The Badboy, the Catfish & Me

Five

I had to restrain myself from telling Valentino about this all day. Especially since he couldn't stop talking about the video he'd sent me that morning—it made Salah and Ameena roll their eyes. Valentino even dragged me out of the library during lunchtime so I could watch him play on his laptop in the cafeteria despite the slow Wi-Fi!

I held back a smile at the recent memory just as the bus threw its exhaust into my face. Thank God Mama gave me lunch that used a fork. I had to eat it during math.

I swiped my metro card and rushed for a seat by the window. The rest of the way home, I wondered which side Annok chose and what class—probably a Templar Battle-Mage.

After thanking the bus driver, I practically ran into the house. I kicked off my shoes, left foot first, and listened to the silence. It was the first thing that greeted me.

I then heard my mom tell me to wash my face and hands before having lunch.

"Okay!" I shouted and headed to my room.

I slapped Annok's note to my computer desk and then unpinned my hijab to change into a T-shirt and black capris. I entered the kitchen and stopped at the doorway to take a deep, satisfying breath.

This.

I smiled briefly, eyes closed, seeing yellows and reds instead of the house's monotonous grey.

"It smells good, Mama," I said as I washed up in the sink. My stomach grumbled in agreement.

"Had a slow workday, so I had the time." My mom smiled back and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose.

"Thanks!" I took the offered plate of biryani and sat on the stool. Mama was definitely over her bad mood from the other day to be cooking cultural food. "You gonna eat, too?"

"Nah, I'm not feeling it," Mama leaned onto the kitchen island to rest on her forearms. The dark braid that reached her waist slapped the edge of the counter. Like me, Mama only wore regular t-shirts and leggings at home, and outside of the house, she wore a hijab, although with the addition of an abaya. "I made hootkee for me."

That's dried fish curry. I think. I hate that I don't know these things for sure.

"If you have the time," I started. Mama worked part-time for an architectural firm. "Can you look over my pre-calculus homework?" I put a handful of biryani into my mouth. The burst of flavor instantly made me feel better.

"Okay, just tell me when you've done it." Mama leaned away and went to fill up a glass of water for me. "I'll be in the living room working on a new puzzle your baba got me."

After lunch, I went to complete my homework. I started with English, reading a few chapters of Othello, and finished by writing down notes in the book in case the teacher asked anyone about passage meanings or questions. Then came Spanish homework. This one was more difficult, asking for a two-paragraph entry about a time in my childhood.

I got up and went to my shelf of scrapbooks. An entire row was dedicated to travel scrapbooks; my childhood was one big adventure spanning the globe, from the beaches of Brunei to the prairies of Pakistan.

I chose a random spine and flipped through the early pages, seeing the snapshots of my purple elephant plush as I backpacked with it through Albania, Montenegro, and Bosnia the summer before middle school. One of the captions inside read,

Are the mountains and forests of a Muslim country Muslim, too?

"Huh, I was so poetic at nine," I said, then returned to the book to complete my Spanish homework about my European visit.