have you decided, Ayah?” I’m already tired, and the day has barely begun. I feel a deep pit of fear in my stomach, because I think I know what he is going to say and it is going to ruin my life.

“Your mother and I talked,” he says. “We will meet with your principal this afternoon and ask that she not expel you. That is the first thing.”

I let out a small breath, because this is good, better than I expected. My mother and father were never happy with my choice of schools. They thought I should go to a more academic school, not one that focused almost exclusively on the creative arts.

“But,” he says, “you will come home directly every day after school for the next three months.”

My heart stops.

“You’re grounding me?” I ask, my voice shaking. “You know what this means?”

He gazes at me steadily. “I know you are disappointed, Alia.”

“Only fifteen people made it into the program, Ayah. I was one of them. If I’m grounded, I’m going to lose the best opportunity I’ve ever had.”

He shakes his head. “You are only sixteen. There will be other opportunities, other chances. This is not the end of the world.”

“But it is,” I say, and turn around and walk out before I can say anything else, because all the words in me are hurtful and angry.

I don’t say good-bye to him, and he doesn’t mention the scarf on my head.

Up until that bitter-cold February morning when he comes in late to class, Nick Roberts was just the skinny kid with dark hair who always sat in the back, the kid people made fun of for being too quiet, too weird, too unwilling to fit in.

It’s the first day of Entrepreneurship, a semester-long block, so you always wonder who you’re going to be stuck with for the rest of the year. I’m a little surprised to see him, because I never thought of Nick Roberts as the type of guy who says, “Hell
yeah
, I want to start a million-dollar company someday.”

Not that I’d ever thought about him much at all, but when he comes in ten minutes late and heads for the back of the room, which is my favorite territory, I see his face. I give
him a sideways glance, and then again, because he looks the way I feel lately, bottled up and trying not to explode like a can of shaken soda.

He sits in the empty seat next to mine and drops his backpack onto the floor. Out of the corner of my eye, I take in the silver hoop winking in his eyebrow, and his eyes the color of a cold winter sky. He’s dressed all in black, including clunky black boots, and he’s got plugs through both of his ears.

Something else: Nick Roberts is hot. I don’t know why I’d never noticed this before.

Mr. Laramore, who is passing out syllabuses, looks at Nick. “Nice of you to join us, Mr. Roberts,” he says, and his voice is a just-right mixture of friendly and edgy. A couple of girls behind me sigh, and I can just imagine the hearts they are doodling all over their notebooks.

That’s when I see the tattoo snuggled up under the arm of Nick’s black T-shirt. It’s hidden by his sleeve, but I can see it is a word.
What is it?

A muscle twitches in Nick’s neck before he leans back in his seat, but he doesn’t say anything. I’m still staring at his tattoo. I can make out an
N
and an
O
. “No” something? But it is all one word. My fingers itch to slide the sleeve up so I can see the rest of it.

“Do you have anything to say for yourself, Mr. Roberts?” Mr. Laramore is not going to let it go.

Nick stares at our teacher for a long moment. “My dog was sick.”

If there was one thing I had noticed about him before, it was
this
. He says things in a low voice, most of the time so the teacher never hears, which are so blatantly
eff you
that you don’t know whether to laugh or be horrified. He usually says it so quiet you wouldn’t hear him unless you’re really listening.

This time we all heard him. I don’t think any of us knew why we broke into giggles because
his dog was sick.
Mr. Laramore continues passing out the syllabuses, and there’s a general murmur of disappointment, because school is a contact sport and some people get a kick out of seeing blood on the field.

Nick leans his arm down to his backpack, and for just a moment I see the word tattooed on his bicep. It says “Nothing.”

All righty, then.

He sits back up, and pulls his sleeve down, covering the tattoo entirely.

“I trust he has recovered,” Mr. Laramore says, stopping in front of Nick and putting the syllabus square in the middle of his desk. Nick stares at him with no expression; you can see the anger coming off him in waves, but maybe only if you’re a pro at surfing anger like I am.

I twine my blond ponytail around my finger, pulling and pulling until it hurts my head.

“She,” Nick says, and it takes me a minute to realize that he’s still talking about the dog. And then he shrugs, an
extravagant
whatever, dude,
and says, “She’ll either be kicking or stone cold dead when I get home.”

Nobody laughs this time.

I glance over at him, and there’s something in his eyes that makes me want to smile, or cry, or say
I’m sorry.
Emi is frowning, and she rolls her eyes at me. She takes school very seriously and hates it when less-serious students disrupt her class zen.