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You will continue toreceive exclusive offers in your inbox.OceanofPDF.com For Mom,my first best friendOceanofPDF.com “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forgetwhat you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”MAYA ANGELOUOceanofPDF.com CHAPTER ONEMy thumb hovers over the exit button on the remote, poised to strike as soon as Ihear the jingling of keys that means one of my parents is home from work.Playing on our enormous at-screen—easily the most expensive thing in ourhouse because if there’s anything my dad loves more than drinking beer, it’swatching TV—is the end scene of a moody indie lm about two white guys inlove who don’t end up together. Even though they’re both bawling their eyesout at a train station, I can’t help but envy them. “It’s better to have loved andlost” and all that.When the screen fades to black, I breathe a sigh of relief, switch over to mysitcom equivalent of a security blanket, and grab the bag of Hot Fritos on theglass-and-marble co ee table. Then I stretch out on the übercomfortable puke-green couch my mom inexplicably loves (possibly more than me) and startstu ng my face.During the end credits of the rst episode I watch, my phone lights up with amessage. I sit up, suck chili powder o my ngers, and check it.Hello!Saleem. God I hate how much I love how formal his texting is.sup, I reply.Did you get home safely? he writes back almost immediately.I smile and put my feet up on the co ee table. It only took one ride inFabiola’s truck for Saleem to realize that the fact that I make it home every day inone piece is a miracle.nah i diedIt amuses me to no end to respond this way. With every other person I text, Iuse adequate punctuation, but not with Saleem. It actually takes more of ane ort to reply the dumb way—Autocorrect and I always get locked in a battle of wills as I ght to keep the rst word of my sentence lowercase, among otherthings—but Saleem appreciates the chaotic energy I inject into his life. At least,that’s what I tell myself.Your fingers have remarkable dexterity for a corpse’s.wow dats deadistI hope that makes him laugh. I can’t say what I really want to say, which is“You wanna see how dexterous my ngers are, you sexy brown—”The sound of keys makes me throw my phone across the room. When I lookup, my mom’s walking in, and she does not look happy.“Bad day?” I ask.She blows hair out of her deceptively young-looking face. “There aren’tenough cuss words.”My mom works at the CVS down the hill from my school. Every day whenshe comes home, she goes o about an exceptionally stupid customer that shevery graciously refrained from punching in the face. Unless she’s too tired to doso, which looks like the case today.She hangs her keys on the hooks beside the front door that she had my dadinstall because he could never nd his keys in the morning before work, throwsher purse onto the faux marble counter that separates the kitchen from the livingroom, and trudges past me to the hallway on the way to her room. But beforeshe’s all the way there, she backtracks until she’s standing next to the couch,looking down at me.“Why’s your phone all the way over there?”I look to the corner of the room where my cell is lying facedown.“Uh… Fabiola just scored sixty points in Words with Friends.”“Triple word score?”“Yup.”“Smart girl.”She glances at the TV, and my eyes follow hers. The episode currently playingfeatures two lesbian side characters getting married. Shit. I usually skip thisepisode if my parents are home. But my mom doesn’t say anything, just turnsback to me and asks, “When you gonna ask her to marry you?” This question has been a running joke from the time I was thirteen or so, butever since I turned seventeen, my mom’s been sounding less and less like she’skidding.“We’d have to start dating for that to happen, Mom.”“Mm-hmm.” I suspect she suspects we already are, but she changes thesubject. “How was the last day of school?”“That’s tomorrow.”“Oh.” She rubs her face and sni s. “How was your second to last day ofschool?”“Okay. Not too di erent from all the others.”“Only one year left.”“Yup…”“Well, don’t stay up too late, kid.” She tousles my hair and goes to leave, butthen stops. “Chips.”I grab the bag of Fritos from the couch, roll it up, and put it on the co eetable. She nods and is on her way to her bedroom again.When she’s gone, I retrieve my phone, and Saleem’s message is waiting.Is that a term for prejudice against dead people?I reply with one (made-up) word.jesI will have you know that I have a number of close dead relatives, so it isimpossible for me to be “deadist.”Oof. How am I supposed to respond to that? He’s joking, but he’s also not….As I often do when I don’t know how to reply to someone, I shift my focusto something else in the hopes that a perfect response will pop into my headwhile I’m distracted. In this case, I actually start a game of Words with Fabiola.She completes her turn almost immediately.After she wins, we start another game. I’m in the middle of putting down theword “gay” (for entertainment value, not point value) when my dad gets home.Despite toiling in the sun all day, he actually enjoys his work. I think he and hiscolleagues spend more time pranking each other than actually washing cars.“Hey, Dad.”“Mijo.” He puts his keys on the counter, walks over to me, kisses my forehead, andthen heads to the bedroom. I hear the squeak of springs as he falls onto the bednext to my mom.I play a few more turns before I get up. First, I grab my dad’s keys and hangthem on the hooks. Then I head to my parents’ room. Their door’s open, andthey’re both passed out in their work clothes. I take o my dad’s boots, then mymom’s sneakers, and turn the ceiling fan on. As I leave their room, I glance at theBible on my mom’s nightstand and can’t help but sigh.In the living room, I op down on the couch again and stare at the strip ofwall next to the window. Hanging there are two framed decorative cards with myparents’ names on them. Underneath the names, in parentheses, is their biblicalmeaning. My mom’s card reads, Maria (The wished-for child), and my dad’ssays, Abel (Breath). I have a card as well, but it’s hanging in my room. There is noEnrique in the Bible, so we had to cheat. My middle name is Luke, which means“light.” I don’t think that ts me at all.My parents aren’t the most religious people I know—we’re those Christianswho only go to church for Christmas and Easter—but they believe in God andgrew up with ultraconservative parents, which is why I haven’t told them thatI’m bi. Part of me is certain they’ll still love me when—if?—I come out to them,but another part of me keeps saying, You never know….It’s the same with Jesus. Most of the time, I know He loves me. I mean, that’swhat He’s all about. But sometimes when I hear someone—my pastor, mygrandparents, a random person on the Internet—say that God hates queers, Ihave to squash the tiniest inkling of doubt that worms its way into my chest.My eyes travel to the co ee table, where my phone is ashing. I pick it up andsee another message from Saleem.Hey, are you still there?yah sarsNo need for (barely intelligible) apologies.I smirk.how tings wit ayaSaleem’s sister Aya is just about the coolest person I know. I’ve only met heronce, but I was stunned by her beauty and the con dence with which she carried herself. For some reason, though, whenever she comes home from lm school inNew York, Saleem gets a little weird about it.They’re going well.Ah, a contraction. That means he’s lying, but I’ll let it go for now.gude gude gudeYes, “gude.” Anyway, I wanted to ask if you happen to be free later tonight.I sit up, my heart pounding because I know where this is going, and all I canthink about is how the smallest act on his part—an accidental touch, acompliment, initiating a hangout—can send me reeling.Having feelings for Saleem is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to dealwith because I know we can never be together. There are a lot of reasons whythat’s true (my own cowardice being one of them), but the main one is I did themath and calculated that there is—exactly—a 0.01 percent chance that he seesme the way I see him. I mean, why would he?Saleem is thoughtful and kind and a much, much better person than I am.He never complains about his parents or ghts with his sister like I would if Iwere him. He always holds doors open for old ladies and gives homeless peoplehis change or at least apologizes to them when he doesn’t have any. I bet hedoesn’t even do that thing where you break something at someone’s house andonly x it enough so that it looks ne and the next person who breaks it thinksthey did it. He has the sweetest, gentlest soul I’ve ever encountered, and I’m,well, me.Which means I shouldn’t tell him I’m free.im free, I reply. y?I was thinking of a late-night swim. Would you like to join me?There it is.hellz yeah, I write without hesitation. gets hot af in my rume @ niteGreat. I look forward to seeing you, ’Quique.Ugh, he just had to add that sexy-ass apostrophe before my nickname. God Ihate him. Except that I don’t, never could. Short and handsome and smart andcaring Saleem. He is my greatest source of joy, and despite all the possiblecomplications, I need him in my life. I’m not going to ruin us.I hope. After I get his grammatically immaculate text saying I should head over ataround nine o’clock, I go to my parents’ room to wake up my mom and ask forpermission to take her car. She grunts in approval before turning over andresuming her snoring.It takes twenty minutes or so to get to Saleem’s. He lives equally far fromschool as I do but in the opposite direction. It’s a quiet area with mobile homeparks, shopping plazas, and similar apartment complexes to mine. I pull up tothe gate where I usually punch in a code to get in, but the keypad isn’t working,which is weird. I reverse back onto the street and park across from the complex.After I jump the gate, I walk quickly to Saleem’s apartment, noting that theentire compound is almost completely dark, which, again, is weird. Even thestreetlamps are out. If this were my rst time coming here, I would get lost ashell—this place used to be a maze to me—but now, even in the shadows, I knowexactly where to go.I hike up the stairs to the apartment but don’t knock or ring the doorbell. Iknow Saleem can hear me arrive from any room inside his apartment. The fewtimes I’ve been inside his place, I’ve found it grand yet homey. Everything (fromthe rugs to the curtains to the tapestries) looks handmade with rich colors andintricate patterns, and the now-familiar scent of cumin-forward Palestinianstews hangs in the air.The door opens, and he comes out, forcing me to do what’s becomenecessary for my survival: try my best to ignore everything about him that drivesme wild. The smile that lights up his entire face. The black T-shirt that matchesthe single ringlet of hair dropping onto his forehead. The amber eyes that waitfor me in my dreams.“Hey,” I say, “what the hell’s going on?”“Power outage,” he replies, handing me a towel.“Oh. That explains the gate.”“I should have warned you.”“Yeah, you should’ve, asshole.”
