“Karys,” Braxton said, drawing my name out. “Do you know what it means to be brainwashed?”
I eyed him for a moment. “No.” I’d never heard that word.
“Well, brainwashed means that you’re made to believe something that’s not true. Sometimes your feelings even follow those falsehoods.”
I continued to stare at him. Was he saying I’d been brainwashed into feeling the things I felt for Zakai? That felt as ridiculous to me as if he’d said I’d imagined each sunrise and sunset all of my life. The visions of those colors lived within me as vibrant and real as my love for Zakai.
My uncle looked away from my gaze. “Forget that for now. Listen, I know you’re being thrust into your new life at a breakneck speed, but I really do think it’s for the best.” He smiled. “It’s all a huge adjustment and the sooner you begin feeling comfortable in your new life, your new surroundings, the quicker you’ll settle in to your classes, begin making friends. You’re beautiful. You deserve to be young and have fun, meet all sorts of people.” His smile turned slightly awkward and he stuck his hands in his pockets, looking away.
How could I be anything but young? Did I want to meet new people? What fun did he mean? So many questions raced through my mind, but rather than ask, I simply smiled and nodded.
Braxton looked relieved. “Good,” he said.
“Good,” I agreed, though inside, doubt and melancholy rained upon my heart like the water that ran in silvery rivulets down the windows.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“What happened to you?” I gasped, bringing my fingertips to Zakai’s eye as he winced and drew away.
“Nothing,” he said, beginning to walk toward the building where we had our first class of the day. A girl moved around us, her eyes growing wide as she stared at Zakai. I did a double take at her as she did the same to Zakai. It hadn’t been his swollen eye she’d been looking at. The expression on her face had registered awe and appreciation.
“Nothing?” I demanded. “That’s definitely not nothing.” I stopped, pulling his arm so he stepped out of the way of the other students flowing through the door. I already knew where we were going. Braxton and Claire had taken me on a self-guided tour of the campus a few days before so I would feel confident in the layout of this gargantuan maze of buildings that to me, seemed like a city all its own. A city five times the size of Sundara. They’d even printed out a map and marked the locations of my classes in big, red circles.
Zakai sighed. “One of the men in my . . . house came looking for a fight.” He gave me a wry smile but I saw a spark of violence glint in his eye. “He looks much worse than I do.”
“Did you tell someone?” I demanded. “So they punish him?”
“It doesn’t work that way, Karys. I punished him. And I enjoyed it. Remember all that training I did on Sundara just in case? It finally came in handy.”
I used my shoulder to shrug my backpack higher and put my hands on my hips. “This isn’t Sundara. You don’t have to sneak a viper into someone’s bed. The . . . rules are different here in New York—”
“For you,” he said. “Not for me.”
I frowned, reaching up and smoothing the collar of his shirt. There was a tear on the shoulder seam and a stain on the front. The jeans he wore looked old and too large. Zakai had obviously followed my gaze and guessed at my chain of thought because he said, “This is the best I could do.” He averted his eyes and I sensed his shame. “They let me choose from a bin of someone’s old castoffs.” He smiled but it was small and tight. “I suppose I should be grateful.”
I shook my head, running my hand down his chest. I’d been taken on a shopping spree, and Zakai had apparently had to pick clothes from a garbage bin. I felt angry on his behalf. “Your clothes don’t matter. They never have before and they don’t here either.”
“Okay, little star.” Zakai pushed off the wall he’d leaned on as we spoke, moving around me and I turned, following him and taking his arm.
“As far as your bruised eye, will you at least try to stay far away from that man?” I asked. “I . . . worry about you.”
Another girl walking by gave Zakai an appreciative glance. Pride overtook me. Of course Zakai was beautiful to me. Perfect. Mesmerizing. But I’d never thought about his appeal when it came to other females. The ones who’d watched had almost exclusively been male, and their hungry looks were mostly directed toward me. Or us.
Zakai glanced at me. “Of course, little star,” he said. “Now show me where this class is. I’m ready to learn about English Literature.”
**********
New York City was loud and crowded and fast. Everything seemed to be rushing, even the brisk breeze that lifted the leaves on the sidewalk and the garbage in the gutters and demanded they scurry through the city streets, flapping against my legs and making me dash faster too.
Everywhere I looked, someone was flying by, a phone pressed to their ear, gaze distant and unfocused. This wasn’t like the desert, where it was in your best interest to watch where you walked as poisonous creatures lay in wait, just a footfall away. Though I couldn’t help wonder if this city held its own venom and where, unsuspecting, the fangs of its bearer might pierce my tender skin.
The crazy rush spun my head and halted my breath and I craned my neck, my gaze reaching for the still and gentle sky. But all I could see were the tops of buildings, piercing the clouds and obscuring the peace I’d been seeking.
Despite the congestion and the confusing hustle, there were wonders to be found in the place I now called home, one of which was my school library. Sometimes, when I entered, I would stand in the atrium, gazing upward and marveling at the incredible reach of the twelve balconies, each covered with pixelated gold glass. I’d heard someone whisper to another that the gilded plates had been added to address the numerous suicides that had happened there and the quietly-said words made me think of Ahmad. A dizzying cascade of pain had shaken me and I’d hurried to the stairs, running upward until the memory was crushed beneath the giant inhales of oxygen I pulled into my winded body. And then I’d chosen a pile of books at random, immersing myself in information until I could finally breathe freely again. How could a place so huge contain nothing but stories and knowledge? But that’s what it did. It was its whole purpose and nothing more. And from what I’d heard, there were many others like it on the campus and in the city, even scattered throughout the world. It boggled my brain and made my guts clench with desperation to realize how much there was to know, how little time we had to learn it, and how much of my life had already been wasted in utter ignorance. Was that why? Was that why the visitors had laughed at me? Physically, I’d never been like the others, but had they known that I was uneducated? Naïve?
Stupid?
So yes, there was awe, but there was also grief. Grief at knowing the scope and breadth of the lies I’d been told, the information that had been kept from me on purpose so that I might find satisfaction in our small, narrow life based on greed and exploitation, sickness and sin. I stood in wonder before patios of diners eating in crowded restaurants, remembering the joy I’d once found in a perfectly ripe apricot plucked from a tree because I had no way to fathom that there might be anything more.