September 19, 2014

​

Naz sat at the nexus of Rudy’s party with her so-called best friend, lamenting the blunt she left behind at home. This was her first house party of the year, and hopefully the worst—about two dozen seniors like herself milled about on couches and in the dark corners of the living room, waiting for the “real” party to begin. Some former friends of hers, Isaiah and Malik and the rest of the squad, stood in one of those corners talking only to themselves. The only other black kids in the crowd. She didn’t know who invited them, nor did she know who had chosen tonight’s music. Limp and sanitized alt rap songs blared from a playlist that sounded like it'd been made way back in freshman year. Already the night felt like a rehash, a reminder of bigger, better times.

          She felt her friend Kim jab her in the shoulder. “Hello? Earth to Naz?”

          “I’m listening,” Naz lied. Her eyes locked on the boys in the corner.

          “Have you landed on where to apply?”

          A slender boy in the corner made eye contact with her, crossing his arms. She didn’t recognize him. “I’m thinking Urbana-Champaign.”

          Kim laughed, pushed a strand of hair to the side. “With your GPA? Be serious.”

          Naz finally broke eye contact and regarded her friend, an aspiring photographer born with a silver spoon. Pretty in a plain way, white ancestry, straight brown hair, all traits that made Naz jealous once in a while. “‘As a mixed child growing up in America,’” Naz began, “‘I took an unconventional path through school and through life. By learning to embrace my differences, I was able to improve my academics and develop a strong sense of self-confidence.’”

          “That’s a top five hundred school in the world. You think they’ll buy that?”

          “I’m hoping they love the ‘poor half-black and Iranian’ angle.”

          The two of them laughed. Kim was ready to say something else but hesitated—Naz turned around and felt her heart drop at the sight of the new arrival. Her boyfriend Omid, wearing his spotless fleece jacket, was inundated with handslaps before he could even close the door behind him. She was grateful to have Kim nearby, even if her friend couldn’t see through his smile.

          Naz forced her own smile as Omid came over to greet them. Braced herself for his kiss. Scooted into the corner as he plopped down next to her and draped a sweaty arm around her shoulders. “What’s on your minds?”

          Kim smiled weakly.

          “Boys and shopping,” said Naz.

          “Sounds captivating,” Omid cooed. “You having a beer?”

          “You know I can’t,” she said, pointing to her chest.

          He smiled, even though the joke never got funnier. He already knew what was written on the dogtags under her blouse: atrial fibrillation, total situs inversus. They were why she stopped numbing herself with alcohol no matter how bad she wanted it.

          Kim cleared her throat. “I’ve got to say hi to Rudy and Brittany,” said Kim. “Do you guys need anything?”

          “Bring me a bombshell blonde,” Omid winked.

          “How about a plane ticket out of here?”

          Kim didn’t have a plane ticket to give. Only a sheepish smile, for Naz alone, before she joined the rest of the masses. The boys in the corner split and merged into the crowd themselves, a circle forming in the kitchen as shots were doled into solo cups. College admissions weren’t for another month—they had time to massage their essays further.

          Omid sighed. “It’s rare that we get any alone time together these days.”

          “Probably because you’re too busy chasing bombshell blondes.”

          “Babe, that’s just a beer brand.”

          “Is Sandy Carlile a beer brand, too?”

          A cloud passed over Omid’s face—a chink in the armor—before his crooked smile returned. This wasn’t the right environment to throw barbs, so he kept his voice light. “We’ve gone over this before, right? Why bring the mood down?”

          Naz rolled her eyes but didn’t push him. She wasn’t stupid, but she knew he could talk himself out of anything. Wait her out until her anger went numb. 

           “I can’t stay for long anyway,” he said with a casual wave. “Might come back with some beers but I got to drive someplace else for a bit. You gonna be okay?”

          “Sure.”

          Omid squeezed her shoulder. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” 

          He left the way he came, providing fistbumps on his way out. She was relieved he didn’t wait for her to say the magic words. So often she’d forgive him, her anger subsiding, returning with a vengeance once she came to her senses. A cycle of self-hatred pointing in the wrong direction.

          As more familiar faces filtered in, Naz grounded herself on the couch—crossed her legs, dug her fingers into the cotton seams. Did her best to swallow the bile. Out of the corner of her eye, Isaiah and his new friend left the crowd. She got a better look at the new kid as they approached: he wore a jean jacket over a red hoodie, sleeves rolled up to reveal taut muscles and an ouroboros tattoo. Isaiah, as stocky as ever, had grown half a foot since she’d last talked to him. It clicked for Naz why he’d been invited at all—last year’s football team had reached regionals.

          “Long time no see, fool,” said Isaiah. “How you holding up?”

          “I’m chillin’,” she lied.

          “Jeffrey, this is my old friend, Naz. Naz, Jeffrey—he moved up here from Florida.”

          Jeffrey held out his hand. “What's good?”

          Naz narrowed her eyes. She wasn’t sure why he was being introduced to her, didn’t soften up until she noticed the blunt cradled between his fingers. She dapped him up and he took a spot at the other end of the couch. 

          “You two like the party so far?” she asked.

          “It’s whatever,” Isaiah muttered. “I gotta pay my respects to Rudy before he flips.”

          Naz threw up a peace sign in affirmation and smiled at him, before exchanging a glance with Jeffrey. “I see he hasn’t changed.”

          “He’ll be aight. Your name’s really Naz? Like Illmatic Nas?”

          “Short for Nazanin,” she said. “What brings you up here?”

          “My dad got a new job, and I got tired of good weather.”

          “I mean to Rudy’s.”

          Jeffrey shrugged. Laughter pierced the music from who knew where. “Figured it’d be nice to meet people that matter while I’m here. These your friends?”

          “Only for the next nine months, if everything goes right.”

          He raised an eyebrow. “You don’t sound like a fan.”

          “I’ve spent the past twelve years stuck with some of these creeps. I’m over it. You’re lucky you don’t know them as well as I do.”

          “You know Floridians aren’t much better, right?” Jeffrey grinned. “Only thing people do for fun in Florida is pop Vicodins.”

          “Then you’ll fit right in.” Naz twirled the blunt between her fingers. “Shit, if you have a Perc or Vicodin connection, everybody will be your friend here.”

          “I’m not looking to have everybody like me. Just the people I find interesting.”

          Naz felt her heart skip a beat, unsure whether it was because of him. “Yeah?” she smiled. “Who do you find interesting here?”

          He smiled back—another jolt to the chest. “The girl who was staring at me from across the room.”

          “What?” Naz scoffed. “You were making eyes at me.”

          “If we both had the same idea, why didn’t you say hi earlier?”

          “Because I have a boyfriend,” she said. “Because he’s charming, and I’m faithful, and he provides everything I could ever need.”

          The smile faded from his face. She worried he mistook her challenge for a rebuttal. He nodded slowly, regarded her body, smirked once. His eyes landed on her hands. “If he really provided you everything,” he said, regaining eye contact, “you wouldn’t be here without him, would you?”

          “Now you’re catching on.”

          “I hear he’s real popular. I must be taking a risk talking to you.”

          She leaned forward as close as she could without raising suspicion, heart pounding, excited at the possibility of trying someone new. “Aren’t good things worth taking a risk for?” 

​

Omid tossed his jacket into the backseat while Naz tossed her sweatshirt to the bedroom floor. She didn't feel the need to mention condoms, not with the ease that Jeffrey undressed her upstairs. He kissed her shoulders as he unhooked her bra, and she took a long drag on the blunt until her lungs filled up with smoke and lust. She was losing her virginity, of a sort. Her first time cheating. Her first time having sex in bed. 

          Naz set the blunt aside as Jeffrey straddled her, then shotgunned the smoke through his lips. Gas sputtered from the exhaust of Omid’s car as he sped onto the two lane road that bifurcated Little Bennett Forest. Desire crackled through their bodies—there was so much to be said and done, too little time to do it with.

          The streetlights blurred in Omid’s view. He steered with a knee, tossed back a can of beer, tossed it out the window. Naz let Jeffrey pin her wrists to the bed, shuddered at his touch, locked her legs around his when she couldn’t take the teasing anymore.

          A crushing warmth spread through her sweat drenched body. Each thrust, each pothole a shockwave. Bass boosted hip-hop drowned out their moans, the sound of tires gliding over the line. Naz gripped a fistful of the bedsheets and when her moans threatened to overpower the music, Jeffrey covered her lips with his own.  

          He finished on her chest, and Naz felt her heart flutter. Not from love. Arrhythmia. The steering wheel smashed against Omid’s chest and her breathing shortened and her heart raced while his sputtered and she imagined this being the end—a stranger's cum on her constricting chest, dying in a stranger’s bed. Jeffrey, as if sensing her desperation, dropped his smile and moved quickly. He set a pillow against the headboard and helped her sit upright to try and correct her breathing. “Breathe,” he said.

          Naz nodded, did what she was told. He still hovered over her, with his legs far enough apart to give her room. After a few deep breaths, she remembered her doctor’s recommendations and closed her mouth, pinched her nose, and blew. Her ears popped, her heart finally slowing down. “I’m okay,” she said. 

          He nodded and exited the room. Naz sighed. It was just like men to leave at the first opportunity. But Jeffrey hadn’t left—he tiptoed back in the room carrying a dripping hand towel, motioned for her to lay on her back. She shuddered as he caressed her chest and stomach with the soaking towel, coarse and warm to the touch. Once he was done, he left the towel beside her and kissed her right breast.

          “How did you know my heart was on that side?” she asked.

          He raised an eyebrow at her. “Isn’t everyone’s?”

          She draped her arm over her eyes. Blew a raspberry. 

          “I’m teasing,” said Jeffrey, “I read your dog tags.”

          She turned on her side to face him. “You know what all those words mean?”

          “Hey, I passed AP Bio. It’s your heart, right?”

          “Not just my heart. All the organs in my body are reversed. Happens to one out of a hundred million people. On top of that, my heart goes a little … haywire, sometimes.” She looked down, began messing with the bedsheet threads. “It’s why I don’t drink. Breathing exercises help in the moment, but if I’m not careful …”

          Jeffrey’s eyes went wide. “You risked your life just to fuck me?”

          She jabbed his shoulder and he laughed. “Don’t flatter yourself,” she smirked. “I read it’s good for me in moderation. Strengthens the heart.”

          “Glad I could do that for you.”

          “Sure. Honestly, I don’t know what happened. Just a bad feeling there, I guess.”

          “If it’s about your boyfriend I won’t …”

          “I trust you,” Naz said firmly. 

          Jeffrey nodded. 

          Next to her dog tags, the blunt was a smoldering mess on the bedside counter. The wet towel left a damp stain in the middle of the bed, and the bassy music which had covered their tryst faded away below. They couldn’t stay for much longer, so they didn’t. She let Jeffrey leave first and didn’t get dressed right away, instead wondering to herself what he saw in her. 

​

The music downstairs went silent—the party was over. Naz did her best to hide her smile as she descended the steps, but it became clear there’d been no laughing or smiling while she was away. Muffled sobs grew in intensity the closer she got to her friends. Eyes glistened red under the dim lights. Jeffrey and his boys, meanwhile, were nowhere to be found.

          A shouting match began out of sight in the kitchen, but Naz couldn’t make out the words. Strangers kicked aside empty cans and trudged out with bemused expressions. She left with them, not saying goodbye to anybody, unaware of the news, though she later convinced herself she knew all along. Kim paced in circles on the front lawn, shivering, relieved when the two of them made eye contact. 

          “What happened?” asked Naz. “Rudy start another fight?”

          Kim shook her head, mascara streaked down her cheeks. “It’s Omid,” she mustered. “He … he … ”

          She whispered what little she knew into Naz’s ear, as if the truth was too unbearable to say out loud. They sobbed and held each other close and dropped to their knees and dirtied their jeans in the mud. They were far from the only ones to be crying at the time or over the next few days. Naz was far from the most hurt out of everyone, especially compared to his parents. But she was his only girlfriend. The only person who knew the real him.

​

The kids wore black on their first day back from the weekend. Naz struggled to come to grips with it. People gave her space as she withdrew into herself, not realizing why she did. Her grief was performative and tinged by guilt. She worried Jeffrey would tell people what they’d been doing while her boyfriend choked on his blood, but Jeffrey disappeared into his own circle and never said a word. 

          Time healed her wounds, closed up the hole. No longer did she worry about tiring obligations or mean-spirited pranks. She learned to swallow the barbs left behind in her throat, the comebacks she’d realized after the fact. So much she’d wanted to say to Omid—maybe it hadn’t mattered at all.

          She ran into Isaiah at a Schnucks parking lot, sometime between the admissions deadline and Christmas. He’d taken to missing school more and more often, coming to class only to sell eighths. A semi-dropout. She never thought they’d go down different paths back when they’d drink from the same whiskey bottles. Now he was sitting outside on the curb alone, finishing a cheeseburger, waiting for the rest of her former friends. Naz dapped him up with the customary greeting, a baggie nestled in her palm.

          “You have fun at Rudy’s party?” she asked. A dark joke.

          “I left before I heard the news,” he said with a shrug. “Sad shit though. Fucked up way to go out.”

          She nodded noncommittally. “Why’d you introduce me to Jeffrey that night?”

          Isaiah smiled. “Homeboy’s funny as hell. You saw it. But don’t get it twisted—he’s shy around girls.”

          “He asked you to introduce us?”

          “You should hit him up when you got a chance. He’s still around.”

          “So am I,” said Naz.

          A beat up Honda with juiced speakers rolled into the parking lot, blasting Bobby Shmurda. Isaiah dusted himself off and left the crumpled foil on the gravel. “Valerie’s back in town and hosting a party tonight,” he said.                     “You’re free to roll through. Shit, remember how close y’all used to be?”

          “We met for lunch this week, actually,” said Naz. “I don’t know. She’s not how I remember her.”

          Isaiah shook his head. “Neither are you, girl.”

          He pulled away in the car and Naz got on the bus by herself. Rush hour traffic enveloped them. She was surrounded by tired faces, commuters in construction vests, hospital scrubs, the occasional suit and tie. Today she was a high school senior in a black hoodie and camo pants; tomorrow she didn’t know what she was going to be.

          Her last words to Jeffrey before they went upstairs bounced around in her head, as they’d done incessantly since they last saw each other. She couldn’t remember what she’d said for him to follow her, or whether they were the reason he followed her at all. But she remembered how she wanted him to see her, how she wanted to see herself. The bus emptied out and she whispered to herself as she arrived at her stop: “I’m good, I’m good, I’m good.”