Miss Rappaport takes my shoulder in her hand. I jump. I didn't realize she was making her way around the room.
"I heard," Miss Rappaport says quietly. "And I'm so sorry."
"I..." I don't know what to say. I'm sorry, too. I wish there were nothing to be sorry about.
"If you need extra time on any of your assignments, I'll understand. It's important to make accommodations for students with disabilities."
A disability. It hits me like a brick to the chest. I'm disabled. When they give you an aptitude form, and they ask you if you want to check "Other"--that's me. I'm Other.
"Thank you." I smile weakly.
"If you want to talk to the school counselor..."
"I--no. Thank you. My brother's already...I mean. I'm already seeing someone. A counselor."
Miss Rappaport nods vaguely. She mills over to the next student.
Swallowing a sigh, I mix my paints. Black and white blur together on my palette, melting into a slushy gray.
"Sucks," says the girl nearest me. "Doesn't it?"
With a start, I look at her. I guess she's one of the Edgy Kids, because her hair's swept up in a bright purple mohawk, bangs falling in front of her eyes. "CITY HIGH," her shirt proudly proclaims. On anyone else, the plaid skirt and the ripped leather vest would look like overkill. The septum piercing very nearly tips the scale in that direction.
Her smile reminds me of a shark's.
"What sucks?" I ask cautiously.
"Oh, you know." She slaps her paintbrush haphazardly against her canvas. The violent streaks of paint look like technicolor vomit. " 'Why me?' Stuff like that."
I don't like this conversation. I nod quietly.
"Marguerite Modesto," she introduces.
I nod again. "Wendy Rozas."
"Like I don't already know."
My stomach lurches. I bring my paintbrush to my canvas. Gray sludge bleeds into white fabric, my hand trembling.
"You okay there, kid?" says Marguerite.
"Yes." No. I put the paintbrush down. I still never found the badger brush. I...
"You look like you're gonna toss your cookies, but okay."
I look like it? I feel like it.
"Wanna hang out sometime?" Marguerite asks.
I rub my eyes with my hands, my fingers sprinkled with paint.
I freeze.
My hand. My left hand. Where is--
I flip my hand over, inspecting the fingers, the knuckles. The charm bracelet jangles around my wrist. I turn my hand over and peruse my palm lines.
Clean, fresh skin. Unblemished. No skin grafts. No burns.
I can feel the cold sweat beading on the back of my neck. I can feel the pulses in my temples jumping, erratic, afraid.
"Wendy?" says Miss Rappaport, turning around.
"C-Can I be excused?"
* * * * *
I run down the hallway, down the staircase, seldom aware of where I'm really going. My head is bursting with pain.
A paintbrush disappearing--I can accept that. Maybe I misplaced it somewhere obvious, but I can't remember. I've had memory lapses already.
How do you misplace scar tissue?
Was the scar tissue even there to begin with?
Am I losing my mind?
The soles of my shoes echo loudly on the staircase. Panting, I emerge somewhere on the tenth floor. My breath echoes through the stuffy steel hallway. I feel like I'm traversing a metal prison.
I have to sit down.
Shivering, I push open the heavy swinging door to a gymnasium. The school motto hangs from the overhead arch: Semper Ubi Sub Ubi. I step underneath it. I step onto the poured urethane floor, the tiles gleaming in the darkness.
I sit down.
Scar tissue doesn't just disappear. It's called scar tissue for a reason. I bring my hands to my face. I feel the dent in my left cheek. That's one scar that's still there. I run my fingers across my left wrist. The flaking, bumpy redness--it's gone. My wrist is as smooth as it was on the day I was born.
My head splits with sudden pain.
Sickness wells up in my stomach, in my chest. I hunch over. The pounding in my skull is as loud as war drums. I squeeze my eyes shut against the onslaught of white blindness. Searing, screeching, screaming, my head is on fire, my skin is as hot as the stars, bursting and bright--
"Hey."
My eyes feel as if they've swollen shut with tears. I force them open. The whiteness dissipates in a cool mist. And when the clouds part--I see a boy's face looming in front of my own.
It's a sharp face, a dark face, cheekbones angling down to a sharp chin, nose long and curved in an ode to the Levant. It's a dark brown face framed by light brown curls, tight brown curls, long curls pulled back in a careless ponytail. Its eyebrows are thick and black and nestled above the most unsettlingly striking eyes--an emerald green bordering on poison.
"Hello?" says the boy, expressionless.
The pain subsides. "Sorry," I say, because it feels right.
"For what?"
I don't know.
The boy offers me a dark hand. Dizzy, I accept it. I stand up. He's lean but muscled, his arms and legs defined. He's wearing a gymnast's singlet and shorts. One of the overhead lights is turned on; and when I look past the boy, I realize the gym plays host to bars and beams. He came here to practice, and I got in the way.
I reclaim my hand. It's the hand that's supposed to be burned. I don't understand why it isn't burned.
"Are you just going to stand here, or what?"
This boy is very forthright. I mutter another apology. I turn around, skin stinging, reaching for the door.
"Wait."
I wait.
But then he doesn't say anything. Silence rings loudly through the gymnasium, my dim shadow stretched before me on the double doors.
I turn around.
The boy's lips are pursed, his eyebrows sagging. He doesn't look annoyed; more like...upset. Apologetic.
"Do you need me to take you to the sick bay?" he asks.
I shake my head quickly. I stop quickly, too, because it hurts. "Shouldn't you be in class?"
"Free period."
Oh.
"Shouldn't you be in class?"
Should I? I think I should be home. I think Jude was right. I acted too soon. But how soon is too soon? I'm never going to be normal again. I know that. Then what am I supposed to be waiting for?
"Sick bay," the boy decides. "Come on."
I follow him. I don't know why. I don't want the nurse calling Judas. Jude's done so much for me already--he shouldn't be bothered with this, too. But here I am, trailing after a stranger, trudging down hallways and staircases. We're on the seventh floor before I remember the elevators. I suggest them; and the stranger looks at me like I've grown a second head.
So I laugh it off. I try. "Who are you, anyway?"
"Azel Asad." There's an accent in his voice. It's faint, but it's there.
"I'm Wendy." As if he doesn't already know.
"Nice to meet you." But if he does--and he must--he doesn't let on.
We wind up switching to the elevators. I'm not in the best shape, and I guess Azel realized as much. He leans back against the transparent wall with his arms folded loosely, his eyes on the transparent doors. Where Kory would be chatting up a storm, this boy is very taciturn. All the more reason for me to feel guilty.
"I'm sorry," I try again.
"Now what for?"
"Interrupting your practice." Twice. "I could have taken myself." But I don't know where the sick bay is.
Azel turns his head. Maybe he's watching the city rise slowly around us as our lift descends. Maybe he's watching the heartless corporate buildings pierce the sky. I've done that before. Back then, I had a stronger stomach.
"Who says you should be alone?" Azel posits.
I look at him. It's difficult, because all he's showing me is his profile. But those words funnel their way into me, reaching something I've tried to hold closed until
now. I'm not alone. I have Judas. I don't have Mom and Dad. I don't have Joss. I'm not alone; but I'm alone.
Azel catches me looking. "What?"
He sounds...I don't know. Embarrassed.
I sneak another glimpse at my hand. The scar is gone.
"Thanks," I say. I don't know what else to say.
Azel turns his head again. This time it's almost defiant, his shoulder twitching, his ponytail bobbing. I hold back a laugh--almost a real one.
Boys. They're so weird.
* * * * *
The sick bay makes me think of a beehive, the walls gauzy and yellow. In a school the size of Cavalieri--student body five thousand strong--you've got to prepare for the worst. Threadbare mattresses on thin bedframes line every inch of the wing, a few of them already occupied.
The matron--a big, scary woman in her sixties--checks my temperature and my pulse. She looks at me sternly. "You're pushing yourself," she diagnoses.
I rub my elbow. "It's been three months." Three months since the car crash. I still don't remember it.
"What's your point? Go home if you have to," she says. She gives me a hearty slap on the shoulder that nearly sends me sprawling to the floor. "I'll write you a note."
Azel sits reading an archery magazine. The date on the cover says it's three years old.
"Should I call your brother?" the matron asks. She reaches for the phone on the wall.
"No!" I say quickly. My protest is louder than I expected; a bandaged boy seven beds down turns and stares at me. I lower my voice. "Don't bother him," I say. "I'll walk, it's not far."
"On your own? With a head injury?"
"It's a head injury, not a leg injury..."
"Don't you get smart with me."
"I could go back to class. Ma'am."
"No, you can't," Azel butts in.
"Who the heck are you?" the matron asks him.
"Are you saying you didn't see me bring her here?"
"Then you can bring her home, too, hotshot. Go on," she says, when he balks. "I'll write you a note. Not like you kids ever get any work done on the first day of school."
"My sister..." Azel murmurs.
"You want to be back in time for her? Then I suggest you hurry. Shoo."
Azel slaps his magazine closed with a kind of quiet-quelling fury. Great. I stand, rubbing my head. I don't want to be my own burden, let alone anyone else's.
"Take care," Matron says vaguely.
Azel walks me down the stairs to the first floor. The few students graced with a free period sit lounging around the water fountain, or else ambling off to the canteen.
I feel like apologizing; but I'm tired of apologizing. "You have a sister?" I ask instead.
"Two of them," Azel says, without looking at me. "Aisha's too little to go to school here. Layla's in the year below yours."
"How do you know what year I'm in?" He must be a senior. There's no way he's a freshman; and I'm a junior, and he said...
"I've seen you around."
His eyes are straight ahead, focused on the sliding doors. And then the doors slide open, and we step through them; and his eyes aren't focused anywhere at all. And my face is hot--and my head--and I think, well, that happens, when you're Frankenstein's brain-damaged monster.
Hot, dry winds whip at my face. For a place called The Spit, we sure don't see a lot of rain. Azel follows me past the 24/7 laundromat, past the faded, peeling banners that lost their relevance over the years. I wish Azel wouldn’t dog me, even if the matron ordered him to. I appreciate his help, but I feel like an invalid. An invalid wasting his time.
It occurs to me that I only hear one set of footsteps slapping the ground. The bustle and din of the ant colony fall into the backdrop of the city. I turn around to check on Azel.
He's standing in one spot, still, silent, watching me with a pensive expression on his face. Soon as he notices he's been caught, the expression clears.
"Oh, jeez." I try to turn it into a joke. I try to smile. "What now?"
Azel doesn't have the chance to answer me. The sky opens up in a torrent of rain.
Azel's shoulders jerk. He honestly looks like a dog on the end of a leash.
"Go figure," I say, a little weirded out myself. I tug the hood of my jacket over my head.
Azel must really hate the rain, because suddenly he's determined to get away from it. He walks past me without so much as a word of explanation. He walks underneath the filthy, dusty overpass. He sits on the gutter, his sodden curls drooping down his back.
I contemplate walking home without him. A streak of lightning overhead changes my mind. I scuttle under the overpass. Cautiously, I sit beside Azel, the sounds of thunder and tires racing above us.
--But this is weird, isn't it, because everybody knows The Spit doesn't see rain. And to get caught in the rain with a stranger, no less--
"Where are you from?" I ask. Icebreaker.
"Oman. Arabian Desert."
I realize I've never met anyone from another country--unless you count Mom and Dad. Mom and Dad. The thought of them sends pangs of longing coursing throughout my entirety. I try and push them from my mind.
"Do you miss it?" I miss them.
Azel lifts his shoulders in a halfhearted shrug. His eyes are a little distant. "They say you can never go home again."
Don't I know it.
The rain rages loudly outside our overpass. The city streets run slick. It's funny how dim the day suddenly became. It looks like early evening, but it's not even noon.
"Everybody knows," Azel says quietly. "About you."
In a city this size, they shouldn't. But it's always going to be there, I guess--that fascination with the macabre, that heartless curiosity that arbitrarily unites us as members of the same race. We're all human. That makes us hideous. That makes us beautiful.
"So you pity me?" I ask. I can feel myself smiling. Maybe this is my routine now. I smile when I don't mean it.
"Of course I pity you," Azel says. "Are you going to tell me I shouldn't? How can I help it?"
"Some people would say I'm lucky." Lucky to have survived.
"Some people are idiots."
The lights under the overpass are dim with dirt and dust. Azel's hair frizzes as it dries. I've never seen anything quite like it. I can't help but laugh.
"What?" he asks, cautious.
"You need a brush." I'm still laughing. It feels good.
* * * * *
The rain lets up long enough for Azel to walk me the rest of the way home. He follows me into the lobby. I take off my jacket and ring it out over the rubber doormat.
Azel lapses into a thoughtful silence. "Are you going to take some time off?" His silence doesn't last long.
I fix another smile on my face. "I have to go back sooner or later." Skipping school isn't going to rewind time. Resting won't fix my head. "I left my paints on the thirteenth floor." My books, my brushes.
"I could pick them up for you."
I hesitate. I feel dizzy.
"Unless--" Uncertainty crosses Azel's face. "You're one of those types who doesn't let anyone touch her tools?"
"No, no." I force a laugh. Why does it sound so loud--? "It's just--postponing the inevitable."
"Which is?"
"Well," I say, gently, "I can't keep running forever."
Azel frowns. "I suppose not."
I want to ask what's on his mind--because his eyes look faraway. I don't think I have the right to pry. I don't know him. But he's been kind to me.
"Do you want a towel?" I ask.
He lifts his head. "Sorry?"
"For your hair?" I shouldn't make fun, but--it looks like a rat's nest. For the first time, I feel lucky mine's so short.
Azel grimaces. "That's probably for the best."
"Come on, then." I start up the stairs.
If someone had told me four months ago that I'd start the school year socializing with Jewish nihilists and Arabian gymnasts--well, I'm sure I would have told that person,
as kindly as I knew how, that they were a few bulbs short of a Christmas tree. But here I am: unlocking the door to a dingy apartment; turning on the studio lights and calling it home. Azel steps out of his sneakers before he follows me inside. Bewildered, I try not to stare.
"Do you want tea?" I ask. It's quiet in here. Jude must be out job hunting again.
"No." Azel pauses. "Thank you."
Definitely not Kory, that's for sure. Every time Kory comes over, I have to safeguard the pantry.
I head into the bathroom. I pull open the cabinet on the wall and drag free a scratchy towel. A spider--or something like it--scurries past on the floor. I'm glad Jude's not home for a change. Every time he spots a bug, he pulls out the pesticide.
I head back out. Azel's standing stock-still in the sitting room, his hair untied. I hand him the towel. With a quiet "Thank you," he drags it fiercely through his hair. His curls fluff up, shaggy and shapeless. I'm laughing again.
"Would you stop that?" Azel says, flustered.
"You have sisters, and you're not used to teasing?"
"You're not exactly my sister, are you?"
My face feels hot again. "No."
Azel falters.
"Thanks again," I say to the floor.
"Of course." He gives back the towel.
I roll it up. "You're sure you don't want tea?"
"I--what time is it?"
I glance at the clock on the paint-stained wall. "Eleven-thirty."
"Then I'd definitely better get going," Azel says. "My little sister wants me to meet her for lunch."
"That's--" That's cute, I almost say. I smile instead.
Azel tucks his hands in his pockets. When did he change clothes? The sick bay? His jacket's blue cotton. His trousers, black, bag around his ankles. His gaze is inquisitively soft. I can believe he's from another country. Who has the bravery to look someone straight in the eye, and when caught, not turn away?