What We Are

9\thoughts

-ZAHRA-

I am looking out the window when the door opens.

When I woke, her bed was empty, the sheets in a tangle, hanging over the edge.

I was washed over for a second with the headlights of a passing car, through the curtains, and I was reminded of Beirut at night. I was reminded of the sounds of horns and cars and people and music. Often of fireworks and celebratory firing into the air.

And I was reminded of our village house at night, with the crickets and the sound of neighbors and parents, talking and laughing on the patio way into the night.

And the sea.

I knew that here there were the rivers and perhaps, in the spring, it might be warm enough.

But the sea. The wide, gorgeous, enormous sea.

Miriam stops in the doorway, but I do not turn around.

I wonder why I did not email the lady and demand a change of rooms right away. Maybe tomorrow I'll ask.

But then they won't be happy with me. Racism isn't tolerated (probably/why am I even wondering), and it's no excuse to trouble them with.

I wouldn't call myself a racist person (who would though), and I strongly oppose it (racism).

And yet I and many Lebanese still have a deep inexplicable hatred of Israelis. (Well, it's not so inexplicable)

And most Arabs don't like Jews.

The sentiment is returned by most of them, yes, but then again...I don't know.

I lay back down, forcing my eyes away from the bed where she lays.

I wonder, if I had not immediately shut her out, forcing a pained smile and saying I needed to get something from the store, would she have reacted in the same way?

Would she have brushed aside our differences and acted like we were ordinary roommates?

Well. Too late for that now.

But what am I even thinking.

I don't want to be friends with her.

Think of what people would say.

Then my eyes fly open in fright to be met by the shadows of the night.

What will I say to my father?

//

WOW MAYA  TWO WHOLE CHAPTERS 

*nods like a boss*

but seriously....55 days till SUMMER and I see CANADA OH CANADA THE BEAUTIFUL LAND OF CANADA