out of a movie theater, âyou will have to go home, where temptation is not always so near.â
But when I told him he was right and that I would confess to my father immediately about the closet, Nif got nervous. Itâs a brotherâs responsibility to help a sister keep from being improper. As the one closest to me in age and in friendship, Nif knew he would be disgraced a little bit along with me. So he never told, and even with my shame, I didnât either. I meant to, but that night I noticed that I could see from my window into Sarimâs. He waved at me.
*Â Â *Â Â *
Sometimes Sarim disappeared for a few days. I wouldnât spot his light blink on, wouldnât pass him in the street. I never had the courage to ask him where he went, and he never told me. But I began to know when to expect his disappearances because just before them, the circles under his eyes would be darker than usual, the small smile more fixed, and his soft, steady walk would lighten into a float.
What? heâd ask me sometimes, a lot of times, when I hadnât said anything. I always thought he was just tired, exhausted.
Law school must be very hard, Iâd answer. He would nod and hand me one of his brown-and-yellow ribboned touchstones.
These make it easier, heâd say, letting me hold the smoothness for a moment. I never knew what he was talking about, really, but the feel of cool shine in my palm distracted me from asking anything more.
Youâre not crazy, Sarim, I whisper a lot these days. Iâm sure thereâs some other explanation.
*Â Â *Â Â *
We became friends without anyone knowing. The shame faded, or maybe it hid somehow, like a virus or a cavity, and I stopped worrying that we were doing anything wrong. Even though we talked on the street when nobody was looking or spoke at neighborhood parties and festivals in a crowd that probably thought he was my cousin or uncle. Even though sometimes, on a detour home from an errand for my mother, I would visit quickly in his apartment. Fifteen minutes there, ten minutes here.
He wrote me notes and left them under his front stoop mud mat folded into hard packages, little blue-lined squares filled with slanted ink.
Dear Sonia,
Yes, I do know how to cook, though I rarely have time to prepare my own meals.
Regarding our discussion of waves, I believe that water does not move forward so much, but rather seems to rise and fall in place.
I prefer butterscotch to licorice.
Yesterday, there was a dress in the red shade you admire in a shop window on Seventh Avenue.
Sonia, every dog does not bite, nor does each bee sting. For each schoolmate who insults you, there must be fifty who do not. And for every Muslim terrorist, there are thousands of us who oppose violence. Tell those who are cruel to you that in their cruelty, they are the terror. Then inform them that they are forgiven, for such forgiveness may shame some toward kindness.
Love,
Sarim
After a while, not even Nif knew how close Sarim and I had become. In public we had to pretend we didnât know each other very well. Pretending always made me smile inside, a special secret between Sarim and me.
*Â Â *Â Â *
So when he died, when he killed himself, I wasnât expected to cry but to marvel. To whisper with the others and watch his blanket-covered body on Channel 7. I wasnât expected to leave the sink running until it overflowed or to lose my homework and fight with Nif. I wasnât expected to rip my fingernails bloody, to forget to shower, to lose ten pounds. Maybe it was because these things were not expected of me that nobody noticed them.
At school I try hard to keep my slippery feelings hidden inside some outer hardness. I picture my skin as a brown eggshell hiding the slimy mess of its insides. It works until the end of gym today, when some kids begin to guess whether that Statue of Liberty man was dead even before he hit the lower balcony that caught