The Easiest Target

Marry Me

My mother is convinced I'm possessed. She prays for me. She asks for prayers for me. Begs for them.

She thinks some priest, sheikh, or father can blow his magical stanky breath over me and I'll be spiritually cleansed of my desire to be alone.

She doesn't get that because she's Yemeni. Asking for privacy in her eyes means I want to either do indecent things with someone ... or with myself. Because why be alone when you have endless, prying, nosy family, right?

I just like being alone. It's not like her or my cousins leave anything to be desired with their constant criticism and ridicule.

When prayers didn't work, my evil cousins recommended she put me in the school's community service program to make friends with good people. Because the good teenagers of Brooklyn do community service — not the students bad enough to be punished with it or the students that need it to graduate.

Community service is where I realize I've been working with Azan Alburj. His name translates to the call to prayer of the skyscraper. If his name isn't daunting enough, his face is sinful — the sort of thing Saudia Arabia would ban from fashion shows.

He brings shame to such a beautiful, powerful name with the rumors that follow him. So many. The latest one being was him spending a year in jail for stealing and totaling his father's Tesla last year. I just tried to get a little privacy by hanging up a bed sheet around my bunk bed in a room I shared with three other siblings and now I'm working with this guy?!

"Hadeel Anasi and ... Azan Alburj," Mr. Kent calls, putting away his phone. He claps. "Let's go. Find your partner. Faster we finish the faster we get to get out of this damn heat."

This guy is amazing: he can encourage you and make you shit bricks in the same second!

I wait for the others to scatter and run to Mr. Kent. "Can I change my partner?"

"No," he scowls down his nose at me.

That one word has ruined my life. Consistently.

To make matters worse, we get assigned to clean the farthest end of Owlshead Park in Bayridge. He shoves a garbage bag, a picking stick, and a puke green cap that reads Community Service Rocks at me and shoos me off.

I can't work with Azan! He's not the type of boy I would ever be caught dead with. He has a new girl clinging to him by the hour!

Now, I try to be reasonable and not believe rumors I hear but Azan ... is special. He's gorgeous for one, which doesn't help his case. When I heard his parents were searching for a bride for him because they caught him doing the deed in his room, I believed it. That's such a Yemeni thing and I'm Yemeni so I know the math they did to come to their conclusion:

Boy is bad=boy needs marriage to tame him.

Girl is disobedient=girl needs a husband to straighten her out.

Basic Yemeni math.

But this guy got caught in his room? I can't tell if he's bold or just frikin stupid. At home? Why? How? As a Yemeni, he should know home yields absolutely no privacy.

His reputation among Yemeni's is trash, which is probably the reason he isn't married to a Yemeni girl yet. Thank God there were never any Yemeni girls involved in his scandals or they'd end up in a grave. No Yemeni family in their right mind would want him with their daughter — no matter how handsome ... and rich ... and muscular — just never.

Azan walks away, his head hung childishly. He's two years older than me. Technically speaking, he should be in college.

The group spreads out to start their work but I'm paralyzed, listening to the ice-cream truck roll by. Something in me just doesn't feel right. The more I tell myself to move, the stiffer my legs become. My eyes are frozen on the park's exit, my hand gripping the stick tight.