The world continued to spin, taking with it, my mind.

I felt true delirium as I moved, exhaustion unlike any I’d ever known. I couldn’t even fathom how I was still upright; I felt like I was hearing everything from far away, felt like my body was not my own. My mind had the processing speed of molasses, my eyes blurring constantly. I needed to find a way to focus, needed to remember how to pay attention. I had failed, once again, to complete any of the homework due today, and I felt shame as I watched other students turn in their essays and worksheets, raise their hands to answer questions in clear and focused sentences. This month was suddenly more critical than ever and I was drowning, drowning when I needed, desperately, to keep my head above water.

As long as my father stayed alive, I planned on going away to college. I didn’t want to stay here, spend two years at the community college, transfer eventually. I wanted to leave as soon as possible. I wanted to leave and maybe never, ever come back. And I wanted to get into a good school.

I nearly screamed at the sound of a gunshot.

I sat up suddenly, hyperventilating, heart racing in my chest. I heard a roar of laughter, looked up, looked around, realized I’d fallen asleep. My seat was in the far right corner of this class, but it was in the first row, and my AP Chemistry teacher, Mr. Mathis, was standing in front of my desk now, arms crossed, shaking his head. At his feet was a massive textbook—a textbook, I realized, he’d dropped on purpose.

It was a cruel joke.

I felt my face flush, heat jolting through my body. People were still laughing. I sat up in my seat, kept my eyes on my desk. I wanted to turn my skin inside out.

“I’m sorry,” I said quietly.

“You want to stay out late? That’s not my problem,” Mr. Mathis said sharply. “Get your sleep at home. Not in my class.”

“Of course. I’m sorry.”

He shot me a dark look. Carried on with his lecture. I spent the rest of the period staring at the textbook at my feet, feeling as though all the blood had drained from my body, pooled onto the floor.

My father was not coming home today.

He was not dying just yet, but he was also not coming home today, and that was all I really understood at the moment. My mom hadn’t talked much, hadn’t explained more than was absolutely necessary, and flatly refused my suggestion that she go to a support group for grieving parents. She’d audibly gasped when I proposed she see a therapist. She’d looked so outraged I actually panicked; I thought for a moment she might never speak to me again. But then she ate the eggs I made her for breakfast.

Something had changed between us that morning, and I still didn’t know what it was, had not yet figured out how to define it. But I could tell, just by looking into her eyes, that my mother had unclenched an iota. She seemed relieved—relieved, perhaps, to no longer be living with such a crushing secret.

“I’ll be okay,” she kept saying. “I’ll be fine.”

I did not believe her.

I spent my lunch period sleeping at a table in the library, head bowed over my folded arms. I felt like I’d only just closed my eyes when someone shook my shoulder, rattled my skeleton back to life. I awoke suddenly, my nerves fraying in an instant.

When I looked up, I saw a blur of color. Eyes. Mouth.

“Noah.”

“Hey,” he said, but he was frowning. “Are you okay? The bell just rang.”

“Oh.” I tried to stand, but the action proved harder to accomplish than I’d expected. “What—what are you doing here?”

“We were supposed to have lunch together, remember?” He suddenly smiled. “I brought a newspaper and everything. But your friend Yumiko told me you’d bailed on her for the library.”

I frowned. Dimly, I remembered running into her, telling her I’d be in the library for lunch. That conversation felt like it’d happened a lifetime ago. “You brought a newspaper?”

Noah smiled wider. “Yeah.”

I laughed, collected my things in a daze, moved through the room with a pronounced slowness. I wanted to say, That’s so nice, but it seemed like too much work.

“Hey—what’s wrong? Are you sick?” I heard his voice, heard it like it was coming from the stars.

I shook my head, the single motion disorienting me. I tried to say I’m just tired, but I wasn’t sure it went through. My feet moved even more stupidly than my mind and I suddenly tripped over my own shoes, caught myself against a research table, the sharp edge slamming into my gut. I gasped as I steadied myself, caught my breath.

I looked up, stared at the exit, wondered why the end always seemed so far away.

Someone touched me.

I turned my head as if through panes of glass, sounds shattering against my face. Noah. Noah was here, his hand on my arm, his head bent toward my face, he said, “Shadi,” he said, “are you okay?” and I heard his voice like I pictured sound—slow and loud, reverberating.

I saw color, flashes of it.

Are you? he said. Okay?

Are you Do you need to see do you need the the nursedoyou okay maybe see the go, go home home?

I felt it, when I fell.

I heard someone shout, I felt something soft—warm arms, a gentle landing—a gasp, rough carpet under my face, my eyes closing. I heard sound, so much sound, loud and round, shuddering. I tried to pry open my eyes. They refused.

My lips, on the other hand, acquiesced.

“Please.” My mouth moved against commercial carpeting, my nose filled with dust. I felt everything move, felt my body spin.

Someone was talking to me. Hands on my back.

“Please,” I whispered. “Don’t let them call my mother. She’s not— She— Please,” I said, felt myself drifting.

I didn’t know whether I was dreaming.

Don’t let them call my mother, I tried to say. Tried to scream it. Please—

Nineteen

Zahra had redecorated.

I stared first at her ceiling, the smooth white skin blemished by neither light fixture nor popcorn, no cobwebs to be seen. I turned my head a single micrometer in this grave of pillows and saw her new desk atop which sat her new computer, a stack of makeup and books, a small mirror. I saw a new lamp—still lit—standing in a corner. I saw the same laundry basket, the same six hooks on the wall from which hung a dozen purses. A single tennis shoe was pushing free of her closet door, the handle of which was hung with an ornament of the evil eye.

I’d made a huge mistake.

I tried, but could not move my arms, not yet. I felt thick with weight, forgotten under setting concrete. I tore open my mouth, wet my lips, remembered I had teeth.

I did not know how long I’d been sleeping, but a single glance out Zahra’s darkened window was enough to awaken my fear. I sat straight up and regretted it, felt my head fissure with pain.

I pushed myself to my feet, felt a familiar scrape against my ribs. I reached under my shirt to retrieve today’s newspaper from my waistband and promptly tossed the paper in Zahra’s trash. The sight inspired in me a flicker of memory.

Noah.

I vaguely remembered sitting in the nurse’s office. I vaguely remembered that Noah came with me, that he half carried me there. He’d brought a newspaper. The thought almost made me smile. It was a strange silver lining in all this chaos to think that I’d somehow managed to make a new friend, that the rest of the school year might be a little less lonely. But then I remembered the sound of my own voice begging, begging them even as I sat in a hard, wooden chair with my eyes closed, to spare my mother the phone call.