“I mean, if anything sounds like not a big deal, it’s fucking freckles,” Iris says, and everyone laughs, but Marcelina and Maryam both shake their heads at the same time.
“It’s a big deal,” Maryam says. “It’s all a big deal. You all lost things.” She looks at me. “What about you, Alexis?”
I shake my head. “It’s not important.”
“It’s important,” Roya says, and when I look at her, she’s staring at me with eyes that would be crying.
“I think, um. I think I can’t dream.” I say it to everyone, but I’m looking at Roya. She closes her eyes for a second, and when she opens them again, they’re still dry, and she looks stricken by it. “I go to sleep and it’s like I close my eyes for a few seconds and then open them again and it’s morning. And I can’t tell if I’m tired or not? I don’t know,” I finish awkwardly. “I—I don’t know.”
We sit under the weight of all the things we’ve lost. We look at our hands and we look at our food and we look at the scratched surface of the table. We look at those little things, because it’s too much to look at each other and see the magnitude of what’s happening to us.
“This is so fucked up,” Paulie whispers. “This is really bad.”
My fault, my fault, my fault.
“So what do we do?” Marcelina asks.
I straighten my back like Iris does before she says hard things. I clench my jaw like Roya does when she’s being brave. I summon the certainty that Marcelina brings to every word she says. I imagine that I have even a tenth of Paulie’s courage and confidence. I will myself to speak with Maryam’s quiet authority. If I can be anything like my friends, I can do this.
I can do this.
“Here’s what you do,” I say. “You give it all back to me. I know that I can’t fix what you’ve all already lost, but I swear to god I wouldn’t have let any of you help me if I’d known this would happen, and I can stop it from happening more, so. Give it all back to me, and I’ll get rid of all the … pieces. On my own.” I look each of them in the eye, making sure that they’re listening. “I’ll deal with whatever happens as a result. It’s my mess, and I really appreciate you guys trying to help me clean it up, but it’s hurting you. And I’m not going to let it hurt you any more than it already has.”
They look at each other, then back at me. Maryam’s got her hands folded in front of her on the table, neutral but still present, ready to be here for us. Her fingernails are silver today, and so is her eyeliner, and I know she must have been up late perfecting her technique to make them match so perfectly. It’s comforting to see something beautiful that she did with her magic, just because she loves it.
That’s what I think, instead of thinking about the thing I just committed to doing. I think of Maryam’s fingernails. I can’t be scared as long as I’m thinking of her fingernails.
Paulie clears her throat. “No.”
“ ‘No’ what?” I ask, still watching the light play over the shining silver of Maryam’s nails. There are little sparkles in the polish that I didn’t notice before.
“No, I’m not giving you my piece,” Paulie says. Behind her, someone drops their lunch tray. People laugh and do the whole sarcastic-clapping thing, but none of us look. “It’s mine. I took it and I don’t have to give it back just because you say so.”
“Me either,” Roya says sharply. I look up to find her glaring at me.
“Same,” Marcelina says. She pops a french fry into her mouth and levels a challenging stare at me.
“Yeah,” Iris says. “I mean … I already did mine, but I wouldn’t give them back if I still had them.”
“You guys, come on.” I try to make my voice sound like Pop’s voice does when he’s being lawyer-y, but it doesn’t quite work. “This is hurting you. It’s hurting you all so much, and it’s not going to hurt you anymore. It’s time for me to handle my mistake on my own.”
“Fuck that,” Paulie spits. “We aren’t going to let you kill yourself to protect us.”
“I don’t think—”
“Yeah, and screw you for thinking we would,” Roya says, and she sounds just as mad as Paulie.
“You idiot,” Marcelina says. She gets up and stands behind my chair, wrapping her arms around me. She feels soft and strong and furious. “You big stupid jerk, why the hell would you even say something like that?”
I awkwardly squeeze her elbows, then extricate myself. “I don’t think it’ll be that bad,” I say, and they look at each other like I’m being willfully ignorant.
“It would probably be that bad,” Maryam says. “I mean, look at the combined effects so far. Imagine if just one person lost what you’ve all lost. Their old memories, their dreams, their tears, their ability to forget new things, and the person who they’ve come to understand themselves to be.” She looks at Iris on this last note, and Iris’s eyes turn glassy. “And that’s only half of the changes,” Maryam continues. “Whatever else happens … all of it together would turn you into a completely new person, wouldn’t it?”
“It’s like a Ship of Theseus,” Iris whispers.
“A what?” Roya asks.
“Yeah,” Marcelina says, nodding fast, excited. “Yeah, it’s totally like that.”
“What is that?” Paulie asks.
“It’s this thing,” Iris says, looking at Marcelina for confirmation that it is indeed a thing, “where you have a ship, right? And you replace the sails, but it’s still the same ship. And then you replace some of the planks, but it’s still the same ship. And then you replace all the oars, but it’s still the same ship. And then you replace some of the other planks …”
“But it’s still the same ship?” Paulie interjects dryly.
“Is it?” Marcelina asks, grinning. Paulie’s brow furrows. “It’s like a thought experiment. When does the ship stop being the original ship and turn into a whole new ship? Is it when there’s just one old plank left? Or two? Or three? Or is it the second you replace the sails?”
“I think I get it,” Roya says. “So … we’re all still us, even though we lost things. But maybe if Alexis took this all on herself like a big stupid idiot, she’d lose too many things, and then she wouldn’t be herself anymore.”
“Okay,” I say, half-annoyed. “I get it, you think I’m wrong.”
“We think you had the worst idea in the history of ideas,” Marcelina corrects me. “We think you’re the most wrong that anyone has ever been.”
“But we still love you,” Roya adds. “And we still want you to be you. Not whatever might be left of you after you try to take this whole thing on by yourself.” She bumps her shoulder against mine, and I feel heat climbing my neck.
“This sucks and it’s really hard, but we’re in it together,” Iris says, and her voice carries a firm finality that settles over the group like a thick fog. “Right?”