The Perfect Girl

17

"But even then her mind pushes her off shore,
And she can't find the way to land anymore,"

There was a long period of numbness after the night at the pool.

It was a time of neither extreme happiness or extreme sadness, and it was perhaps worse than either because I felt utterly monotonous.  I didn't think much about that night, except for occasionally when I'd close my eyes and allow myself to feel the memory of the rush of darkness.

I thought a lot about Khalid, and about our conversations, and the more I did the more glimpses of deeply buried memories of our childhood arose.  Suddenly, I remembered having a crush on him when I was young, no more than 12 years old, and even before that, playing soccer and cops and robbers and tag with him and Jana and my brothers. 

And now that I was focusing on the subject, memories were popping out of the ground like moles.  Words, smiles, little snippets of scenes, and it was all starting to paint a clear picture, to fill in the blanks. 

This one particular memory kept replaying in my mind.  I think I must have been six years old, and Khalid, 8 years old, and I'd fallen outside and scraped my knee.  I started crying, because I was young and utterly unable to bear pain, and my parents were inside.  Khalid was in the kitchen, which had large windows overlooking the backyard, where I lay, sobbing.  He came rushing out and wrapped his arms around me, pulling my body against his. 

I could remember him saying, "Are you okay?" over and over in this cracked, near tears sort of voice, like it was him in pain and not me.  The words kept echoing in my mind, in that exact tone, in his broken, pre-puberty voice, and I wasn't exactly sure why. 

I couldn't remember anything after that, but I could still feel his arms around me, even now.

To be honest, I couldn't remember many memories that didn't include Khalid or someone from his family. My parents seemed to have separation anxiety from Khalid's; they had to have them around at all times. A week didn't seem like a week without Aunty Lina's appearance. I figured this had something to do with the fact that my brothers went to university away from home, and so the house felt incredibly empty. 

I was always at classes, and anyway, my brothers held a much more crucial part to the family.  I don't even mean that in a spiteful, jealous sort of way, but it's just factual.  Amar was the life of our house-- the annoying, irritating, utterly abominable life of our house-- and Shuayb was Ami's favourite.  Ami would never admit it, but he was, and everyone knew it.  He was polite and responsible and hardworking and everything a parent could ever want. 

Ami was a loving mother, and I'd never felt unwanted, but it did sometimes feel like my whole family was on the same wavelength and I was not.  Amar was the louder, younger version of Abu, and so he had a place already made for him in the family, Shuayb was the perfect child, but I?  Aside from the fact that I was female, and therefore the gender my mother and father had wanted to parents so badly, what merit did I hold?

***

Later that day, we went to the falls near our house. 

There was an entire amusement park built around the waterfall, complete with a ferris wheel and food.  I'd always found waterfalls fascinating.  It was mind boggling to me to see the hundreds of gallons of water that poured down infinitely, never halting.

Aunty Lina and her family joined us there.

The problem was that I had not been warned about this until we arrived there and Ami thought to call Aunty Lina and ask if she wanted to come.  I was not dressed as I wanted to be, and I knew I shouldn't be worried about it but I was.

I was sitting there in the parked car, listening to Ami talk to Aunty Lina and regretting my decision to wear this baggy shirt when Abu urged me to come out.

"You okay, pumpkin?" he asked me, tapping a finger to my nose.

I smiled at him, nodded, "Yup!"

"She's nervous cause Khalid's coming," teased Shuayb.

He wasn't wrong.

"Shut up," I grumbled.

"Ooh—" Amar chimed in.

"Leave her alone boys," Abu ordered, and I was grateful.