It’s got to be a mistake. An oversight. She’s thinking about the class, not each student, right?
I can’t do it. I can’t. There’s no way. This is insane. How am I supposed to— At the lockers, Evan is holding forth with a group of his friends. They’re his friends, not mine, though I spend time with them almost by default. I like precisely none of them, and right now all I want is to get the books for my next class and escape to the mind-numbing pleasantry of my wood shop elective. I can’t tolerate Rich Kid Babble. Not usually. And especially not now, my mind churning like tornado clouds over Ms. Benitez’s assignment.
“Sebastian!” Evan says, as though I am a weary traveler he’s not seen at this tavern in many a fortnight. “How’s Benitez treating you?”
“Not well,” I confess, and spin my combination lock.
“Sebastian?” says Mark Vesentine. We’ve met before; we’ve hung out before. But he has to act as though he’s never heard of me. “Sebastian. Oh, yeah, I’ve seen you online. You’re the guy who makes those pizza videos. Yo, that shit is tight.”
Rich White Kid Trying to Be Black—double can’t tolerate.
“What’s it like making pizza for Jihadi Jane?”
There’s an oceanic roar that starts in my ears and grows to envelop me. It picks me up like a child’s doll, buoys me dizzyingly, turns me, aims me. Before I realize it’s happening, I spin around, grab Mark by the shoulders, and slam him against the lockers. My own voice is strangled and drowning but still audible to my ears as I shout, “Shut your fucking mouth! Shut your fucking mouth!”
Hands grapple me, pull me away. There is a glimmer of bravado in Mark’s eyes, swamped by shock and fear. I struggle against the hands on me. They’re Evan’s. He’s tugging me away from Mark.
“Come on, man, you know that shit ain’t cool.”
I don’t know if this is directed at me or at Mark. I don’t care, either.
“Just making a joke,” says Mark, miffed. “So fucking sensitive. Jesus Christ. Or should I say Mohammed?”
Evan’s grip on me tightens again to hold me back, but it’s not necessary. I’ve burned through the adrenaline rush.
“You’re a fucking asshole,” I tell Mark, slamming my locker shut.
“At least I never shot anyone,” he fires back. There’s a communal gasp, but I don’t even turn to look at him, marching off instead.
“Someone should have shot you in your fucking crib,” I toss back at him.
On the bus ride home, I deliberately sit away from Evan. I’m not sure if I’m angry at him for stopping me from pummeling Mark or for being Mark’s friend in the first place. I just know that I’m still angry, that the rage smolders under there. Mark’s comments about Aneesa, about the shooting—they are the tinder. Ms. Benitez’s assignment is the spark.
Aneesa tries to engage me in conversation. I do my best to be polite, but she can tell something is wrong.
I can’t tell if I’m angry or grateful that she doesn’t ask what.
At home, I throw my backpack into the corner, hurl my body onto the bed. Time passes. I’m not sure how much. I can’t imagine how to write this essay for Ms. Benitez. I can’t imagine what she was thinking telling me to write it in the first place.
My phone buzzes, and I flip it over to see the screen.
Aneesa: DON’T LOOK AT THE COMMENTS!
Aneesa: Coming over RIGHT NOW
Time disappears. It vanishes and slides. It’s gone slippery and slick, threading through my fingers like oil.
Aneesa is standing in front of me. I don’t know how she got into my bedroom. I don’t remember the doorbell, and Mom isn’t home yet.
It feels as though ten centuries have passed, but it must have only been fifteen minutes.
Her face is twisted in concern, her eyebrows cresting above her eyes, crashing on either side of the crease stitched by worry above the bridge of her nose.
“You looked, didn’t you?”
Yes. Yes, I did. I looked at the comments.
Specifically, at the fifteenth comment posted to the archive of our livestream.
Before then, all anyone knew about me was my first name and what my hands looked like. I never really thought about it before. I was anonymous without even trying.
A few days ago, for the first time, they saw my face.
The fifteenth comment.
“hey I know this kid. he goes to my school and he KILLED HIS BABY SISTER. don’t take my word for it—” and a link. I didn’t click on the link. I don’t need to click on the link. I know where it goes.
There are many, many comments after the fifteenth. They’re all basically the same.
“Sebastian,” she says.
“I am so sorry,” she says.
I can’t think of anything to say. Except: “Our subscriber count is down.”
“Don’t worry about that now.”
“We’re losing subscribers,” I say.
She puts her arms around me. “Don’t look. Don’t read.”
It starts to happen—I feel myself melt against her. My eyes flutter closed.
Her lips against my hair, pressing against my scalp.
“I’m so sorry.” Her breath. The sound of it.
I wallow in her.
She absorbs me. Arms around me. Cradling me.
I pull back, just enough. Lean up. Crane my neck.
There’s a question in her eyes and on her lips. I blunt it with my own lips, pressing them to hers, doing it at last, at last doing it.
I’m kissing Aneesa. My body dissolves into a burst of color.
And she pulls away, pushing at me at the same time.
“What are you doing?” she asks gently.
I don’t know how to answer. Isn’t it obvious?
“You can’t do that,” she says.
Fumbling for words, still coalescing from my explosion into color, I manage to say, “Is it a Muslim thing?”
“That’s not…” She backs away a little bit. “It’s a me thing. I don’t feel that way about you.”
The words are standard English, arrayed in appropriate syntax, but they make no sense. This is Aneesa. She’s spent the summer with me. Introduced me to her family. Spent Fourth of July watching fireworks with me on her deck. Held my hand. Held my hand.
“But you do,” I tell her stupidly.
“I don’t. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I didn’t know—I had no idea you felt this way. I’m sorry.”
And the worst thing is this: She really is sorry. I can read her; I’ve spent the summer reading her. She really, truly is sorry.
It’s true and impossible.
“What the hell, Aneesa? You held my hand—”
“I was trying to comfort you!”
“—and you spent your whole damn summer with me, making pizza. What the hell is that about?” My voice hasn’t risen, but it’s become tighter, tauter.
“I did that because you’re my friend and because it was fun, you idiot!” She’s gone brittle. There’s a tension along her jaw I’ve never seen before. “I liked it! It’s possible for me to like doing something without being in love with you!”
“You led me on—”
“No. I never said anything. I never said we were anything but friends. Not once. I can’t help what you—”