is going to like seeing your ass in those jeans.”
I rolled my eyes. “Well she doesn’t have to look at my ass if she doesn’t want to.”
Navid laughed. “It’s just—sometimes what you wear doesn’t really match, you know? It’s a little confusing.” He gestured, vaguely, at my head, even though I hadn’t put on my scarf yet. Still, I knew what he was trying to say. I knew he was trying not to be judgmental. But the conversation irritated me.
People—and often guys—liked to say that Muslim women wore headscarves because they were trying to be demure, or because they were trying to cover up their beauty, and I knew that there were ladies in the world who felt that way. I couldn’t speak for all Muslim women—no one could—but it was a sentiment with which I fundamentally disagreed. I didn’t believe it was possible to hide a woman’s beauty. I thought women were gorgeous no matter what they wore, and I didn’t think they owed anyone an explanation for their sartorial choices. Different women felt comfortable in different outfits.
They were all beautiful.
But it was only the monsters who forced women to wear human potato sacks all day that managed to make headline news, and these assholes had somehow set the tone for all of us. No one even asked me the question anymore; people just assumed they knew the answer, and they were nearly always wrong. I dressed the way I did not because I was trying to be a nun, but because it felt good—and because it made me feel less vulnerable in general, like I wore a kind of armor every day. It was a personal preference. I definitely didn’t do it because I was trying to be modest for the sake of some douchebag who couldn’t keep his dick in his pants. People struggled to believe this, because people struggled to believe women in general.
It was one of the greatest frustrations of my life.
So I shoved Navid out of my room and told him it was none of his business what my ass looked like in my jeans and he said, “No, I know—that’s not what I meant—”
“Don’t make it weird,” I said, and closed the door in his face.
After he left, I looked in the mirror.
The jeans were nice.
The days continued to dissolve, and quietly.
Aside from breakdancing, pretty much nothing had changed except that Ocean was suddenly different around me in bio. He’d been different ever since that first, and only, AIM conversation we’d had, over two weeks ago.
He talked too much.
He was always saying things like Wow, the weather is so weird today and How was your weekend? and Hey, did you study for the quiz on Friday? and it surprised me, every single time. I’d glance at him for only a second and say Yeah, the weather is weird and Um, my weekend was fine and No, I didn’t study for the quiz on Friday and he’d smile and say I know, right? and That’s nice and Really? I’ve been studying all week and I’d usually ignore him. I never asked him a follow-up question.
Maybe I was being rude, but I didn’t care.
Ocean was a really good-looking guy, and I know this doesn’t sound like a valid reason to dislike someone, but it was reason enough for me. He made me nervous. I didn’t want to talk to him. I didn’t want to get to know him. I didn’t want to like him, which was harder than you’d think, because he was very likable. Falling for someone like Ocean, I knew, would only end badly for me. I didn’t want to embarrass myself.
Today he’d been trying really hard to make small talk—which I guessed was understandable, as it was otherwise awkward to sit around for an hour saying nothing while you picked apart a dead cat—and he said, “So, are you going to homecoming?”
I’d actually looked up, then. I looked up because I was amazed. I laughed, softly, and turned away. His question was so ridiculous I didn’t even answer him. We’d been having pep rallies all week in anticipation of the homecoming game—it was a football thing, I think—and I’d been skipping them. We were also, apparently, having class spirit competitions, whatever that meant. I was supposed to be wearing green or blue or something today, but I wasn’t.
People were losing their minds over this shit.
“You don’t really do school stuff, huh?” Ocean said, and I wondered why he cared.
“No,” I said quietly.