BRIDGES
Mother is baking. I wasn’t even aware she knew how, but that’s not why I’m staring at her. I’m trying to read from her face, from her voice, from the way she cracks an egg too hard and then swears at the shell fragments in the bowl. Did she know? Or was she also kept in the dark?
It’s a wishful thought. A way to preserve her in my mind. Let her not be a monster. Not like him.
Bastien is singing loudly into a microphone. He’s hooked some sort of animated karaoke game up to the TV, and an on-screen avatar lip-syncs his words. The two of them—Bastien and his electronic twin—are singing a pop song I recognize but can’t name. Another cultural reference that eludes me.
I tune out the noise and focus on the equipment and the wires strewn across the room. I’m certain the game is new. Where are these things coming from? Bastien is a cheerful beneficiary—does that make him complicit too? Guilty by proxy?
I feel paranoid and sweaty. Between karaoke songs I can hear my blood rushing in my ears. I’m underwater again, sinking fast.
Mercifully, it’s Sunday.
“I’m going to the library,” I announce to the apartment. My mother acknowledges me with a distracted half nod. She’s stirring viciously, maiming whatever’s in the bowl. Bastien turns up the volume.
My feet feel bruised and pinched as I walk, and it occurs to me that I will need new shoes soon. The ones on my feet came from home, perhaps the only things that have served me well in both worlds. But they weren’t made for this amount of walking, and they’re starting to chafe.
Shoes cost money. Money we don’t have. So I try to relieve the pressure by changing my gait. Toe to heel instead of heel to toe. I know I must look strange, but my stilted new walk requires concentration. Which means that I don’t have to think about anything else. I can push everything else aside as I focus on one graceless step at a time. Toe, heel. Toe, heel.
It’s a soothing mantra, but then I think of Nadeen’s limp. My walk suddenly becomes a cruel parody of hers, so I go back to my normal stride. Better to suffer the blisters.
I am counting on Ian. I need for him to be at the library. I need his normal. I need his easy.
But he’s not there.
My heart turns leaden, and I stand stupidly in the door and scan the room again, as if I could make him appear by wishing. There are empty chairs and vacant computer terminals, but I have no desire to be here alone. Libraries are no longer a refuge for me. The books on the shelves have turned into weapons—they’re deceptively still as they lie in wait, loaded with painful truths.
A hand on my shoulder makes me flinch.
“Easy, Laila! Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” Ian’s hand moves to my elbow, jump-starting my pulse. “I was hoping you’d show up today. Hey—are you okay?”
“I am now.” I don’t mean to sound so bold, but I have no room in my life these days for subtlety. There are too many games being played around me. Here, with Ian, I decide to speak the truth. Or at least to tell no lies—a promise that sounds noble but will likely yield very short conversations.
I watch the reaction that flits across his face. So that’s how we’re going to play it?
“Let’s go somewhere else,” he says.
We’re already turning toward the door as I nod, our strange synchronization present once more. Against all odds, Ian and I seem to understand one another perfectly.
“Where to?” he asks once we get outside.
The wind is picking up, and it makes my eyes water. I step closer to him. “Anywhere. I don’t care.”
“Then let’s just walk,” he says, taking my hand.
Walking should be the last thing my sore feet want to do right now, but his fingers lace their way through mine, and my blisters no longer matter. I lean into him, and we set off for nowhere in particular.
He’s chatty, telling me about a funny typo that made it into the school paper’s latest edition when I feel a raindrop. I can’t help but laugh.
“What’s so funny?” He smiles sideways and holds my eye.
“It’s just like in the movies. You know, the young couple caught in the rainstorm. There’s always a bridge or something for them to stand under. Where’s our bridge now that we need one?” As the words exit my mouth, I feel my cheeks grow hot with embarrassment. Rainy-day bridge scenes all end the same way. With a kiss. And not just a polite little peck. No, rainy-day bridge kisses are always melodramatic, capital-K kisses, drawn out and accompanied by orchestras.
He’s blushing too, a shade of pink to match my own. Oh yes, he understands me. The scorching feeling spreads from the base of my neck to the roots of my hair. His hand drops mine and moves to my waist.
We keep walking, hips touching, not speaking.
I hope for more rain.
Ian’s presence leaves me giddy and wanting and utterly ridiculous. I laugh again, first at my own ridiculousness and then because I feel another raindrop, then another.
“Look what you’ve done,” Ian whispers in my ear, grinning, as the sky opens up.
“Run!” Now I’m the one to grab his hand. “Over there!”
We jog to the nearest shelter, a convenience store awning, not really caring a bit that we’re getting drenched. When we get there, we’re wet and gasping, as much from laughing as from running. “It’s not a bridge,” he says, “but this’ll at least protect us from the rain.”
I’m blushing again, this time because our closeness under the narrow awning unsettles me. I avoid looking directly at him, but I can’t help it for long, and when I finally look up, he’s staring back. My legs turn to jelly. From running, I tell myself.
“So … how was the rest of your weekend?” Ian’s attempt at small talk is stilted and clumsy—Hollywood’s expectations weigh heavily upon us. His clothing is sodden, a droplet of rain is coursing down the bridge of his nose, but his eyes look golden and inviting, and more than anything I want to push my fingers through his rain-slicked hair while he kisses me.
He kisses me.
It’s not quite a Hollywood kiss. It’s tame and sweet—chaste, even—and it’s over too soon. I want more. So I kiss him.
Ian seems surprised at first, but then he’s kissing me right back, and there’s nothing chaste about it. I wait for the kiss to erase the day before, to wipe away Amir’s words. It doesn’t, though. It just makes them even more complicated. Kissing Ian makes my here even more different from my there, and the nagging feeling that I don’t deserve this sweet respite from my past pricks at my brain. I press against him harder, and the guilt grows fainter.
“Wow,” says Ian when we finally pull apart. He’s grinning again.
I don’t blush this time. I grin back. “Was that okay?”
“Uh, yeah?” He’s warmly sarcastic, teasing. “Actually, it was more than okay. I guess I was taking it too slow, huh?”
“You’ll do better next time,” I tease him back. There’s a pleasant sort of tension between us, and now we’re off balance in a good way. We lean toward one other, always touching, but just barely, like we’re held together by invisible rubber bands. I’m not myself around Ian—I’m behaving like a flirting, reckless stranger.
For the moment, this feels like a very good thing.
COLLISIONS
I am buoyant as Ian walks me home, and I catch myself grinning idiotically as we talk about everything and nothing. Well, perhaps not everything. But we talk about so many things, frivolous and serious alike, that it feels like it could be everything. We talk about everything that matters to the not-Laila I become when I’m with him.
He’s the human equivalent of Bastien’s cereal—a sweet, easy indulgence totally unlike anything back home. He satisfies a craving I didn’t know I had.
“What’s your mom going to say when she sees me?” Ian’s fingers brush against mine, but they don’t grab hold; the tease is more thrilling than the act.
“Nothing,” I say, “since she’s not going to see you. She’s not ready for that yet.” I’m not ready for that.
He feigns offense. “But moms love me! I make a great first impression.” He sees my reluctance and stops in the middle of the sidewalk to bow with a gallant flourish. “Just to your door, then, Lady Laila. Your wish is my command.”
But we don’t make it that far.
Amir is waiting outside my building. He’s stern, standing like a sentry, but for once I’m only witness to his venomous glare. Today, Ian is the victim.
Just the sight of him causes my stomach to clench. After our conversation yesterday, his presence cannot mean anything good. “Amir? What are you doing here?” Why do I feel guilty, as if I’ve been caught doing something wrong?
“I need to talk to you.” Not in English.
“Hey, I recognize you from school. I’m Ian.” Ian sticks his hand out, unaware that he has already been excluded.
Amir is the picture of contempt. He’s an angry statue ignoring Ian’s hand.
Ian shrugs and drops his hand. “Laila?”
They’re both looking at me. What am I choosing here? The moment feels inexplicably important. “I’m sorry, Ian. I have to speak to Amir. Family business. Thank you for walking me home, though.” My smile is self-conscious and dim.
Ian’s eyes narrow just slightly—the tiniest hint of irritation directed at Amir. But he shrugs again, rejecting my rejection. “Okay, no problem. I’ll see you at school.” His tone is neutral, his wave is taut, and he’s walking away before I can respond.
Somewhere inside me a spark flickers, then vanishes. Our new connection deflates, and so do I.
“Bye, Ian,” I say to his back.