We bike home, side by side, and he tries to convince me to read Zeitoun, which is on my summer reading list and was on his last year, about a guy saving lives after Hurricane Katrina. I counter by suggesting he read Into the Wild, which is on his reading list but I’ve already read, about a guy ditching his life and disappearing into Alaska, unfortunately quite literally in the end.
When we hit the street where I need to turn left and he needs to turn right, we brake, pop off of our seats, and rest our feet on the ground. The pain from the bump of my ponytail makes me remove my bike helmet. I take off my sunglasses and stick them in my backpack.
“It’s getting late,” Nate says. “Maybe I should make sure you get home okay.”
With my powers, it’s actually the other way around.
“Thanks, but I’ll be fine,” I say, never knowing what may be waiting (or floating or materializing out of thin air) at home.
“Would you…?” Nate gnaws his bottom lip. “How about you text me when you get there?”
Text him? That would require him giving me his phone number. I’d have Nathan Reese’s phone number? “S-s-ure.” I fumble in my bag for my phone, almost dropping it as I hand it to him. I clear my throat. “I mean, yeah, no problem, if you want.”
He enters his number into my phone and asks if it’s okay if he puts mine in his. Is it okay? Is he serious? Is he…? Is it possible Nate’s shy? That he’s uncomfortable around me? I lean against my bike to hide the quiver in my knees, but I lean too hard, and the bike clatters to the ground.
Immediately Nate bends to pick it up. As we right the bicycle together, we brush shoulders. We are the same height. He looks me in my un-sunglassed eyes. I hesitate before lowering my gaze to the bike, making a show of dusting it off.
“It’s funny,” he says, circling in front of my handlebars. “I didn’t realize how tall you were.”
Deflect, Azra, deflect.
The best I can come up with is so girly I’m not sure he’ll buy it. “That’s what happens when you wear heels one day, flats the next.” I kick my sneaker against the bike frame. “Sneaks with loads of cushioning.” To further sell it, I pull out my ponytail holder and give my hair an awkward flip. “We girls have tons of tricks that make it more challenging.”
Nate almost misses the seat as he slides back on. He says in a voice barely above a whisper, “You should think about wearing your hair down more often.” He then rises from his seat, feet on the pedals, ready to cycle hard and fast. In his normal tone he says, “Put that helmet back on though. Better to be safe than sorry. Never know when you might hit something and be thrown for a loop.”
I pull the helmet on and snap the buckle under my chin. Apparently I should have been wearing this thing all day.
12
“What do you do if someone wishes to have never been born?”
My teeth sink into the lamb kebab right as my mother springs the first question of one of her pop quizzes on me.
I chew and chew and chew because I have no idea. I swallow slowly, reach for my glass of water, and drink the entire thing, tiny sip, by tiny sip. My stalling doesn’t fool her and doesn’t help me find the answer.
“Because you know you can’t kill anyone, don’t you?” she says. “Well, it’s not that you can’t, but it’s highly frowned upon. It can result in severe punishment unless it’s absolutely necessary. There’s almost always a way around it.”
I’m not sure what shocks me more, the realization that I have the power to kill someone or that my mother thought me doing so was a possibility.
My appetite takes a hike. I push back my dinner plate and think for a moment. “Maybe I could give him a new identity?”
“Perhaps, but he’d almost certainly be missed.” My mother pauses. “You’re on the right track, but you have to dig deeper. Find out what’s making him feel that way and what you can do to fix it.”
So maybe mine’s only a C answer, but considering the difficulty of that hypothetical, we really should be grading on a curve. Just like my mom to kick things off with a zinger.
She’s deep in thought, pondering her next question, when a pulsating buzz buzz in my thigh makes me sit up straighter. It took me fifteen minutes to come up with the uninspired “Home” and a smiley face that I sent to Nate before dinner.
I ease my phone out of my front pocket, convinced the text won’t be from him. But it is.
Alone? ;)
My head snaps up to my mother, who’s cutting the fat off a piece of lamb. The thunk, thunk of my heart, the nearness of my mother, the very idea that Nate’s texting me ends with me nervously dashing off a terse:
No.
Warmth from embarrassment and … something else floods my entire body as I read Nate’s reply:
Too bad.
My trembling fingertips hover over the keyboard as I contemplate my response.
“Azra!” My mother snatches my phone. “Is it too much to ask you to pay attention to me for five minutes?”
I shake my head, extending my hand for the phone. She can’t read it. She can’t. She can’t.
My racing heart slows to a trot as she rests the phone at the far end of the table and resumes her questions, which despite my now even more unfocused mind, I answer pretty well, definitely in the B+ or higher range. This likely makes her believe I’ve actually been studying, and I don’t indicate otherwise. If I can fake it this good, why hit that stupid old book?
“Well,” my mother says, “I think maybe you’re ready for your second candidate.”
That’s what I get for being so good at bluffing.
Her forehead crinkles. “Again, it should probably be someone we know…”
Henry’s kindness to me and Chelsea’s meanness to him rush back to me.
The algorithm the Afrit use to select candidates is a mystery. Supposedly, when they see evidence that an individual may be able to do important things for society, they give that person a little prodding by selecting them to receive a wish. There’s a Jinn to thank for everything from the first light bulb to the first supercomputer.
They’ll choose my candidates for the rest of my life.
My mother chose my first candidate.
This time, I want to choose.