All We Have Left: Prologue–Chapter 7

Moving slowly, I look up and see that one of the carabiners making up my anchor is dangling loose.

I wonder what he sees when he looks at me, those fleeting glances out of the corner of his eye.

She is dedicated and somber, skinny and gangly, with short, spiked black hair and a row of rings along her earlobes.

Lia would force her parents to understand, save the world on the way to Starbucks, and make it to school on time with her deodorant and her saucy smile intact.

I put the scarf on the bed and look at the permission slip that sits prominently beside my panels, pencils, and ink.

Inside my head Lia...fries it to a smoldering heap with one point of a lightning-tipped finger.

We laughed at the tourists on the promenade as they sighed over the view of Manhattan, hung out under the bridge at night and watched the strobing headlights of the cars, and snuck over to Times Square to see our favorite bands on TRL at MTV Studios.

I don’t tell them that I have Nick’s number in my pocket, that right before we left class he slid it across my desk with an expression of feigned indifference, though the number burns against my leg for the rest of the day.

She’s the best, most conscientious, most inspiring fourth-grade teacher on earth.

As a kid, I used to bounce up and down and demand the “bike story” from my mother, because when you’re five, stories about your fledgling parents seem like something out of a fairy tale.

On her way home one afternoon, she saw a group of older kids start messing with one of her students. Mom, young and fearless, jumped into the fray and stared down the group of hoodlums.

On her way home one afternoon, she saw a group of older kids start messing with one of her students. Mom, young and fearless, jumped into the fray and stared down the group of hoodlums.

I dare to dream, and they wallop it into oblivion.

Somehow I never think of her as short because when she opens her mouth all the words are tall and imposing.

My mother has been speaking English since she was four, but she also speaks Indonesian and Arabic, which gives her English a lilt that people find charming.

Teeny holds up a filmy, low-cut top.

The tag still flutters off the sleeve, and we all know it’s something her aunt sent her, willfully ignoring the fact that Teeny’s parents won’t let her wear filmy, low-cut stuff.

Myra is plump and pale, kind and generous, and unswervingly loyal.

I don’t want to listen to their concern, or even acknowledge the niggling feeling in my own stomach that is whispering: danger, danger, danger.

I feel like I’m getting ready to rappel down a big cliff and I haven’t tied a knot at the end of my rope.

Winding through back streets shaded by skeletal ash trees, I head into a more rundown part of town, where people put cars up on blocks and forget them, and the snowmen are slumped and despondent.

I stop in front of Nick’s small clapboard house, the blue, peeling paint dull in the waning light.

The front door slams open, and a bunch of guys, big and bulky in coats and hats emblazoned with Greek letters, come crashing out of the house...

“That’s the sick dog?” It’s totally inane, and I wouldn’t blame him if he said, “No, it’s a porcupine dressed up like a mangy mutt who looks like he fought with a pair of garden shears and lost.”

“That’s the sick dog?” It’s totally inane, and I wouldn’t blame him if he said, “No, it’s a porcupine dressed up like a mangy mutt who looks like he fought with a pair of garden shears and lost.”

“I’m glad you came,” he says in a quiet voice, and something trills inside me like a happy songbird.

My brother takes after my father, slim and handsome in an unassuming aw-shucks-you-think-I’m-cute? kind of way, and laid-back to the point that I think I could set his shoes on fire and his only reaction would be a mild “Damn, girl.”

“At least they’re not using the whole joint thing as an excuse to make me switch schools, but they’ve nixed the NYU program,” I say gloomily.

“So, Alia, when are we going to see the next installment of Lia? I’m jonesing for my favorite Muslim American superhero,” Kaitlin says, trying to cheer me up.

“But it’s like people see a woman in a scarf and think she’s all repressed or something, and believe me, I’ve known you both long enough to know that it’s not the case.”