I wrote this story after a bitter fallout with a dear friend. We must be courageous enough to rise, speak, and change our paths; only then can we find closure and peace.
“Excuse me.”
After all these years, I still recognize her. The pale grey-green eyes, the scar I gave her on her left ear playing a seven-year-old’s version of football. There is no way it isn’t her. There is no way it isn’t Amira sitting in front of me, nearly twelve years later.
“Ma’am, please”
Her son looks just like she did when she first moved in next door, down to the shade of brown hair and scrawny build.
Interrupting my thoughts, Zakariya tugs on my shirt. “Ma, there’s a man over there.” Oh crap, I’m blocking the entrance to the pediatrician’s office. An agitated young intern glares impatiently at us, still waiting for me to move out of the way.
“I’m sorry, didn’t see you there.”
“Of course you didn’t,” he mutters under his breath. I let him pass and wish the floor would swallow me.
Moving into a small waiting room, I turn back to where the old acquaintance is sitting and I plot ways to escape unseen. Amira Hussein: one minute my best friend and the next, my archnemesis. Okay, maybe I’m being a little dramatic. But that still doesn’t mean I have any intention of talking to her right now.
“Young lady!”
“Me?”
“Bring your exam up right this second. That is not acceptable.”
I’m thinking, “Seriously? We only have seven minutes to finish math. This is the SAT, buddy. Not a health exam.” I was only trying to tell Amira to stop poking me for answers. I glance at her over my shoulder, sitting to the left of my newly empty seat. Her eyes avert, burning holes into her desk.
I play dumb.
“Sir, I don’t understand. Why can’t I finish my exam?”
“You really need to ask me why cheating is wrong? Shame on you. You think I wasn’t going to notice you whispering all the answers to your friend?”
I look at Amira again, who pretends she can’t hear my life tearing apart with every second. She could say something, but she stays silent.
Coward.
In the following weeks, my early acceptance from MIT is rescinded, and the College Board reports me for academic dishonesty. I duck constant glares of disapproval (or perhaps disappointment?) at every corner. “Why?” “You had so much potential, dear.” “A shame, really.”
I am placed on house arrest by Ma. “From home to school and school to home only. Understand?” It’s not like I have anywhere else to go, anyway. All my friends have distanced themselves from me.
As for Amira, she knows to stay away. She avoids my route to school and I’m not complaining.
My life, as Ma put it, is destroyed. And by the last person I would ever suspect.
The receptionist’s shrill voice snaps me back and I am sitting, dazed, in the waiting room. I look up to catch the now-thirty-year-old Amira staring and I know she remembers, too. As she holds her stare, I sit back down and pretend to talk to Zakariya, who is occupied with my phone.
Maybe she never meant for this to happen. I don’t think she knew that it would have broken our friendship. But that doesn’t change the fact that it did. Months later, I hear from Ma that Amira has been accepted to Princeton. A spot at an Ivy League school with my SAT answers. With my hard work.
“That could have been you, Nadia. You could have worked harder like Amira did and you wouldn’t have felt the need to cheat,” Ma reminds me every single day.
Amira eventually tries to apologize, but the damage is done. The wound is too deep. She tries, but I won’t give in. She even offers me a ride to school with the new car her father bought for her. A gift for getting into Princeton. The NERVE.
But it’s okay. Because my life doesn’t end. My life isn’t “destroyed.” I move past it and, after some hard work, I land on my feet.
Twelve years ago, I wouldn’t dream of speaking to her. She was a liar, a cheat, and worst of all: a fraud. But now, she seems to be the same old Amira. Maybe she is.
There are so many questions I want to ask her. What does she do now? Where does she live? Who did she marry? Was she really sorry then? Is she sorry now? I am amazed to see her here with a child, considering she never wanted them when we were younger.
Suddenly, I’m standing up and walking toward Amira. It’s time to heal this wound. It’s time to forgive.
“Amira?”
“Nadia?”
future you
DIANA SALVATORE
I often reflect on the messy, mystical business of creating and nurturing human life. I wrote this poem on a humid summer night upon waking from a dream.
i hover in the darkness
huffing your almond scent
hugging your pillow flesh.
sensual lip smacking
unblemished by this world
existing only in
perfection.
dark feather eyelashes
eighty-nine
i count them each night
flutter and rest on your watermelon cheeks
plump from sweet milk
two ever-blank canvases for my
chapstick kiss marks.
hot
from dreaming of the past
of the inside of my body.
you are of me.
my spark and shadow
my history my heart
my brain and cells
and soul.
but wait
you are yours entirely.
you will grow taller and stronger
braver smarter than i.
wiser.
you are my future
now only a gleam from august’s low-slung moon
across my green iris.
you are not here yet
but i am sure
of the future you.