Hijabi Style: The Surprisingly Average Life Of A Teenage Muslim Girl

9-1-1 Emergency

Kennedy Williams. Track star, straight A student, and romance connoisseur. Prior to meeting, I would never have expected to call someone like him a best friend. But you know, life has a funny way of making things happen. Though in this case, things are far from funny.

By noon on September 11th of last year, everyone had an idea of what had happened that morning. Basically, the gossip went like this: a bunch of guys wearing turbans hijacked some planes, and killed a lot of people in the name of Islam. You know, the religion that girl, Yasmeen, is part of.

"Do you think she has a bomb under her skirt? Their women do stuff like that you know." A girl walking past me said to her friend.

Oh, come on. This is ridiculous! What happened was a tragedy, but surely they didn't think that I had something to do with it! I mean, we all practically grew up together!

I wondered if this was happening because I was wearing my hijab to school. I'd only been wearing it for a week. Was it because I was wearing a physical representation of my religion? Would their reaction be different if I didn't wear it anymore?

Lunch that day was the worst experience ever. As I walked into the large room, it was completely silent, a first, really. All eyes were on me, and the expressions were not kind. I felt so self-conscious and worried about what was going to happen. As luck would have it, my hijab was the brightest of yellows. It was impossible to hide from the uncomfortable and menacing glares.

Carrying my lunch tray in my shaky hands, I took slow steps towards the far end of the room. By the time I reached the center of the room, I saw a quick movement from the corner of my eye.

A glob of wet tuna collided with my left cheek. I turned to look at the guy who'd thrown it. Evan. A kid that shared quite a few of my classes growing up. Apparently, that history had been far from his mind at the moment. "Get the fuck out of here," he bit out each word. "You terrorist piece of shit."

What? Me?! I was harmless! The worst thing I'd ever done to anyone up to that point of my life was yell at Deena profusely whenever she refused to leave my room.

"But I-" I never got the chance to explain. In less than a second, food was coming at me from all directions. Racial slurs, death threats, and expletives, all coming from the people I'd more or less known my whole life.

"You're not even worth a good fuck. I hope they rape the shit out of you."

"Go back to your fucking country!"

"I'll kill you if it's the last thing I do!"

"I bet she's a slut. Their men have lots of wives."

"Who'd want to fuck her?!"

"What a bitch."

It was all too much. Except for them, it wasn't. Because then, they started to come closer. Tears welled in my eyes. Where the hell was Tessa?! Where was she when I needed her most? My brain was in panic mode. My feet weren't listening to my command for them to run. I was stuck.

And then, all of a sudden, my head was jerked back- hard. A girl had yanked my hijab, in an attempt to pull it off completely, forcing me to cry out in both anguish and pain as the small pins holding the fabric together dug into my scalp. After the hijab was off, they kept grabbing, tearing strands of hair from my scalp.

A sharp kick to my lower back knocked me to the ground. And I just lay there. I didn't know for how long, but I knew it was long after all the yelling had stopped. And no one had come to rescue me. No one had been there for me. Not even the staff that were responsible for breaking up fights.

I wanted out so badly. Wanted out of my school, out of my town, out of my life. If this was how things were going to be for me, what was the point? I wanted to believe in what was true- that those evil people who'd murdered so many weren't true Muslims. But the fact of the matter was that no one would take the time to understand that.

"Hey... hey, are you okay?" I heard a deep voice.

I couldn't turn my head, and my mouth wouldn't let any words escape.

I started to stir. Soon, I was violently shaking, almost to the point of convulsion, and screaming uncontrollably at the top of my lungs. My mind was blanking out and I forgot to breathe for a few seconds at a time.

Two dark hands held my shoulders down and my face finally turned towards the owner of the hands. I looked into panicked green eyes, and a wide mouth, moving like it was forming words. Words that I couldn't hear.

Two men came and carried me away. Those green eyes followed me all the way to an ugly brown building with a white cross on it.

"You're gonna be okay," I heard the eyes say. "You're gonna be alright. Kennedy's got you. I've got you."

I didn't know why the eyes were talking to me, or who they were talking about. Then, my mind went completely blank.

I'd had my first seizure.