To be a Silhouette in a Blue World

i. Flaws of The Female Condition

I STAND OUTSIDE the ice-cream bar, drenched in the summer heat of the North Carolinian sun; a foot planted on the concrete, another on a skateboard bought for me by my parents, back when they still loved me. A shop window reflection stares at me and my too thick side-burns and I, at it and its too broad shoulders; the both of us, uneasy all the while.

Maybe this wasn't a good idea. Maybe I should have stayed home like my sister wanted.

It's too late now. Yosra is waiting for me.

The reflection and I drop our gazes and step off my skateboard, pushing it beneath a nearby shrub so it doesn't wheel away. I walk into the bar and a bell chimes - announcing my arrival.

The restaurant is packed, and all the devils are here: the resident mean girls, the wanna-be frat boys, the helicopter parents and the generational rednecks. Somewhere, amid all this white noise, is Yosra. A picture perfect image of brown skin and Rapunzel length hair; tucked away in the corner of a booth; next to a window that bleeds daylight.

I make my way towards her - my spine straight, my body suffocated by fear. 'Hey,' I say, slipping into the seat opposite her.

She looks at me, a smile melting across her face, and says; 'Hey Gennie.'

It's only been two weeks or so since I saw her last. But there is a decade-old tired in her gaze and a bloody violence cutting deep into her knuckles, that was not there before.

I eye the latter, then say; 'Were you in a fist fight or something?'

She laughs a soft laugh, and tucks her hands beneath the table, as if this will somehow make it any less noticeable.

She doesn't meet my gaze. 'It's nothing. Just some jackass was saying stuff about you at school. So I punched him.'

I open my mouth to speak - then falter. The words unformed and distorted, caught in the back of my throat like an animal trapped in a snare. I stay like this for a millennia before I am saved by a waiter who approaches our booth with a notepad and an All-American gait.

'Hey, Yosra,' he says, his pen pressed to paper. His smile as sweet and familiar as apple pie. 'It's been a while. How's everything going?'

'You know, Jacob,' she says, because he doesn't. 'Everything's been pretty okay,' she says, because it hasn't.

'That's good.' He smiles. His entire self a real life manifestation of prince charming. 'Now what can I do you for?'

'The special, would be just fine.'

A thicker southern twang laces his voice, as he says, 'And so, the special you'll get.' At this, it is Yosra who is wearing a smile so sweet you'd think it was honey.

Jacob turns to me, and all the charm that once bloated his lungs and ran through his veins, escapes him in a single breath. A look of confusion, all too recognisable to me, passes over his face instead. I am unsettling to him and I can feel it. A person, who unlike everyone else in this suburb, he cannot quite place. An almost stranger.

A decade passes before he clears his throat, and says in a clipped tone; 'What is it that you're having, ma'am?'

'Same as Yosra,' I say, in a whispered breath.

He nods once, then turns away, walking quickly in the opposite direction. I stare after him, my organs filling with tears I will never cry.

'Gennie,' Yosra says, her voice, like always, a soft bitter thing, pulling me back into the moment. 'Don't mind him. He's just surprised that's all.'

'Yeah. Alright. Whatever,' I say, my eyes trained on the window.

Beyond it is a mother and a daughter walking their dog, sharing a tub of ice-cream. A woman and girl, who are likely only that. Ordinary people. Normal people. How the universe intended them.

'So how's living with your sister been?' Yosra asks.

I look away from the window. 'It's been pretty alright. Her boyfriend's really pissing me off, though. He's from California - where all the detached, hippie, ken dolls live - and all he does is sit on the front doorstep smoking weed without a shirt on.'

Yosra swallows a laugh, then says, 'I take it that's why you're dressed like that?'

I cast my gaze downwards and see that I am wearing a native-print, too short dress, that looks as if it were stolen right out of 1960s West Coast, America.

I groan.

'It's my sister's fault,' I say. 'Ever since I moved in I've been borrowing her stuff because I still haven't gotten mine, but her boyfriend means that her wardrobe looks like - well, this.'

A smile, brighter than the outside sun, fills Yosra's face which is on the verge of bursting into laughter.

I smile back, though not as bright as her, then say; 'What about you? How are your parents?'

At once, her face darkens and the laughter that threatened to spill out her a moment ago recceeds into the dried ocean of her mouth. 'You already know how they are, Gennie. We don't need to talk about it.'

'I want to,' I say, because I do.

Yosra's voice is more bitter than usual, when she says; 'They still don't want me to be friends with you. My dad says you're the devil and that Allah will punish you for your perversions.'

I nod, slowly. 'And what do you think, Yosra? Do you think I'm the devil?'

Yosra shakes her head, but cannot help the disturbed look on her face. 'What I think Gennie, is that things were much easier when everyone thought you were a dude.'

I wear a sad smile, when I say; 'Yeah, Yosra. Easier for everyone, except me.'