SHOUT - Adopted by Lin Manuel Miranda

NIGHTMARE IN PAKISTAN

I hardly feel myself leave the apartment. I float out the door and up a pair of stairs, then another pair of stairs, and another, until I push open a door and then another door and somehow end up on the roof. The view of the Hudson beneath the bridge is metal in storm. I stagger from the reception tower to the edge. My vision disintegrates at the edges and leaves only the core of my view in focus. 

I should have bandaged the cuts.

The blood on my arms and legs is knife-hot. I hardly felt my fist go through the mirror. Once I realized what I'd done, the guilt slammed into me. What's wrong with me? I should be at school slaving away with the Wilmington Drones. I lean against the ledge of the roof. There is nothing below me to break my fall. I've drawn hundreds of mehdni birds. If I tried hard enough, could I become one of my mehndis, sprout a set of wings and let the storm winds take me where they would?

The blood is searing hot. Feels like there's acid running down my limbs.

I run my hands along the ledge of the roof. It's going to rain. The clouds are on the brink of burst: fat and heavy and bellowing thunder. Remember that girl, that Vidyagirl in my conscience who differentiated right from wrong and helped me stay out of trouble?

Me neither. 

I swing one leg over the ledge, then the other, until I feel the wind beneath my feet. There are no nets, no trampolines, no superheroes on the sidewalk to catch me if I fall. I almost lean forward to see the little ant people below, the toy taxis and cars. I almost do it.

A gust of wind jolts my heart into ignition. I step back on the roof and lean into the ledge. Storm clouds whimper in the distance. From up here, the city doesn't look like a place people live. It feels like some toy movie set, a gray-sealed dome with spotlights. 

The sky was darker in Pakistan.

Even though it was the beginning of Summer, it felt colder, too. I felt the air through the kitchen window, heard the rain blat against the ground. I heard my mother and father speaking in the dining room through the walls. They spoke about Radhika, about The Wolf, about Nayim, about moving here, about staying there. I was knotting a friendship bracelet in the kitchen, a bracelet with pink and green and orange. Radhika was with The Wolf in Lahore. Nayim was in town with my uncles. 

A shout from My Father ended the argument. The slam of the dining room door shook the house. He appeared in the doorway told me to go to bed. It was mid-afternoon.

Engaged... arranged... move to Lahore...

No, he said, when I went to go to my room. He wanted me to sleep in his bed. That's where he hung my new red outfit, the one with white tassels. Get dressed, he told me. Change out of those day clothes and be a pretty girl, like your sister...

And my sister was gone...

But the clothes were beautiful and they were red with tassels, so I pretended I was Radhika. I felt like a princess. I thought I would walk into town the next day and all the girls would be wearing red with tassels, because that's what princess Vidya wore. The fabric slipped over my head— so smooth, oh God, it felt like water—

And He walked in the bedroom and shut the door behind Him. Said He was tired, too. 

When I thought about Fathers and Mothers sleeping in bed together, I never thought of one person on one side and one on the other. I thought husbands and wives could melt into each other and sleep as one body, a cozier body, so much more sufficient than their separate ones. I imagined husbands and wives could fall asleep at the same time, share a dream or two, then wake up in the morning dressed in brilliant outfits with smiling mouths. The experience wasn't quite so nice as I imagined, because the prince charming in bed with me did not have a crown, did not have a smiling mouth, did not melt into me— but I was content with separate bodies if His arm was around me and I could hear Him breathe.

Then He kissed me, hard and rough and deep. Nearly tore my lips off, that kiss. Wasn't I supposed to like it? Wasn't I supposed to be a good girl, like Radhika? He was getting aggressive. He pushed his hand into my thigh and banged my head against the headboard. I couldn't tell Him to stop. Of course I couldn't. Girls don't say stop in Pakistan.

I heard My Mother crying in the next room—

Hand around waist, kiss kiss kiss, red with tassels

Softly, at first, but louder through the walls as His mouth moved down—

Kiss, kiss, Daddy's kiss

He touched the silky fabric around my stomach and moved up, up, up, like the airplane to Pakistan. He dug beneath my underwear and—wait, no one touched there, I didn't even touch there. Hand under, then out, then down, down, down, like Nayim's kite falling from the sky. His hands go in, then out, then up again, then down again, and then He is on top of me, and—

No. No this does not feel right. I am on the bed and He is on top of me. He is so heavy— crushing my lungs— being a good girl doesn't matter anymore, I need to get out. I try to scream, but there's a fist jammed into my mouth. Mumma is sobbing in the next room, but there's another voice, my own voice ringing loud and clear in my head, saying STOP! Pretty red pants slipping off my legs, Daddy's kurta and pants on the floor, and NO! This isn't happening, I'm definitely back in the kitchen knotting my friendship bracelet and listening to the rain, but he pins me down and smells like knives and I scream I scream I scream until he gets up 

and pulls on his kurta

and slams the door.

Suddenly there was My Mother, standing over me holding a piece of cloth and a bucket of water. She dipped the cloth in the water and forced my legs apart, didn't hear my screams, just washed me like any other bath time and wrung the cloth into the bucket. At one point I turned my head the other way, and I saw it— the deep red drip-dropping into the water and exploding into clouds when it hit the surface. I shouted, shouted, shouted. I shouted until my airways crumpled, until the water in the bucket rippled from my voice, until My Mother lurched forward and slapped the sound from my throat.

Until she scooped the bucket in her arms and left the room without a word. 

Something cold and wet hits my cheeks. I open my eyes. I'm not in Pakistan, and it's not the beginning of Summer. The rain crescendos into millions of bullets slamming onto the concrete. I tilt my head back and let the water wash the blood from my arms and legs. I hate this city. I've lived in New York my whole life, and I hate this city. There's millions of men, but too many kids with no fathers. There's millions of women, but too many lonely men. I don't know why anyone wants to come here.