A Very Large Expanse of Sea: Chapters 20–26

by Tahereh Mafi
It is 2002, and Shirin, a Muslim-American teenager, faces prejudice from the students and teachers at her school. When popular basketball player Ocean James falls for Shirin, she has difficulty trusting that his affection is real — and fears their relationship will not be able to withstand the bigoted reactions of their community.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Chapters 1–4, Chapters 5–10, Chapters 11–19, Chapters 20–26, Chapters 27–38
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. abate
    become less in amount or intensity
    The heat in my head wouldn’t abate.
  2. supine
    lying face upward
    I fell back, supine on the scuffed floor of the dance room, and stared up at the recessed lighting.
  3. recess
    put into an enclosure that is set back
    I fell back, supine on the scuffed floor of the dance room, and stared up at the recessed lighting.
  4. oblivious
    lacking conscious awareness of
    They were so oblivious, in fact, that I honestly wasn’t sure my dad even knew where my school was.
  5. premeditated
    characterized by deliberate purpose and a degree of planning
    It had been a premeditated incident; someone had heard them talk, in class, about their plans to come after me, and tipped off Navid.
  6. cauterize
    make insensitive or callous; deaden feelings or morals
    That wasn’t the beginning—this wasn’t where my anger started—but it was a cauterizing moment I would never forget.
  7. petrify
    cause to become stunned or immobile, as with fear or awe
    When I came home that day, still so stunned I hadn’t figured out yet how to cry, my parents were transformed. It was the first time they’d ever seemed small to me. Petrified.
  8. infuse
    fill, as with a certain quality
    I knew my mom was cooking something because the crisp, cool air was infused with a delicious aroma.
  9. aspire
    have an ambitious plan or a lofty goal
    I aspired to her levels of grace and perseverance.
  10. impart
    transmit, as knowledge or a skill
    She worked all day long and came home just before my dad did, cooked up an amazing meal, and always had a smile, a slap to the back of the head, or a devastating piece of wisdom to impart.
  11. flush
    turn red, as if in embarrassment or shame
    Just the memory of kissing him was enough to make me flush.
  12. fallout
    any adverse and unwanted secondary effect
    But when I thought about the fallout—the weirdness I would inevitably be forced to deal with at school the following day—I felt awful and embarrassed.
  13. hierarchy
    a series of ordered groupings within a system
    I felt so dumb that I hadn’t known his place in the hierarchy of this stupid school, I felt dumb that I’d never asked him what he did in his free time.
  14. imminent
    close in time; about to occur
    I was worried I would cave and call Ocean back, that I would hear his voice and lose my ability to be objective and then, inevitably, agree to try, to see what happens, to ultimately be alone with him on another, imminent occasion because wow, I desperately wanted to kiss him again.
  15. succumb
    give in, as to overwhelming force, influence, or pressure
    I picked up my phone because I was weak and I missed him and because I’d been lying there, thinking about him for hours already; my brain had succumbed long before he’d texted me.
  16. paragon
    model of excellence or perfection of a kind
    I was not a paragon of anything. I was definitely not a saint, as my brother had so clearly pointed out.
  17. blatant
    without any attempt at concealment; completely obvious
    It felt like a stupid thing to say, like it shouldn’t have mattered what sport he played in his free time, but it had also begun to feel like a blatant omission on his end.
  18. omission
    leaving out or passing over something
    It felt like a stupid thing to say, like it shouldn’t have mattered what sport he played in his free time, but it had also begun to feel like a blatant omission on his end.
  19. muster
    summon up, call forth, or bring together
    I’d looked it up online when I finally mustered the courage to lock myself in my room.
  20. gawk
    look with amazement
    I’d gone from being the kind of person people pretended they weren’t staring at to being the kind of person who was openly gawked at.
  21. livid
    furiously angry
    She had long, dark hair, and really expressive eyes, and she was using those eyes today to express to me that she wanted to kill me. She looked livid.
  22. pejorative
    expressing disapproval
    I’d stopped using the word fascinated to describe the way he engaged with me and my life, because the pejorative iteration of the word no longer seemed fair.
  23. unassuming
    not arrogant
    I knew, for example, that the Korean dude in the far corner who rarely spoke and always showed up to these things in the same unassuming white shirt, cargo pants, and wire-framed glasses, would later strip down to a pair of metallic gym shorts and do air flares like nobody’s business.
  24. impromptu
    without advance preparation
    There was always time, after the battle ended but while the music was still going strong, when people from the crowd would form cyphers—impromptu breaking circles—and blow your mind.
  25. contour
    any spatial attributes, especially as defined by outline
    There were gentle, grassy hills in the distance, their soft contours lit by dim uplights.
  26. imposing
    impressive in appearance
    But there were a couple of tall streetlamps, which made the space seem imposing, especially this late at night.
  27. diffuse
    spread through
    Everything was suddenly black and milky with distant, diffused light.
  28. inane
    devoid of intelligence
    I didn’t answer people’s inane questions.
  29. semblance
    the outward or apparent appearance or form of something
    There’d be no way for me to maintain even a semblance of self-respect around him after he’d read my many pages-long descriptions of how it felt to be with him—to even be near him.
  30. compel
    force somebody to do something
    It was rare that I ever felt compelled to seek out the source of a stare, but this one felt different.
  31. osmosis
    diffusion of molecules through a semipermeable membrane
    “That's not how you teach someone a language,” I said, and rolled my eyes. “You can’t just teach him Farsi through osmosis.”
  32. affront
    treat, mention, or speak to rudely
    “We’re not being weird,” my dad said, looking affronted.
  33. verse
    literature in metrical form
    This particular ritual of my parents’ was actually a thing I loved; I’d spent many nights sitting at the kitchen table with my parents, moved to tears by a particularly powerful line of verse.
  34. stifle
    smother or suppress
    I saw him about to laugh, hard, and he stifled it just in time.
  35. precariously
    in a manner affording no ease or reassurance
    The comforter was mussed, the pillows stacked precariously.
  36. haphazardly
    without care; in a slapdash manner
    A few pieces of clothing had been thrown haphazardly on my bed—a tank top and shorts I’d worn to sleep.
  37. assessment
    the act of judging a person or situation or event
    Ocean, on the other hand, was still staring; his assessment was taking a lot longer.
  38. solder
    join or fuse with an alloy
    Our bodies seemed soldered together.
  39. sear
    burn slightly and superficially so as to affect color
    And then he kissed me desperately, without warning, and feeling shot through my veins with a searing, explosive heat.
  40. shrapnel
    shell containing lead pellets that explodes in flight
    Navid knocked on the door, hard, and we were like shrapnel, flying apart.
Created on Wed Oct 24 08:58:19 EDT 2018 (updated Wed Oct 24 12:45:04 EDT 2018)

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