Coral Orange #2
Afterward, we play a couple of arcade games, winning nothing.
Not even with the hack Jamie found online.
I slip away and get us two cotton candies.
He thanks me before taking a big bite from his sugary pink cloud.
It makes me laugh, seeing bits of cotton candy stuck to the sides of his lips, and he looks delighted.
We go on a few more rides, and I agree to try one of the other roller coasters. I pick the least intimidating-looking one, but looks can be deceiving, and I spend the entire ride cry-laughing at my decision.
When we’ve had our fill of Luna Park, we make our way to the boardwalk.
“Look.” I point at the long line waiting for the Cyclone.
“We’re so smart for being here early.”
“You are,” I say, and he ducks his head, blushing. I get a secret thrill out of being able to fluster him like this. “How are you holding up?”
He glances at me, eyebrows raised.
“Being Muslim. Your first Ramadan and Eid.”
His lips quirk in a small smile, looking ahead.
“Honestly? It hasn’t sunk in yet. But I realize it the most when I’m home.
Like if my parents get takeout that has pork or non-halal meat, and I have to tell them I already ate.
Locking the door when I pray so they don’t accidentally walk in on me.
I don’t think they’ll be that upset, but I’m not ready to have that conversation.
It’s…” His expression is calm. “It’s lonely.
When I’m not with you in school, I’m lonely.
You’re the only one here who knows all of me. ”
His smile is gentle now, and the orange in his soul becomes deeper.
“I’m ecstatic I did this; don’t get me wrong,” he continues. “But it’s difficult.”
“I never thought of how it would be for you,” I say quietly. “I can’t imagine it.”
His smile turns sad. “It’ll get easier, right?”
I nod.
The sun sparkles on the ocean beside us, droplets of light dancing from wave to wave.
Parents push their children’s strollers, holding their toddler’s hands.
We pass a few Muslim families who say salam alaykum to us, and Jamie jumps at the chance to say it back, his voice eager and wavering a bit at the end.
I love seeing him like this; it makes my heart soften.
“Do you want to say hello to the ocean?” Jamie asks after we’ve been walking in silence for a while.
I look at him to see if he’s teasing me, but there’s only sincerity in his expression.
I don’t feel silly when I say, “Yeah.”
He scans the beach and nods toward the other side. “There. Not a lot of people.”
The last time I came here was when Mama was still alive.
It was a cold February, but Mama got it in her head after one gnarly cancerous episode she needed to come here.
Baba piled us into the car, and we drove for more than an hour.
Without saying a word, she got out, wrapped in the same navy-blue coat she’d worn when she arrived in this country, and trudged to the shoreline.
I don’t remember which part of the beach it was, and I’m glad of it. I don’t make any effort to remember.
I tell Jamie this, and I don’t think he notices how pliable his body becomes, bending to each word I’m saying.
“I was half afraid she was going to walk into the ocean.” I relish the way my boots sink into the sand.
The breeze tickles my nose, and I lick my lips, tasting the salt.
“Amal and I called after her, but she didn’t look back.
She didn’t answer. Dad caught our hands and asked us to stay back.
To give her some space. I was scared because I couldn’t recognize her.
Her eyes were hollow like she was seeing something we couldn’t.
She stood there, facing the ocean. Dad went to her, but she didn’t want to come away from the water.
I think she was trying to call the jellyfish. ”
We’re right in front of the ocean, and I haven’t looked at Jamie at all throughout the whole story.
“You think certain people are born with a higher affinity for certain things?” I ask, and sit on the sand, not caring that it’s wet.
Jamie sits as well, crossing his legs. “Like Mama was a fish out of water. Or someone who has a love for forests and trees, they wouldn’t be able to live in the city.
” That the blessings happen because of that, I think.
“I think so.” Jamie runs his fingers through the sand. “I don’t think you’d be able to survive somewhere dull.”
I glance at him.
“For your artistic inspirations,” he says with a smile.
“What about you?”
He takes in a deep breath, glancing around.
“I suppose I have an affinity for wide open spaces.” He laughs.
“Something abstract, I know. This city is beautiful, but you can feel so constricted in it. Like there’s no space for my heart to expand.
If it weren’t for the ocean here, it would be a bit suffocating.
I’m glad you’ll have the ocean in San Francisco. ”
“It might not work out.”
“But what do you feel when you think about it?”
“Happy.” I shrug. “Calm. Like everything makes sense.”
“When I think of us going our separate ways, I feel like my heart might stop.”
I blink and look at him. He’s staring intently at me, the brown in his eyes hazel from the sun and moving like the waves beside us. We haven’t come close to this conversation. I still don’t know how I feel about it. I’m not sure if I’m allowed to think of this possibility.
“But I might stay,” I find myself saying.
He swallows hard. “My heart stops when I think of me leaving as well.”
My breath stutters. “What are you saying?”
He finds a shell in the sand beside us, picks it up, and wipes away the sand stuck to it. “I’m not going to say anything that freaks you out.”
I let out a laugh. “Jamie, nothing fazes me anymore.”
But I don’t think I’d believe what he says even if he does say it.
In the grand scheme of what my life was, is, and will become, this doesn’t even register on it, because it doesn’t make sense.
Because it doesn’t fit. How would it? Two teenagers from wildly different backgrounds, meeting only in this moment in time before life separates them.
He reads my expression, and whatever he was going to say disappears from his lips. Instead he asks, “You said my color is a sunrise orange. What’s yours?”
I’m taken aback, going quiet.
“Shit. Is it a personal question?” he asks, alarmed. “I’m sorry.”
I shake my head. “No, no.” A small smile tickles my lips. “It’s just no one has ever asked me that.”
I glance at my hands, my smile feeling more carefree. “Blue. A twilight blue when the whole world is quiet, contemplating the end of the day.” I trace my fingers over the lines in my palm, watching the way the blue splinters into tiny vessels. “It’s a warm, beautiful color.”
“I know the exact color you’re talking about,” he says with a smile in his voice. “I saw it in ?à N?ng last summer. Endless deep blue. The sky, the sea, the sand, the city. Me, as well.”
He smiles then, and I think this is my favorite smile.
The gentleness, the way it makes me think he doesn’t smile at anyone but me like that.
He takes a deep breath, humming contently, and stretches his legs in front of him.
Leaning on the back of his hands, he says, “You’re going to be famous, Jihad. ”
I blush under his gaze, under the way he says my name full of awe. “I don’t…That’s not what I want.”
He shakes his head. “Too late. With a name like that, you’re going to change the world.”
“You keep saying that.” I bend my legs, hugging them to my chest. “You don’t know.”
He scoffs. “I have an affinity for predictions.”
“Really?” I snort.
“You’ll see.”
I pivot toward him. “You mentioned the jellyfish at Mama’s grave…Do you really believe that?”
“Absolutely,” he says without a shadow of a doubt.
I lick my lips, my hands clammy. “No. I don’t mean in a metaphorical way. The blessings I told you about. You actually believe what I said about my mom breathing underwater and talking to the jellyfish.”
He raises his eyebrows. “Yes, Jihad, I do. Do you?”
I nod. “Why?”
“Why do I believe?”
I nod again.
He glances up at the sky. “Why not?” Then he looks at me. “I just know you can too.”