JAWAD

The news reports kept calling us Iraqis. Eye-rack-eez. That’s how they said it. Like we weren’t Americans at all. Like my parents and I didn’t have US passports. Like my mom didn’t protect them like prized possessions. But that wasn’t the story the reporters wanted to tell. This was:

CHILD OF IRAQI REFUGEES ARRESTED FOR BOMB HOAX

ILLINOIS STATE SENATOR QUESTIONS LAX NATURALIZATION POLICIES IN LIGHT OF ALLEGED BOMB THREAT

POLICE: IRAQI IMMIGRANT STUDENT ARRESTED FOR HOAX BOMB HAD RECORD OF TRUANCY

In my real life, on my first day back from my three-day suspension for the “bomb hoax,” someone had taped a shooting target—the kind that looks like a bull’s-eye—to my locker. Then someone yelled at me. Others started yelling, too. Like a chant: Bomb Boy. Bomb Boy. Bomb Boy.

At that moment, right then, it felt like I was dying inside. Turns out, that’s not what dying feels like at all. Dying was fast, but also slow. And cold. And hard. I barely had time to scream for help before it all ended. Before all my words were ripped away from me.

When I went back to school after the bomb hoax suspension, my parents told me I couldn’t go to the after-school makerspace club anymore, at least for the rest of the quarter. Even though I’d been cleared. Even though I promised not to make anything else that could seem suspicious. When I went to tell Ms. Ellis, I thought she was going to cry.

“Don’t let hate crush your creativity,” she said. “Don’t let them take away your shine.”

I looked down at my shoes and whispered, “It’s that… my parents want me home right after school from now on.”

Ms. Ellis nodded her head. “I understand. I’m sorry for… everything. It will get better. I promise.” She put her hands together like she was praying.

Now, even though it’s too late to matter, I realize that sometimes adults—even the good ones—make promises they know aren’t true. Promises made of fancy words they know they can’t keep. I think they mean well. They probably think the truth is too sharp. But false hope cuts, too. At least it did when I was alive to feel things.

Ghosts don’t have to go to school. I’m not saying that because it’s the silver lining. It’s that we don’t have to go anywhere. But I visited Bethune anyway. I wasn’t sure where else to go. It was the morning. First period. And I was never late to school. I guess habits stick around even when you don’t need them to.

But going back to my old school, standing in the middle of the hall with everyone walking by me, almost made me feel actual pain again, like that thing when you lose an arm but feel it anyway. A phantom limb. In some ways it was barely different from when I was a real boy. No one really saw me then, either.

Except Ms. Ellis.

I thought maybe she’d be able to see me now. Hear me. She looked sad sitting there at her desk. I got kind of close to her. For a second, she stopped her grading. Almost looked up. I was so close. But then she shook her head and picked up her pen again. I think she blames herself for what happened to me, because she ran the makerspace club after school, because she encouraged me, because that was the beginning of my end. I don’t blame her, though. It wasn’t her fault at all. She was one of the kind adults, the ones who cared. I never told her that I knew she was on my side. That I appreciated her. Maybe she knows? I hope she knows. I hope she won’t let them take away her shine, either.

Then I visited my old locker. They never reassigned it. Maybe they think it’s haunted. (Spoiler: It is.) It’s empty. A shell. Three days after my suspension had ended, someone duct-taped another sign to my locker: Go home, raghead! I peeled it off, but sticky residue from the tape is still there. That stripe of tacky gunk outlasted me.