I have to go after her. I have to explain. But I can’t. Not now. Not tonight. Not while our whole Zar and my mother’s whole Zar is here. A Jinn here, a Jinn there, everywhere a Jinn. I can’t breathe. I need my escape hatch.
I open my jewelry box and snatch the silver key Henry gave me on my birthday. I fly down the stairs, swing open the front door, and land on Henry’s front steps. My knock on the door elicits no response. Neither does my text. His whole family is still in New Hampshire. But lights are on all over the place. Henry must be somewhere.
The fence that surrounds the backyard is too tall to see over. When I open the locked gate to let myself in, it’s like the pillow that’s being held over my face, preventing me from breathing, is crammed down my throat.
If one could successfully untangle the mass of arms and legs squeezed onto the lounge chair at the shallow end of the pool, they’d find one pale set belonging to Henry and one deeply tanned set belonging to Chelsea.
I don’t have to read either of their minds to know what’s happening here. I’m backing away, desperate to escape unnoticed, when my phone begins belting out the first few bars of my favorite song. My favorite song from my favorite band. The band Henry and I bonded over that first day at the beach. He downloaded the track for my ringtone weeks ago.
The caller ID displays Nate’s name along with his photo.
Henry jumps up, nearly knocking Chelsea to the ground. His shirt’s off, as is hers.
“Sorry!” I shout. “I should have called.”
I don’t know why I say that since I did call, well, text, basically the same thing, but someone has to say something, and neither of them are talking. Guess their lips are too sore.
Waving awkwardly, stupidly, I hightail it out of there, retracing my steps through the gate. I’m in the middle of the street when Henry catches up.
“Hey.” He clasps a hand on my shoulder.
I spin around, and he gasps, taking in my dress, heels, and general nine-foot-tall edge.
We hold each other’s gaze, neither of us speaking. What is there to say? It’s not like Henry’s doing anything wrong. His parents are away. Most guys would be having some huge rager. All he’s doing is making out with some girl.
Not some girl. Chelsea.
Does it really matter that it’s Chelsea? Would this feeling of … of … oh, let’s just say it, betrayal be any different if it were some other girl? Betrayal? Really? Nate’s smiling face is in the palm of your hand. What nerve, Azra. Oh, and why don’t you ask Laila if her feelings of betrayal would be any different if it were some other Jinn?
Smack in the middle of the street, halfway between my house and Henry’s, I suddenly have nowhere to escape to.
“Azra,” Henry says, “I’m sorry.”
He truly has nothing to be sorry about. That’s what I should say. He deserves … deserves whatever this is … especially after what he told me today about Jenny, about moving … but somehow Laila’s wounded eyes and Chelsea’s naked stomach lead to me simply shrugging. “If you want to be another one of Chelsea’s lovesick puppies, that’s your choice. Go ahead and strap on a collar. Just make sure it’s a flea-and-tick one.”
It is then that I hear Henry’s thoughts: Some best friend.
My heart crumples like a piece of paper.
He kicks the ground and tosses his hands in the air. “You’re impossible!”
Wearing down the asphalt, Henry paces between me and the sidewalk in front of his house before finally stopping and facing me. He shoves his fists into his front pockets. “I don’t know what more you want from me.”
More. As if I’ve asked so much, I’ve drained him. I probably have. While he’s made my life easier, I’ve made his harder. It is only now that I realize the pressure he must feel to always be on guard. To not slip up. To not reveal who I really am. Maybe it’s time for me to let him go. Let him out of all of this. All this lying. All this Jinn stuff. All this me.
“Nothing. I want nothing more from you.” Though I mean this in the most altruistic way, in that “if you love something, set it free” way, the nuance is lost on him.
“Damn it, Az, you’re too much. Maybe everyone’s right.”
Everyone?
“I heard the way the guys at school would talk.” The muscles in Henry’s face tense. “Half afraid to talk to you because you’re so freaking pretty, they knew they didn’t have a shot, and the other half choosing not to talk to you because you’re so freaking pretty, they figured you must be a total bitch.”
At the start of the summer, Nate had mentioned gossip about my “vibe,” but I couldn’t imagine being a topic of conversation for anyone at our school. This being true stuns me almost as much as the bitch part stings me.
I say softly, “Which camp were you in?”
Henry sighs. “Neither. Because I … I figured you were lonely. No one ever visited except Laila. Course, that was before I knew why.”
I rest my trembling hands on my hips. “And now?”
I’m still waiting for a response when a fully clothed Chelsea appears on the front lawn. At the sound of her tentative, “Henry?” he turns and replies, “I’ll be right there, promise.”
I snort at his sugary tone before I can stop myself.
His nostrils actually flare. “Now,” he says in a tone lacking even one molecule of sucrose, “now, I’m squarely in both camps.”
He walks away from me, wraps an arm around Chelsea’s waist, and tucks a finger (which is all that will fit) into the waistband of her cutoffs.
I’m standing in the same spot watching them disappear through the fence gate when the full weight of Henry’s answer hits me. He thinks I’m a bitch. He also thinks I’m so pretty, he didn’t have a shot with me.
Didn’t or doesn’t?
Didn’t. It has to be. Because if he still wanted a shot with me, how could Henry be groping Chelsea?
Then again, if it’s Nate’s legs I want to be intertwined with mine, why am I this rattled to discover Henry groping Chelsea?
Clichés exist for a reason. Somewhere inside lurks a hidden truth. Turns out one of the truths behind the cliché that romance ruins a friendship is that it can apply even when the friends remain platonic.
A trick without any magic involved.
* * *
When I hit my front yard, I wrest the heels from my aching feet. The cool grass tickles my toes as I walk in circles. I move slowly, trying to absorb what just happened with Henry. That was our first fight. But friends fight, don’t they? And we’re friends, aren’t we? We are. We always have been. But maybe we’re more. Maybe we always have been more.
Just like with me and Laila. My heart pounds as I struggle to find the words to say to her to make her understand. To make her forgive. She will, right? I mean, if Mrs. Pucher’s sister could forgive her, Laila has to forgive me for this. Then again, it took Mrs. Pucher’s sister thirty years and a genie to get there.
As I approach the fence to our backyard, I see Mrs. Seyfreth out of the corner of my eye. The lilac bush still blocks most of her view. She doesn’t brush a single leaf aside. She just stands there in her little world, peering into ours. But there’s nothing to see here. Not even the tent. I force my dirt-smudged feet back into the high heels to get a better view over the top of the fence. All I see is our normal backyard.
A Zar reunion has never before ended on the same night it began. Laila must have told. My heart aches with the thought of Samara finding out what I did.
I inch open the front door. The living room is empty. I tiptoe upstairs, desperate to make it to my room without being noticed.
“Poor Yasmin,” my mother says through her open bedroom door.
Samara replies, “Hana and the other girls got her settled in at Nadia’s. Laila seemed so upset by it all that I thought it was better if Yasmin spent the night elsewhere.”
“It’s understandable,” my mother says, “but sad. I just wish it didn’t have to ruin the girls’ night. Yasmin needed it more than any of them.”
“It didn’t ruin it. They had their initiation. That’s what’s important.”
There’s an edge to my mother’s voice. “Is it really though? The Zar sisterhood. Sticking together. Raina would likely have something to say about that.”
“When didn’t Raina have something to say?”
My mother responds with a soft laugh. “Especially to me.”
Samara sighs. “So much history. So much to remember. So much that’s hard to let ourselves remember.”
Yasmin and Laila and Henry and Chelsea. All of their wounded faces, at least half of which I am responsible for, float before me. I round the corner and plant myself in the doorway.
“Like what?” I demand. Being Jinn is so full of secrets and lies, I need a playbook to keep track.
My mother snaps her head in my direction. “Azra! Where have you been?”
I drop her high heels to the floor. “I want to know what’s so hard for you both to remember.” My mind returns to Henry and me on the black rock. Maybe having memories does make it hard to move on, but not having any makes it impossible.
My eyes dart from my mother to Sam. “But it’s not what, is it? It’s who. My father. Laila’s father. Is that why we don’t talk about them? Because it’s hard?”
Their shocked faces but thin-lipped silence fuel me. Lots of things in life are hard. And as I’ve just discovered, avoiding them doesn’t make it any easier.
“Did it ever occur to you both that it may be hard for us because you don’t … because you won’t talk about them? Don’t you want to, Sam? I know you cared for him. I know you loved Laila’s father.”
Samara lifts herself off of my mother’s bed. “Azra, I’m not sure what’s gotten into you—”
“Stop. I know about the locket.” My guilt lashes out in the form of anger at my mother. I narrow my eyes at her. “How do you think it felt to know Lalla Sam actually loved Laila’s father? That she knew it’d be important for Laila to be able to see him one day?” I push past the lump in my throat. “You … you just gave him up, didn’t you? You didn’t care about him at all. Is it the same with Raina? What happened? Did she chip your tagine so you banished her from the house? Did you just give her up too?”
Samara takes my mother’s hand. The two of them have always had each other. Guess they didn’t really need anyone else.
In my hand, my phone buzzes. A text. I close my eyes, selfish enough to want it to be from Laila, naïve enough to hope it’s from Henry, but in my heart, knowing who it’s from. I look down. Nate. I’m both disappointed and not disappointed.
My mother releases Samara’s hand. “This doesn’t concern you, Azra.” She crosses her arms in front of her chest and says stiffly, “I get that you’re upset, but whatever’s happened, it’s no excuse to talk to me, to either of us, like this. Maybe you should go to your room before you say something you’ll regret.”
A harsh laugh rumbles through my nostrils. “Sorry, Mom. I’m what you wanted me to be my entire life. A Jinn. Which means, I’m an adult. You can’t ground me.”
Without a backward glance, I march across the hall into my bedroom. I realize I’m effectively grounding myself but I have nowhere else to go.
I turn the lock and slide down my door, sitting on the floor with my back against the frame. Like that could stop my mother if she wanted to get inside.
Which she does.
A soft knock precedes her, “Azra?” The scolding gone from her voice, it now cracks as she says, “I’m … I’m sorry.”
No, no, no. This is worse. I can’t handle her hurting. Not on top of everyone else’s. Not on top of my own.
“Honey,” Samara says, “it can’t be that bad.”
Oh, but it is, Lalla Sam. I can’t face her … because I know I’ll see in her eyes the same hurt, betrayed look I saw in Laila’s.
“Please.” I don’t bother to disguise the quiver in my voice. “Not now.”
Whispers on the other side of the door.
My mother then says, “Okay, kiddo, but I’m always right here.”
“We’re always right here,” Samara says, and I hear her hand tap the door.
The light their bodies were blocking shines under my door as they retreat. It surrounds my hunched, shaking frame, highlighting me, here, alone.
My hand still clings to my phone, the message from Nate on the screen. Followed by another one, asking if everything’s okay. Right now, he’s the only one in my life separate from all of this. Looks like I’ve found a new escape hatch.
I wait until I hear my mother’s bedroom door close before unlocking my phone. I flip through pictures of Henry, Laila, and Nate before opening my messages. I answer Nate’s text, he answers mine, and I go again. With each zoom, I distance myself from today, from everything Jinn, and slowly, my guilt at texting Nate, at letting myself enjoy texting Nate, diminishes.
Nate not knowing I’m a Jinn means I have to lie to him, but as I’m discovering, it also means I get to lie to him. I lose my Jinn self and for now am just a girl learning how to flirt with a boy.
We text for so long, my back spasms from lying on the wood floor. Finally, as we’re saying good-bye, I get the feeling Nate sends the text he’s been working up the nerve to type all night.
Staff bonfire tomorrow night. Would you like to be my mate?… Date.
*face palm*
Either one works for me.
Despite everything, or maybe because of everything, Nate officially proving that the “first” in front of his “date” from the other day was a necessary adjective makes my heavy heart do cartwheels.
A second date with Nate, a second date with Nate. I bounce my head from side to side as I sing the rhyme in my head.
My lack of response other than bouncing brings a follow-up text:
Work thing, I know. Promise to make it up w/ third.
Third, oh really? I prove I’ve gotten the hang of this flirting thing as I tease:
Presumptuous much?
Know what they say about assuming …
That it brings u and mi together? ;)
So maybe Nate the underwear model doesn’t quite hide his inner dork as well as I thought. Nothing could make me happier.
The late hour combined with the lack of feeling in my thumbs signals it’s time to go to bed. We sign off, and my joints crack as I change into my pajamas. Passing by my window before climbing into bed, I catch sight of Henry and Chelsea fused together, illuminated by the light on the Carwyns’ front steps.
My mix of jealousy, anger, and guilt is an entirely normal response. My wish has finally come true. And this weight in my chest confirms that wishes do indeed come with a price.