But Tariq was very concerned about injustice, about poverty, about rich corporations and greed, about the exploitation of poor countries by rich ones. He gave me a copy of The Communist Manifesto, and something called What Uncle Sam Really Wants. We sat on giant beanbag chairs on the floor behind his bed, talking politics and gossip and our hopes and dreams and nightmares, listening to punk rock music, looking up at the gruesome and obscene album covers he’d stuck to his ceiling, kissing and cuddling clandestinely. Every few minutes he’d stop and tilt his head and listen for his mother’s footsteps.
I wanted to tell him not to worry. I wanted to tell him she was watching television in the living room, and I’d hear her if she so much as stood up. I wanted desperately to tell him that I had very good hearing—because I was starving myself—because it gave me superpowers.
I didn’t tell him any of that. In all honesty I didn’t say much of anything. I listened to him. I nodded, agreed or expressed anger when appropriate. I tried to concentrate. I put my hand out to rest on his shirt, pressed tight to feel the muscled stomach beneath. But I couldn’t stop thinking about my mom—and my sister—and my father—and my own repulsiveness, especially when compared to Tariq.
“Your hands are so cold,” he whispered, holding one up.
“Poor circulation,” I said, and did not say Poor circulation is a symptom of many eating disorders. Because as I have discussed . . . not my problem.
“And I hate to say it, but your fingernails look gross.”
I shrugged. Fingernail deterioration is a symptom of many eating disorders.
“Huh.”
Tariq was a paradox. He made me feel better and worse, all at once. His interest in me, his desire for me, made me feel almost human for the first time ever. But when I looked at him, when I touched him, I felt my inadequacy more sharply than ever before. Here is a man, I thought. Strong and beautiful and perfect. Here is what you’ll never be.
Tariq smelled like pine sap. December, by then: the busiest time of year for Christmas tree merchants, and his father was working eighteen-hour days, and Tariq himself was spending every available hour hauling and sawing and being an all-around brutish burly sexy person.
This was homework time, my visit technically a study session. His father believed in education, in bettering oneself, and had Tariq’s whole educational career and rise to staggering success in business and industry planned out.
His father believed in the opposite of everything Tariq believed. The rich were rich because they were better. The poor were poor because they were bad, broken, lazy. Men should behave like This, and never like That. Women should simply behave.
“Your mom’s coming,” I said, scooting my beanbag chair away from his.
He cocked his head and listened. “No, she’s not.”
“Trust me.”
It took her five whole minutes, but she came. Bearing a plate where two strange pastries nestled intimately together.
“Wow, Mom, thanks,” he said, and snatched one up. “These are called ma’amoul,” he told me. “They’re stuffed with dates. My mom’s an amazing baker.”
“Thank you,” I said, sincerely, touched and moved and terrified all at the same time. They practically sparkled with butter, with empty carbohydrates, with demonic sugar.
“What are you two studying?” she asked, standing in the doorway, almost certainly waiting for me to take a bite and express astonishment, happiness, gratitude. I took the pastry off the plate. My stomach screamed with wanting it.
“History,” Tariq said. “American for me. European for Matt.”
“You’re not in the same class?”
“I’m a senior, he’s a junior,” Tariq said. “But we’ve both got tests this week. We’re quizzing each other.”
“Ah,” she said.
Tariq’s cookie was almost gone already. His mother waited an extra five seconds, ten, fifteen. Waiting for a response. Expecting me to take a big bite, and tell her how wonderful her pastries were. When none of that happened, she said, “Well, I won’t distract you any further.”
“Thanks for the pastry, Mrs. Murat!”
She smiled, bowed her head slightly. When the door had shut behind her, Tariq said: “After World War Two, the rise of the labor movement had made manufacturing and other industries too expensive for American corporations to continue making the same obscene profits.”
“Fascinating,” I said, and set the cookie down as discreetly as I could and scooted my beanbag chair alongside his. Slid my hand under his shirt, watched him flinch from my cold fingers. He giggled, a boyish sound from a body that was so close to being a man’s. He shifted, straightened out, spooned his body behind mine. Kissed the back of my neck.
His heat melted me. His touch triggered terrifying things. I wanted him so bad it physically frightened me. The wanting was different, now, from when I lay alone in my room in the dark and mentally superimposed his head over scraps of dirty movies.
Was this how girls felt all the time? Torn between fear and desire? Wanting, but afraid to show it, because they weren’t supposed to want?
This was beautiful. This moment was perfect.
But what if we could stand in the sun, walk through the halls, hold hands? The knowledge that Tariq and I were together made me stronger. But if everybody knew it—if everyone saw me like that—
“Hey,” I said, and poked him in the pectoral.
“Hey yourself.”
I poked again.
“What’s up?”
“I don’t like keeping this secret,” I said. “Keeping us secret.”
“Me either,” he said.
“Then let’s not.”
Tariq sighed. “Where’s this coming from?”
“Take it from someone who knows. Coming out is never as bad as you think it’s going to be.”
“Just because it wasn’t as bad as you thought it would be for you, doesn’t mean it won’t be worse than I think it’s going to be for me.”
“But you won’t be doing it alone,” I said. “And you know I’ll murder anyone who so much as looks at you cross-eyed.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, but there was a pause before ridiculous, like maybe he’d been going for stupid.
I turned around, scooted down to rest my head against his chest, looked up at the sharp stubbled mountain range of his chin, the smooth sheer slope of his neck.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I know. It’s a process. You’re not there.”
“I’m sorry, too.”
We lay like that. Everything was perfect, as long as I focused on the moment. The room. But I couldn’t go ten seconds without my mind starting to wander out of the room or worry about the future or stress out about the past.
And then—as clearly as if it had happened again—I heard the crash from the night before. My mother, falling. In the morning there’d been no evidence, but I knew what had happened. My mom was drinking, and I couldn’t find a thing to do about it.
Why couldn’t I stay in the moment? Why couldn’t my mind remain there, cuddling with my beautiful secret boyfriend? I wanted to choose happiness. I really did.
“You didn’t eat your cookie,” he said, pointing to where it lay on the floor, looking sad.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll take it with me.”
He frowned, upset with me. Something was wrong, and he could see it. My heart hurt harder. My head spun.
“We should get you home pretty soon. My dad’ll be back.”
“So?” I said. “I want to meet him.”