BEFORE I DIE, I PRAY TO BE BORN | ✓

▬▬ 06

FRIDAY
21 SEPTEMBER, 1990
DORIAN

               Though I know it's a bad habit, I always do my homework in bed. The chair and desk in my dorm are so uncomfortable it becomes distracting and I can never properly focus when my legs aren't crossed. Ideally, I'd sit on a pillow on the floor but this room hardly has empty space. Hence, the bed.

I lean against the wall as I finish the chapter summary we were assigned in history today. Because our beds don't have headboards (one would think with the price of on-campus accommodation, we could have bedframes), I've thumbtacked an old floral kitchen curtain onto the wall so I don't have to touch it. The thought of all the past pupils who've leaned against it makes me squirm.

Someone knocks. A wave of premature exhaustion crashes over me.

Isaiah doesn't knock; it's someone else. If only our doors had peepholes so I could check, it would make the unavoidable social interaction easier. (I can't explain why. Knowing what lies in store doesn't make it not happen. All I know is I avoid reading post because the task feels impossible until I force myself three weeks later and find something entirely unthreatening. If we must use envelopes, I wish they could have descriptions of the content beside the address). With the bed right beside the door, I don't have to stand to open it.

Michael smiles politely. 'Phone for you, Dorian.'

My stomach drops. (Sometimes, my catastrophizing isn't a distortion.) There are only two people in the world who ever call me and I doubt Isaiah is phoning from the shower.

Praying that my terror isn't obvious, I thank Michael. It takes nearly a minute for me to slip my shoes back on and leave my room. The hall extends to an endless tunnel. As though it's filled with water or some sort of gelatine, an invisible pressure resists my path. It takes aeons to reach the phone shared by the twelve of us who live on this floor.

My pulse throbs in my ears. The handset hovers a foot from the ground, rotating in slow circles at the end of its cord.

With my throat dry, I pick it up. 'Hello?'

'Dorian. What took so long?' Ima's tone is a harpoon through my chest. 'I don't have all day to sit around waiting for you.'

I mutter an inaudible apology though I know she hates them. If Ima was here in person, I'd already have earned two strikes: speak up, stand straight, I don't know what I did wrong for you to lack basic manners, your brothers were never this difficult. I'm the worst of her sons.

By a miracle, Ima moves on. 'School is going well, yes?'

This is how the question is always framed; never "how are your grades?" or "how are you doing in school?" The phrasing is built to cause more shame if I have to contradict the presupposed yes.

'Everything is well.'

'I wanted to remind you of the fundraiser on Sunday. Make sure you pack enough for the whole weekend.'

My fingers go numb in their nooses on the phone cord. 

'I know. You told me last Saturday.'

'It didn't seem like you were listening.' Her voice is cordial but my stomach churns. She's most angry when she doesn't show it, like a snake that plays dead, not to defend itself, but to trick unwitting prey. 'Also, Elijah is home for Shabbat.'

The script I've unconsciously written for the weekend shreds in my hands. Whether Elijah's presence will defract the spotlight on me or make it twice as hot, his unplanned presence is agitating. I don't have a script for him — my own brother though he may be, I don't know him well enough to write one.