When You Were Everything: List 2

She looks pissed, her brow furrowed, her eyes spitting fire.

I feel a little solace from this bit of information. That even after Mrs. Hassan knew the very worst things about me, she was still worried.

Her willowy frame is always draped in long, flowy things, and today she’s wearing a dress the color of chimney smoke that brings out the lightest parts of her eyes.

I deflate, all my bravado gone at the mention of the attendance office.

Those weird silences always seem to happen at the most inopportune times, but the timing of this one is exceptionally bad.

Layla was normally meticulous about the way she looked because she had so little control, she told me once, over the way she sounded.

Kids from the hallway poked their heads into the auditorium, and a few other students who were there for friends gave Layla their rapt attention.

I didn’t know how I felt about it—Layla with a speaking role—after what had just happened when all she had to say was her name. It unnerved me...

Layla was in the middle of it all, cracking jokes and being cynical and as the girls laughed and touched her shoulders, I felt happy for her.

There was nothing inherently mean in the question itself, but it landed hard and heavy on my shoulders.

I didn’t want them to know I’d just taken a pee in the bathroom they’d deemed unfit for human use, so I froze where I was, toilet-tissue wad in hand.

Layla was tugging at a few strands of her hair where they fell to loosely frame her face. She pulled two wide tendrils straight, let them bounce back into place, then pulled them straight again.

Plus, if Sunday is any indication, Dom has the uncanny ability to make me feel better just by being himself.

I ignore them all and look up at the sky, wondering what it might be like to live in a place with less light pollution—where I might be able to see dozens of constellations—stars worth defying, as Shakespeare wrote.

I grin and quirk one of my eyebrows.

“You ever notice how language changes over time like that?”
It sounds like a rhetorical question, so I don’t say anything.

Like, with my Granny Georgina. I always called her Gigi, which was her nickname for her whole life because it was short for Georgina. But it was also, ironically, the initials of my name for her: G.G.

He points to a tall brownstone just ahead of us with an ornate stone stoop.

Dom’s house, is, well, a house. There is a small foyer, and tall windows with lacy curtains, and stairs that lead not to more apartments but to more of his house.

“I like her,” she says to Dom a little conspiratorially.

Dom stands up and lights an incense stick, and a thin, fragrant wisp of smoke spins into the air.

“If you’re going to write about Macbeth’s ambition,” I say, “you have to mention the catalyst. I don’t think you can say he was a murderous madman driven only by ambition. I think you have to start with the fact that it was prophesied. You have to start where things started for him: with the witches.”

Mom puts her hand on one of my knees and I flare my nostrils to keep the onslaught of tears I feel building at bay.

I’m a little surprised by her earnestness, by the passion rooted deep inside her voice.

Instantly, her eyes go flat, and I watch as all the doors inside her that fell open as we talked slam resolutely shut.

When I opened it, I found a gorgeous snow globe encapsulating a new city I could dream of visiting one day.

She waved her hand like she was personally responsible for conjuring up Chinatown, fully formed.

Red Chinese characters were on the fronts of all the buildings, and street vendors peddled everything from folding fans and silk scarves to jewelry, handbags, and hats.

We navigated the crowded sidewalk side by side, pushing our way past tourists and experienced New Yorkers haggling over purses and buying fruit.

In the end, I found myself standing in my room wearing white satin gloves with a few drops of fake blood on them to represent the blood on Lady Macbeth’s hands, a watch necklace for how often she checks the hour, and a lacy black dress I’d never normally have the guts to wear that we found at a consignment shop.

I could see him still connecting the dots when I got jostled into him as a few girls danced by us a minute later.

Layla got bossy when there was impending disaster, so I started to get that the ex coming over was serious even if I didn’t understand why.

She was bordering on hysterical, and even though she sounded mad as hell, there were tears in her eyes.

Her cheeks had gone ruddier than they usually were under her freckles, so I could tell she was really mad.

I’d been bullied in middle school, but people calling me Weirdo or Nerd or Freckle-Freak hadn’t prepared me for the vitriol I’d heard in Sloane’s voice.