The daily schedule and the new gimmick of Aneesa narrating and eating the pizza work. We burn through double digits on our subscriber count in the first week of the new, improved videos, then enter into triple digits. I at last inform Evan of my summer project, via text, and he responds with enthusiastic emoji and the news that “all the guys here” are enjoying the videos.
Aneesa has one more trick up her sleeve—a theme song. It’s bouncy and bright without being cloying or annoying. It’s absolutely perfect.
“Sounds like more than just an oboe,” I tell her. “What talents are you hiding from me?”
I could swear she actually blushes. “Just the oboe is me. The rest of it I did in GarageBand.”
We don’t necessarily go viral, but we catch the digital sniffles. Soon, we hit one thousand subscribers, and our videos begin picking up multiple viewings per person.
Along with the good comes, of course, the bad.
The usual welter of ridiculous comments and nonsense—virtual catcalls, some disturbing racist barbs, misogynist snark—begins to clutter our comment section. I want to pull the plug on them, but Aneesa shrugs it off, pointing out that some of our commenters are acting in our defense against the trolls.
“Remember,” she says, “we’re all different for a reason.”
“I’m supposed to learn something from these submoronic jackasses?”
We’re at her house, sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for our latest episode to finish rendering on her laptop. Her parents are at work and we trust you, so we have the run of the place. I still have half a glass of Mrs. Fahim’s good lemonade, but I’m too hot for it to cool me off.
“The comments are aimed at me, not you,” she points out. “Don’t get pissed.”
“That’s why I’m pissed! I don’t care what anyone says about me.”
She hmphs. “I don’t know if I should be flattered that you care so much or offended that you think I can’t take care of myself.”
“Aneesa…”
“Think, Sebastian. What’s really bothering you? Do you really think I need a big strong man to save me?”
“Hey!” I stand up, jostling the lemonade. “It’s not about that. That’s not us.”
Us. What is us?
“Then sit down,” she says very calmly, gesturing to my chair, “and stop worrying. I’ll tell you when it’s too much for me, and we’ll deal with it then.”
“How?”
“I have no idea. Fortunately, I don’t need one yet.”
I’m still angry. On her behalf. At her, too. I don’t think she needs to be rescued. But when you see your friend—or someone you think and hope might someday be more—abused, you do what you can to stop it. Who doesn’t do that? What kind of person doesn’t do that?
“You’re still upset.” She sighs.
“No, I’m not.”
“You haven’t sat back down.”
I sit. I sulk. I’m obvious.
“You act like this is the worst thing that could happen to me. The worst thing that has happened to me.”
“One guy said he has some meat that definitely isn’t halal for you to put in your mouth!”
She laughs. “And isn’t that the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard? That guy doesn’t know who I am or where I live or even my name. I don’t care what he says. I’ve heard worse. In person.”
It takes me nearly a minute to work up the courage, a minute spent with my chin on the table, tracing curves in the condensation on my glass of lemonade. “What’s the worst thing you’ve heard?”
She tuts and waves the question away like a mosquito. “Boring. Boring, boring, boring. What other people do and say. People who are irrelevant. Ask me something that matters, Sebastian. Like, what’s the worst thing I’ve ever done to someone else.”
“I don’t want to know.”
She leans over the table and slides the glass away so that it’s no longer between us. Our eyes lock. “Because you’re afraid it’ll change what you think of me?”
“No. I just don’t care.”
“Friendship without conditions or strings?” She grins. “Wow, that’s really open-minded of you.”
“No. I just don’t have a litmus test for my friends, is all.”
That stops her cold. She rises and comes around to my side of the table, looming over me, sizing me up. I lean back in my chair and look up at her. “What?”
“You’re really smart,” she says. “And really mature.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
She punches my shoulder. We’ve come a long way from those early days when she wouldn’t shake my hand. “Stop it. I’m being serious. It’s a compliment, loser.”
“Putting the words compliment and loser next to each other makes for some nice cognitive dissonance.”
“See? That’s what I’m talking about. Who talks like that? Seriously. I mean, write it on your blog, sure. But who actually speaks out loud like that without rehearsing?”
“Sorry.”
“There you go, apologizing again! I’m seriously in awe, jackass. I’m not dissing you. I’m marveling at you.”
I’ve never been marveled at before. At least, not in my field of vision.
“You don’t ask your friends about the worst thing they’ve ever done because you know deep down they’d disappoint you, and you’re too noble to let that happen. That’s what it is.”
“It totally isn’t.”
“Then what’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”
Freezing water in my lower intestine. My guts lurch and my muscles tense. I mumble something indistinct and only vaguely words.
“I’ll go first,” she says, cheerfully blazing ahead. “When I was ten, I knew my best friend liked this guy that I also liked. And I stole her diary and ripped out the page where she wrote that and left it in his locker so he would see it. She was mortified and I had broken her trust and it was pretty awful.”
“I guess so.”
“Do you hate me now?”
“Nah.”
“See?” She smiles dimples. “No big! Now you. Go ahead.”
“I don’t want to.” But.
“Come on. I just bared my soul to you. The least you can do is return the favor.”
But I suddenly do want to. I don’t know why. I don’t understand it. I’m not even sniffing around the edges of understanding it, but suddenly I want more than anything in the world to tell her. Because she thinks I think she needs help. Because she mocked me for wanting to help. Because I want to show her she’s not the only one who’s been pissed on by the world.
She’s regarding me with those quirked lips, those arched eyebrows. I want to tell her because I realize now that it’s true: I love her and I need her to know, and if I don’t say it now, I’ll never say it, and it has to come from me.
“When I was four years old, I shot and killed my baby sister.”