A pause. And then he takes a breath and lets it out in one exhalation before speaking again. “I’m also just going to come out and say it. It was obvious from the beginning your dad wouldn’t be too into it.”
I close my eyes. Nuah knew all along. He could feel it.
My heart closes tight for him—the feelings of humiliation fleeing, replaced with waves of sorrow.
Sorrow for the kind of world where Nuah understood instantly how he was perceived—and in a space that should have been safe.
A Muslim space.
Muhammad’s words come to me. So you thought Dad was perfect before? Nobody’s perfect.
This is not about perfect.
Muhammad comes closer now, the driveway lights showing his furrowed forehead.
“Nuah? What’s going on?” Muhammad is still confused. “Who’s Sumayyah?”
“I met someone at college. And we’ve been talking.”
I don’t look at Nuah, but the way his shadow’s moving on the ground tells me he’s fidgeting.
A car is turning into the driveway right then, jolting us with its sound, and all three of us move closer to the house to hide from the approaching headlights.
We’re pressed against the house, breathing quietly, and all I can think of is how many times before had I wished that Nuah and I could have had moments like this together.
I glance at the driveway and see the car doors open and Tats step out of the passenger’s side.
Jeremy steps out of the driver’s side.
Oh my God. This is like a weird dream. Maybe a freakish nightmare.
Jeremy?
I turn to Nuah. “Is it okay if I’m alone now? Please?”
He nods and leaves, heading to the barn.
“You too,” I tell Muhammad. “Please?”
“Naw, you don’t look good.” He stays unmoving.
“But it’s your bachelor party thingy. Please just go.”
As he’s leaving, I can’t stop myself from adding, “And you said Dad wasn’t perfect. But you’re wrong. It’s not about imperfection. This is more heinous than that.”
Muhammad turns around and his face tells me he’s processing what I just said. Then he nods at Tats now approaching us and mouths to me, We gotta talk more. Later.
“Janna?” Tats is wearing a simple green shalwar kameez Auntie Maysa had lent her. “What’s wrong? And I thought you were going to be wearing a green sari?”
“Tats, you going to be with her?” Muhammad asks. “She needs someone.”
“No I don’t,” I protest, my voice coming out insistent yet pouty. “Muhammad, it’s your party, so please just go.”
He leaves, with a nod to Tats.
Tats is beside me, and when I turn my gaze to her, I see Jeremy looking at me with the car door still open, his arm resting on the top.
Tats and Jeremy?
I turn away and lean on the house again and then slide down until I’m sitting on the driveway with my legs splayed, a big bunch of green chiffon wadding up in between the front opening of the abaya. My feet are still bare and now dirty.
I’m sure my mascara’s running. One of my fake eyelashes must be loose, because I feel something heavy flicking at the side of my right eyelid.
“Okay, thanks for the ride, Jeremy! See you tomorrow!” Tats waves at him. And then she sits down on the ground beside me. “What’s going on, Janna?”
I don’t say a word. Because I don’t know what words to say.
Like:
When did you hook up with Jeremy?
I mean, he means nothing to me.
But why wouldn’t you tell me before?
And, um, how do I even begin to tell you anything like the truth about Nuah? When you thought it was weird all along that I liked him and he liked me but we wouldn’t go out with each other?
And now I found out that there was an elephant in the room—namely anti-Blackness—that I had the privilege of not knowing about but that Nuah felt all along.
Something about this opens the wound.
The scab that always gets picked at when I come face-to-face with sad things I can’t hide from.
The hurt I asked Allah not to open undoes itself at the seams.
* * *
Tats lets me cry silently, sitting beside me, rubbing my arms or putting her arms around me, and every time I feel like I’m going to talk and say, Okay, I’m done. Let’s go inside. It’s Sarah’s party, a new wave of tears comes with a memory of something from that time.
“Should I go get your mom?” Tats asks finally. “You need to call Dr. Lloyd.”
I shake my head.
“Janna, please?” Tats’s voice is soft.
“It’s not about that,” I whisper. It’s not really.
I don’t think it is.
“Then what is it?” Tats says, taking my fingers in hers and lacing them. “I’m here for you.”
I stay quiet. It sounds ridiculous when I think of saying it.
Nuah doesn’t like me and I thought all along he did and that we were going to have a great summer but then he had to go and meet someone else. And my dad is someone I don’t—I can’t—like anymore.
But then I just blurt it all out. All of it.
All the way back, from our texts and communication to Nuah making it a point to ask me if I was still interested at Christmas. To the way Dad revealed his racism.
And how Nuah felt it the whole time.
That feels like the most heartbreaking thing of all.
Car lights come and go with new henna party guests arriving, and still we sit there in the shadows, unseen, me just unloading.
* * *
When I’m done, I’ve been petted repeatedly and offered soothing words, along with tears of empathy.
I look at my dirty feet and wadded-up sari and wonder how it ended up that I’m sitting here in disarray like this. I need to get back to the party.
My eyes go beyond my feet to the patch of grass in between us and the car parked the closest.
That’s when I notice someone else’s feet. In hiking boots.
They’re slightly sticking out of the side of the car that we can’t see.
It’s a car I recognize from today.
From our caravan of cars heading to Jumah earlier.
I motion to Tats to quiet down. And then I stand slowly and walk over, gingerly, to those boots, with Tats following behind.
It’s Layth.
He’s sitting in the grass, leaning back against the car, holding his phone in his lap, earbud in—but only in one ear.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“I promise I didn’t hear anything until you erupted. I thought it was a fox in distress. Seriously.” He takes the other earbud out of his ear now and wraps the wires around two fingers. “That’s when I pulled my earbud out. To figure out what it was. That crying.”
“Then you heard everything.” I’m slumped down on the ground again, across from him this time, leaning against another car. Tats sits beside me.
“I swear I put my earbuds back in and just took them off periodically to make sure you were okay.” To his credit, he doesn’t laugh when he says that. “And I swear too that the only reason I didn’t walk away was that I thought you’d be more upset. If you saw me.”