Red, White, Blue, and Green
I don’t sleep much that night.
It might be my imagination amplifying everything around me, but I can almost hear my mural come to life on the buildings outside. This will cause an outrage, I’m sure. Somehow this will get me caught.
I hear Baba shuffling back home around midnight. My bedroom door opens a fraction, and I hear him murmuring a prayer for me before closing it again.
I doze off around three in the morning and wake up just as suddenly at six. My heart hammers in my chest as I lie awake, staring at the ceiling and debating whether I should go to school or not.
If I do, I’ll be fodder for jokes at best and prey for racism at worst. If I don’t go, then Nicole and her friends will know they got to me. That they won.
It hurts to get up and trudge to the bathroom, but I know it’s the right thing to do.
I do a double-take when I see my reflection.
I forgot I cut my hair. Now that I slept with it half wet and sheared short, it curls around my neck, each strand pointing in a different direction.
I twirl my finger through one, liking the way it clings to me, wrapping around my finger like a cocoon.
Like a jellyfish’s tentacles. Even my bangs are individual curls, clinging to my eyelashes.
I never knew my hair could be like this.
My heart gives a low pang when I remember I won’t be telling Alexis about this.
I go through the motions of getting ready for school, putting it out of my mind. There’s something much bigger awaiting me outside.
My mural should be up all over, and for the first time since the first one, I resist the urge to check online to see people’s reaction.
I want to see the mural on my own for the first time.
The lights aren’t on, so the apartment is in alternating shadow and light.
It reminds me of Saturday mornings when Mama would wake up before all of us and prepare a whole Syrian breakfast. I’d get up to keep her company, knowing those moments were when she was happiest. When her family was all together at home sleeping and she was there to take care of them.
“Why don’t we turn on the lights?” I asked once when I realized she always worked without them in the kitchen.
Mama spun around, wearing a white-and-pink apron that Amal and I had bought for her birthday around her waist; she had sewn ruffles on the shoulders and hem. Those were the days before she realized something was wrong. She woke up feeling better and thought whatever sickness was there had left.
“It’s more romantic this way,” she said in Arabic, and pointed at the onion frying in the cooking pot. “Can you please make sure the onion doesn’t burn? I don’t want to have burned keshk.”
I stirred the onions. “Romantic? Like in love?”
She laughed while breaking the eggs perfectly, yolks intact, into the pan. “It’s not just that love. It’s being in love with this world.”
I close the front door behind me and make my way down and out of the building toward the subway.
Weirdly, I don’t see any pieces of my mural anywhere and begin second-guessing whether I drew it or not. But I know I did. Did the sketchbook lose its powers? Is the blessing gone?
I finally check my phone to see a torrent of messages. Most of them are from Jamie.
Jamie: I’m sorry
Jamie: tell me what to do
Jamie: please tell me you’re all right
Jamie: I need to know if you’re okay
I swipe the rest away and see a message from Amal.
Amal: we keep missing each other. do you have time today? I feel like I haven’t heard your voice in forever
Amal: I went to a water yoga thing yesterday. For women only. Isn’t that crazy? No hijab. No leering men. Just yoga and vibes
No messages from Alexis. I hate that I’m disappointed.
I swallow the bile rising in my throat and pocket my phone. I just want to see my mural. I just want to be vindicated. I want this whole city to see.
But there’s nothing.
Not on the walls of the subway. Not on the ground. Not anywhere.
Unease slithers around me, wrapping itself around my limbs. When I reach my station, I get out and climb up the stairs, taking two at a time, praying it’ll be there.
But it’s not.
The same building that faces the subway station that had all my murals splattered all over it is empty.
Something’s not right.
I swallow hard. Is it because what I drew had nothing to do with Mama’s story? In a way it does, but not directly.
I pull my backpack tighter around my shoulders and head toward the school. The closer I get, the more people I see, and my confusion deepens. There’s a huge crowd around the gates, loud voices mingling together, and I don’t understand a word.
Not everyone here is a student, but each one has their phone out and is taking pictures.
Someone tugs on my bag strap, yanking me back, and I immediately get defensive, reaching up a hand to slap them. I freeze when I see it’s Jamie.
“Hey,” I say dully, tugging my bag and folding my arms.
But Jamie looks distracted, something akin to terror in his eyes. “Why weren’t you picking up your phone?”
“What?”
“Follow me,” he says, looking around, moving out of earshot. I stumble after him, beyond confused about what’s happening. He turns toward me, running his hands through his hair, and then massages his eyes.
“Did you draw something yesterday? In the sketchbook?” he asks in a low voice.
I shrug. “Yes? But nothing showed up.”
The color drains from his face. “It did.”
I stare at him for a long second, the wires in my brain firing, and then slowly turn toward where the crowd is gathered around the school. From where I’m standing farther away, I can see parts of it. I see the red, white, and blue inked onto the school’s building for everyone to see.
“Oh my God,” I whisper.
My mural was a cry for the world to see me. To see my hijab and myself.
I drew the Statue of Liberty as she was intended. A Muslim woman in traditional green Egyptian clothes. And I added the American flag as a hijab wrapped around her head and neck. Her face is that of royalty, her features strong and proud, the look in her eyes unwavering.
She is everything I want to be.
They took my hijab, tore it, stepped on it, and raised it on a pole. So I will take the American flag and make it worth something on the Statue of Liberty. I will take their humiliation and make it my pride.
Seeing my mural all over the school gives me the relief I’ve been looking for. At this moment I’m not afraid. I’m not angry. I am the Statue of Liberty. I am her.
As if she hears my thoughts, she fixes her gaze on me and winks.
“Jihad,” Jamie says, jarring me back to reality.
His eyes are bloodshot as if he hasn’t slept either.
“What?” I say defensively. “It’s not even wrong. She was originally supposed to be a Muslim woman, but it was too expensive for the Egyptian government to commission.”
He inhales sharply. “I wasn’t asking for a history lesson. This is not going to be good for you.”
“Because it was going great before?” I snap.
He tugs at his hair. “You know what I mean. They’re going to blame you for this. You’ll be expelled for sure. What happens then? How will you attend Opus?”
“You don’t know,” I say quietly, then laugh when he raises his eyebrows.
“There is no Opus. Nicole and her friends stole my sketchbook.” My chin wobbles, but I dig my fingers into my arms to steady myself.
“I can’t apply. I have nothing.” I take a step back.
“I know you’re trying to help, Jamie, but just leave me alone.
You don’t know what it’s like to be me. You can pretend.
But you just see it, and then you go home to your rich life while I still live in this one.
Your biggest issue is that people don’t know you’re Muslim.
Wow, that must suck so much not to get the hate I do every single day. ”
His jaw tightens, and hurt flashes in his eyes, but I don’t care. He moves toward me, but I back away.
“Leave me alone,” I bite out. “I mean it.”
In a split second, I make the decision to walk into the school building.
If I go back home, any suspicions of my involvement will solidify.
I couldn’t have predicted this happening, and I realize that even if I knew it would, I’d still have done it.
I would do it all over again. Let this school suffer for a change.
Let them lose their minds over something made from acrylic paint and spray bottles.
Stares burn the back of my head when I push my way to the gates and slide in. I hear someone shouting something, but I can’t make out what it is.
I pass under the Statue of Liberty, and I swear her gaze follows me until I’m inside.
It’s mayhem.
There are ten minutes to the first class, and the atrium is filled with students excitedly talking to one another.
A large group of parents stands in the administrative office, their brows furrowed and their expressions annoyed.
One parent jabs a finger at the receptionist and then toward the principal’s office.
His face is red, matching his tie. The din makes it hard to hear anything, and blessedly, I slip through all of them and head to class.
The classroom is empty, and I sit at my usual desk, right at the back in the corner.
Jamie bursts in a minute later, and I jump. He closes the door behind him. There’s no more fear on his face. He makes a direct beeline toward me, striding down the steps, and drops his bag right beside me.
I look up to see his lips tight, his nostrils flaring. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him angry before. For some reason, I like that look on him.
“You don’t get to decide what I do,” he starts in a shaky voice.
I realize that while the anger suits him, he’s not familiar with it.
It’s like he doesn’t know how to use it.
His voice betrays him. “You’re not a charity case.
I wouldn’t do this for anyone, but I do it for you.
You don’t get to decide to push me away because you feel like you have no one. I’m here.”
I stare at him.