"A Very Large Expanse of Sea" by Tahereh Mafi, Chapters 1–4

It was the end of August, all volatile heat and the occasional breeze.

I averted my eyes, even as I felt the room contract around me.

It didn’t matter that I told people, over and over again, that I was born here, in America, that English was my first language, that my cousins in Iran made fun of me for speaking mediocre Farsi with an American accent—it didn’t matter.

Mr. Webber’s smile faltered. “Oh,” he said. “Okay.”

And then I was given detention for using vulgar language in class.

I had two more classes to get through after lunch but I wasn’t sure my head could take it; I’d already surpassed my threshold for stupidity for the day.

He was the good-looking new guy. The interesting boy with an interesting past and an interesting name. The handsome exotic boy all these pretty girls would inevitably use to satisfy their need to experiment and one day rebel against their parents.

9/11 happened last fall, two weeks into my freshman year, and a couple of weeks later two dudes attacked me while I was walking home from school and the worst part—the worst part—was that it took me days to shake off the denial; it took me days to fathom the why.

I walked home that day feeling both relieved and dejected.

It took a lot out of me to put up the walls that kept me safe from heartbreak, and at the end of every day I felt so withered by the emotional exertion that sometimes my whole body felt shaky.

Two and a half more years until I could get free from this panopticon they called high school, these monsters they called people.

It’s such a cliche, I know, the lonely kid and her books, but the day my brother walked into my room and chucked a copy of Harry Potter at my head and said, “I won this at school, looks like something you’d enjoy,” was one of the best days of my life.

The few friends I’d made who didn’t live exclusively on paper had collapsed into little more than memories and even those were fading fast.

I survived the first three weeks at my new school with very little to report. It was unexciting. Tedious.

I interacted with people on only the most basic, perfunctory levels, and otherwise spent most of my time listening to music.

I was really into complicated fashion that I could never afford and I spent my weekends scouring thrift stores, trying to find pieces that were reminiscent of my favorite looks from the runway, looks that I would later, in the quiet of my bedroom, attempt to re-create.

I was really into complicated fashion that I could never afford and I spent my weekends scouring thrift stores, trying to find pieces that were reminiscent of my favorite looks from the runway, looks that I would later, in the quiet of my bedroom, attempt to re-create.

These days it was popular only with the geriatric crowd, but this didn’t bother me.

He shouted a hello to the house and I made a noncommittal noise; Matlock was being awesome and I couldn’t be bothered to look away.

He was eating all the rosewater nougat my mom’s sister had sent her from Iran. I doubted he even knew what it was. Not for the first time, I was left in awe of the insatiable appetite of teenage boys.

It grossed me out in a way I couldn’t really articulate.

He found it, disassembled and rusted, next to a dumpster one day, and he hauled it back to one of our old apartments, fixed it, spray-painted it, and slowly amassed a collection of weights to go with it.

It was always an ordeal for me, the awkward, agonizing embarrassment of having no one to work with, having to talk to the teacher quietly at the end of class to tell her you don’t have a partner, could you work by yourself, would that be possible, and she’d say no, she’d smile beatifically, she’d think she was doing you a favor by making you the third in a pair that had been very excited about working the hell alone...

It was always an ordeal for me, the awkward, agonizing embarrassment of having no one to work with, having to talk to the teacher quietly at the end of class to tell her you don’t have a partner, could you work by yourself, would that be possible, and she’d say no, she’d smile beatifically, she’d think she was doing you a favor by making you the third in a pair that had been very excited about working the hell alone...

I mulled over my options and finally just wrote down my phone number.

He blanched. “Wait. What?”

He was dyslexic, my brother.

And the thing no one ever knew was that I did all his schoolwork in the interim.

None of them were experts, but they weren’t novices, either.

Much of breakdancing was performed on the ground, but an uprock was given its own, special attention; it was what you did first—it was an introduction, an opportunity to set the stage—before you broke your body down, figuratively, into a downrock and the subsequent power moves and poses that generally constituted a single performance.

Much of breakdancing was performed on the ground, but an uprock was given its own, special attention; it was what you did first—it was an introduction, an opportunity to set the stage—before you broke your body down, figuratively, into a downrock and the subsequent power moves and poses that generally constituted a single performance.

I made my way downstairs even though I knew I had a bunch of worried, and later, exasperated, text messages from Ocean waiting for me on my phone, but only because I didn’t have the kind of parents who allowed me to ignore dinner—not even for homework.

There was a plate of fresh herbs and radishes and little towers of feta cheese. A bowl of dates. A cup of fresh, baby walnuts. The samovar, gurgling quietly in the background.

Somehow, in my excitement to experience the novelty of text messages (I’d once sent Navid thirty messages in a row just to piss him off), I’d gone way over our limit in the span of a single week, racking up a bill that caused my parents to sit me down and threaten to take away my phone.

I checked his profile automatically—it was practically a reflex—but I was surprised to find that he’d left it blank. Well, not blank, exactly.
It said paranoid android and nothing else.

It was just that the whole thing felt suddenly too invasive.

AIM made things feel unexpectedly intimate.

I wasn’t magically immune to cute guys, and it had not escaped my notice that Ocean was a superlative kind of good-looking.

Maybe I’d been too blunt.

Ocean appeared to be a chronic apologizer.