The Impossibility of Us Read online

  “Ryan is going back to Texas in a few weeks.” She makes no more mention of Mati, like avoiding his name is as good as erasing him from existence. “I’ve already contacted your principal to let her know you’ll be there. She’s looking forward to meeting you. Two o’clock this afternoon,” she says, pointing at the flyer before turning and walking out of my room.

  I hem and haw all morning. Orientation is the very last thing I feel like doing, mostly because I don’t want my mom to have her way. And anyway, I’d rather meet up with Mati, especially considering I haven’t talked to him since my phone was swiped. Our time together is dwindling and even though it’s barely been twenty-four hours, I miss him.

  But, as much as I hate to admit it, my mom is right: I do need to put some effort into making new friends. Thanks to Mati and Ryan, I know now that I want people in my life, even if my brother can’t be.

  God. It’s settled—I’m going to orientation.

  I leave the house in Mom’s BMW, dressed in tattered cutoffs and my trusty Advise, Support, Stabilize sweatshirt; it’s like a security blanket, like having a piece of Nick with me as I brave the awfulness of a new school. When I pull into the parking lot, it occurs to me that I’m likely the only attendee old enough to drive, and I’m met with the stares of dozens of confused underclassmen as I park Mom’s car.

  In the gym, bright-eyed freshmen (who’ve presumably traveled through the Cypress Valley school system together since they were kindergartners) sit in gaggles on the bleachers, prattling and laughing, effectively ignoring me. When I look at their carefree faces and glowing smiles and tidy clothes, I feel far removed.

  I’m starting to wonder if I should have stayed home after all when the lights flash off and then flicker back on, quieting the crowd and officially beginning orientation.

  Cypress Valley High’s principal, a surprisingly young, smartly dressed blonde who introduces herself as Mrs. Cruz, speaks from a podium in the center of the polished floor. Her voice echoes through the steamy gym as she welcomes us, promising an “illuminating and formative” educational experience.

  Wonderful.

  She drones on, covering hallway expectations and cafeteria procedures and the progress reports that’ll be emailed to our parents periodically throughout the year. She’s introducing a couple of assistant principals, who appear apathetic at best, when her attention is pulled to the doors on the far side of the gym. I follow her gaze, peering across the sea of heads that occupy the bleachers. There’s some sort of scuffle taking place behind one of the closed doors, in the dim hallway barely visible through the small, rectangular window. Mrs. Cruz glances questioningly at her fellow administrators, who shrug in unison.

  All’s quiet now, so she resumes her speech, filling a whole thirty seconds with rambling before the door flies open, slamming against the gym’s cinder block wall, drawing the attention of every single person in the vast room.

  Ryan steps onto the gleaming hardwood. Ryan, followed by Xavier. I do a double take, my mouth dropping open.

  He scans oodles of teenaged faces, clearly, frantically searching, until I make sense of his arrival—he’s got to be here for me, right?—and rise from my seat.

  He spots me and shouts, “Elise!”

  My name echoes like thunder through the silent gymnasium. I stumble down the crowded row in which I’ve been sitting. Befuddled stares track me as I hurry down the stairs, my heart pounding because something’s wrong. Ryan wouldn’t be here otherwise.

  I sprint across the gym, my flip-flops slapping the glossy floor. Distantly, I hear Mrs. Cruz call, “Excuse me!” and I’m not sure if she’s questioning me or admonishing me, but I ignore her, my ponytail swinging behind me as I run. I meet Ryan and Xavier at the door, grabbing their arms, pulling them into the corridor, where a man—a teacher or a security guard, I think—ushers us away from the gym.

  “You’re not authorized to be in the building,” he says to my intruder friends.

  “Yeah,” Xavier says. “It’s an emergency. We’re leaving now.”

  My stomach drops out. An emergency. I knew it.

  Xavier leads Ryan and me down the hall, away from the man and the gym and the orientation I knew I shouldn’t have come to. With every footfall, I think Mom? Audrey? Janie? Mom? Audrey? Janie? But I can’t bring myself to ask.

  This can’t be happening again. I can’t lose someone else.

  Despite my escalating alarm, I hustle to keep up with the boys’ long strides and, finally, push my panic away long enough to speak. “What happened?”

  We’ve reached the lobby. Ryan grabs my hand as we push through the doors and into the sunlight. He’s towing me along, toward where Xavier’s Jeep waits, parked crookedly in the fire lane. “It’s Mati,” he says.

  “Mati?!”

  Ryan squeezes my hand. “We’ve got to go.”

  I yank free of him, planting my feet on the concrete. I’m shocked and I’m confused and I’m tired of being dragged along, clueless.

  “Elise,” Ryan says, gently now. “We need to go to the hospital.”

  “Why?”

  Xavier drops a hand onto my shoulder. “Because he’s hurt. He needs you.”

  We scramble into the Jeep. Xavier drives, swift but sure. Ryan sits shotgun, fiddling with the radio. I’m in the backseat, gusts of wind riling my hair. I’m trying not to throw up.

  I think: Mati is strong and steady, smart and sweet. Bad things don’t happen to good people—he’s practically invincible.

  And yet …

  Cypress Beach isn’t big enough for a hospital of its own, so we’re on our way to San Jose. I borrow Ryan’s phone to text my mom. I tell her that orientation’s done and that I’m spending the rest of the day with my friends. Then I dial Mati because I can’t not. The line rings unceasingly, leaving me full of apprehension and fear, buzzing with the need to get to him, get to him, get to him.

  “What happened?” I ask Ryan over the wind whistling through the Jeep’s soft-top.

  “He was jumped,” he says. His words sound garbled, as if they’re painful to speak. “It was pretty bad.”

  My imagination conjures a slide show of horrific snapshots: Mati attacked, Mati hurt, Mati bleeding. I blink it all away to keep from bursting into tears. “Jumped where?”

  “Cypress Beach. Early this morning. In an alley close to Van Dough’s.”

  “Oh God. Ryan!”

  He reaches back to touch my knee. “He’s gonna be okay. He called me, so he’s conscious. He’s gotta be well enough to operate a phone, you know?”

  No, I don’t know. Because I didn’t get to speak to him. I couldn’t, because my phone is sitting in my mom’s bedroom, useless.

  I hate her.

  “He tried to call you first,” Ryan says, another attempt at consoling me. “Then I did, too. I had to go to your cottage to figure out where you were.”

  “My mom took my phone away,” I mumble, embarrassed. “She doesn’t like Mati.”

  Xavier flies past a beat-up Nissan. He’s crushing Highway 101. “Why not?”

  I scrub my hands over my face; the last forty-eight hours feel more like forty-eight years. “She doesn’t have a good reason. She refuses to give him a chance. She pins her ignorance on those people, the Afghans who killed my brother. Like Mati has anything to do with them.”

  “Damn,” Xavier says. “I didn’t realize. I’m sorry.”

  Ryan gives me an optimistic smile. “She’ll come around.”

  “No,” I say, turning away to gaze out the window. “I don’t think she will.”

  What’s more? I don’t care.

  elise

  We pull up to Sacred Heart Hospital after fifty minutes on the road.

  It’s a large building, white and modern, sterile and unadorned compared with the quaint coziness I’ve grown accustomed to in Cypress Beach. Xavier drops me off at the main entrance, after he and Ryan promise to come up in a bit. I thank them, smoothing a hand over my wind-ravaged hair as I hurr
y inside. I’ve still got Ryan’s phone and I press it to my ear, trying Mati’s number again as I navigate the lobby. No answer.

  The fact that he’s so close, yet entirely unreachable, is making me crazy.

  I give his name at the reception desk, and the elderly liaison working the counter presents me with a trifold map, pointing to the wing where he’s being treated, and circling his room in red ink. “Take this with you,” he says, pushing the map into my hands. He raises a liver-spotted hand and points to the bay of elevators behind me. “Those are your best bet.”

  I hightail it to the elevators and jab the up button with an impatient finger. It illuminates like a full moon. There’s a chime as the doors lurch open and then I’m inside, alone and bouncing as the lift makes a slow skyward journey. When the doors open again, the sharp scent of disinfectant floods my nose and I have to take a steadying breath to recover my balance. I step into the corridor.

  My flip-flops squeak as I jog down the hallway, my heart thudding hard against my ribs. I pull to an abrupt halt when I spot Mati’s name on a small whiteboard outside one of the many doors. I check the room number against the information on my map, then step up to peer through the little window.

  The room is colorless, painted in shadows. It’s empty but for Mati, apparently asleep, appearing uncharacteristically frail under the crisp sheet covering the lower half of his body. His eyelids look purple, almost translucent. There’s a deep bruise covering the left side of his face, and his skin is puffy, swollen. My stomach rolls over; he looks dreadful. If it wasn’t for the muffled beep, beep, beep of the monitors overseeing his vitals, I’d think he was—

  I ease the door open, stepping silently through and, yes. He’s here, and I’m here, and the world spins again.

  I loiter close to the entryway, watching him sleep as the wall clock’s second hand makes rotation after rotation. The longer I look at him, the more I hurt. His trampled form does terrible things to my chest—crushes it with matchless force, making it difficult to siphon air. I feel my hand move to my thrashing heart; I feel my knees begin to buckle. I reach for the doorjamb to keep from crumpling.

  The shape of him, shrunken and defeated, the shape of his pain …

  I whisper his name.

  His eyes flutter open, spiderwebbed with fine vessels. They find me, and he says, “Elise.”

  I close the distance separating us, taking his hand gingerly in both of mine. “Are you—?”

  “I’m fine.” His voice is raspy and weak, those two little words requiring a lot of effort.

  “But you look—”

  “I’m fine. Especially now that you’ve found me.”

  He doesn’t look fine—not even close. The bruise on his cheek is worse up close, and his lip’s split, stained with a spot of dried blood. His hospital gown reveals his throat, his clavicles, his long, ocher arms, skin mottled with angry red scrapes. An IV disappears into the wrist farthest from me, its long tube trailing up to a bag of clear liquid. His breath is shallow and brings about an occasional wince and, God, I want to kill the person who did this to him.

  “Oh, Mati…”

  “It’s just a few bruises.”

  “You wouldn’t be here if it was just a few bruises.”

  His mouth lifts in a tiny, reticent smile. “A few bruises. A couple of cracked ribs. Low-grade renal trauma. See? I’ve learned a new English phrase since being admitted.”

  My frown deepens. “There’s nothing funny about this.”

  “I know.” He gazes up at me with such stark vulnerability, I can’t help but rest my palm against his unmarred cheek. He leans into my touch and says, “Thank you for coming.”

  I don’t need to be thanked—I need to know what happened. Who did this, and when, and why. I need to know if he fought back, if anyone helped when it was over, if he’s reported the attack. I need to know how much pain he’s in, and when he’ll start to feel better. But right now, all that matters is comforting him.

  I hover over his damaged body. “Can I…?”

  He gives a nod that clearly costs him. “Carefully.”

  I lay my head on his shoulder, and he eases his arm around me. I reach up to lace my fingers through his, wishing I had the power to mend his broken pieces. I hold his hand tightly, lashing us together until we’re seamless. Until we’re us. Because I still can’t believe this happened. I still don’t understand any part of how he ended up here but, God, I’m grateful he’s okay.

  I’m in tears suddenly, sobbing into the starchy fabric of his gown, and it’s so embarrassing, putting my worry and my fear and my helplessness out there this way when he’s obviously going to be all right, but then I realize he’s as upset as I am, and we’re such a mess, such a perfectly beautiful mess, I don’t care if time screeches to a halt and we’re frozen in this dreary room for eternity.

  At least I’ll be frozen with him.

  elise

  When I’ve cried myself out, he kisses the top of my head, a long press of his lips to my hair.

  I pull back, reluctant to put space between us but worried about his ribs and his many, many bruises. There’s a chair nearby and I pull it up to the bed. I sit and run a hand along his forearm, tight muscle and satin skin blemished by a myriad of scrapes. “Where are your parents?”

  “Walking the corridors. They left me alone to sleep.”

  “And now I’m here, interrupting your rest.”

  He looks at me all adoringly. “You are never an interruption.”

  I spend a moment under his glow before broaching the unavoidable. “Mati, what happened?”

  His face contorts, eyes glassy, his gaze growing distant. “I remember going to the market,” he says, sort of sluggishly. “I picked up honey and peppermint because my mama asked me to. I remember hurrying because Baba was in the middle of a coughing fit and I wanted to get back to the cottage. I wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings, though I should have been.” He shakes his head, frustrated now. “There were two men; they came from behind and nearly knocked me out. It’s cloudy, all of it, but they worked together, the two of them against me.”

  My hand travels the length of his arm, a vain attempt at consoling him, at keeping my mind focused on his story, not my tumultuous emotions. “Who were they?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve seen one of them in Cypress Beach before, several weeks ago.” He pauses, watching me warily. I sense that he’s censoring his story, and I hate that he feels the need. “That day, he was spiteful; he threw hateful slurs at me and my mama, but Cypress Beach was busy, so he had no choice but to let me walk away. This morning, I wasn’t so lucky.”

  I feel somehow responsible. Americans—my people—attacked this person they’d be lucky to know. I’m ashamed for them; I’m ashamed of them. “How did you get away?”

  “They grew bored quickly—probably because I made little effort to fight back. After they ran off, I managed to get home. When I walked into the cottage, stooped and bleeding, my parents were horrified.” He sighs, a dismal sound, then grimaces at the toll that exhale must have taken on his ribs. “They called for help, and here I am. I’m fortunate: my ribs are only cracked, and the bruising to my kidney is minimal. The doctor said I’ll need to stay a night or two, then I’ll return to Cypress Beach with medicine for my pain.”

  I’m teary again, but due more to anger than worry. There’s nothing fortunate about what happened to him. His attackers were vicious and cowardly, and they deserve nothing but a hasty trip to hell. Taking his hand, I ask, “Where are they now?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t care, as long as they stay far from my parents and me.”

  “Have you talked to the police?”

  His eyes fall closed. When they open again, his expression betrays his powerlessness, and his concentrated sadness. “No, Elise. I can’t.”

  “Why? What they did to you—you can’t let them get away with it.”

  “I don’t have a choice. I’m a visitor in your country, and the cli
mate is not good for Muslims—you know that. My baba needs to finish his treatment. I can’t do anything to jeopardize that.”

  “But if you reported what happened, told the police exactly what you just told me—”

  “They would measure my account against the account of two American citizens. There’s no question who they’d believe.”

  “But that’s not fair.”

  “Life isn’t fair.”

  “Mati, this is wrong. They deserve consequences.”

  “The chance of me, an Afghan with a quickly expiring visa, getting justice in America is slim. There are too many people who look at me and see a threat. Who associate my family with bombs and fire and death, with men who carry assault rifles, who pledge their undying obedience to Allah and defend their brutality with the Quran. When I say that the climate for Muslims is ‘not good,’ I really mean that it’s dangerous—very dangerous. I can’t walk into a police station and accuse two white Americans of attacking me because who knows what lies they might counter with? I cannot entangle my family with the law, not now, when Baba is as near as he’s ever been to healthy. Not now, when we are so close to returning to Afghanistan.”

  My face is hot with rage. A rash of disjointed arguments scramble up my throat, but then Mati eases his hand out of mine and raises it to the crown of my head. He runs his palm over my hair, slowing my pulse, nudging my anger away, if only for a moment. The way he’s looking at me … it’s an appeal, a plea for understanding, and while I absolutely do not understand—will never understand how he can be so rational, so selfless, so composed in the face of gross inequality—I can appreciate how different his experience is from mine.

  I’ve never walked in his shoes, but that doesn’t mean I can’t stroll beside him. That doesn’t mean I can’t learn from his perspective and offer support in all the ways I know how.

  His hand moves to my face, his thumb brushing the arc of my cheekbone, the curve of my jaw. “Elise, this morning … I was scared. I was lost. I made it through, back to the cottage and all the way here, thinking of you. I don’t know what that means for me, for you, for us, but…” He trails off, his expression unguarded, simultaneously hopeful and tormented, and I see us, suddenly, as if out-of-body: his hand cupping my face, my fingers clutching his elbow, our cheeks rosy and tear-stained, our eyes wide and worshipful.