A Missing Peace (3 page)

God, it's bad enough I volunteered to be her partner, and have to take her to prom. I can't believe I have to live across the street from her, too.

As I opened my car door, Mirriam followed the guy into the truck. Before I could get out of the driveway, they came out of the truck, each lifting one end of an entertainment center. The guy had his end lifted in the air, and he was walking backwards. She struggled to keep her end off the ground.

I rolled my eyes and sighed. American hating Arabic chick or not, I couldn't let a girl carry furniture bigger than her. I jumped out of my jeep and ran across the street.

“Need help?”

The big Arabic guy smiled and sat his end down. Mirriam took the chance to sit her end down as well. “Thanks. That would be great.”

“I can do it,” Mirriam said.

“It didn't look like it,” I said.

She glared at me.

“Mirriam, our neighbor offered to help. Let him.”

Her eyes shot daggers at the big guy. “Zmal, Abrahem. Way to ruin my life.” She ran for the house.

Mirriam

I got lectured for the way I'd treated Caleb when he appeared in my front yard. I didn't tell Abrahem that Caleb was a flag thumper and the jerk that randomly hit on me. For some reason, I didn't want my big brother to know that was Caleb, even though it would have ended the lecture.

Part of me thought I was probably being too hard on the guy, but most of me knew I would've let our awkward first encounter go, if I hadn't seen his true colors in Government class. Still, I was torn. His father had died, too; he probably felt a need to justify all of the killing. But I didn't like that he could hate a place he'd never seen. That he could know what was going on halfway around the globe without ever having stepped foot there. It was the same mentality that allowed people to drop out of planes with guns at your doorstep.

I dreamed about my dad that night. The most tolerant man I had ever known. He'd treated wounded American soldiers more than once, and he'd always said he'd never regret it. He'd died at the hand of an American soldier, but somewhere inside of me, I knew I was angrier about it than he would've been.

So when I got to Government the next day, I waited for Caleb to approach our table. When he arrived, I was standing behind my seat with my arms folded across my chest. I knew what I had to do, but it didn't mean I had to like it.

He looked at me for a second like he was about to say something, but I jumped in before he could. “I'm sorry for my outburst yesterday.”

His eyes connected with mine for a moment, and I could tell I'd caught him off guard. “It's cool.”

“If you want another partner, I won't be offended. I'm still opinionated.”

“We're cool.” His voice was so hard, I didn't think he meant it. An awkward silence passed before Caleb said, “Actually I thought we could be friends.”

Friends. That sounded nice. I hadn't had a friend since I moved to the U.S. But I knew Caleb and I were not the kind of combination that could hang together on a Friday night and have everything go well. I couldn't tell him that, though.

“Sure, friends,” I said, “but it's still probably a good idea to do something that doesn't require us to talk much.”

“Why would you say that?”

“Caleb, I call what the U.S. did to us ‘invasion'. You call it ‘aid', and I don't think either one of us are changing our minds any time soon.”

He nodded, both defiant and sympathetic in a single motion.

Something about the understanding in his eyes made me tingle in a way I didn't want Caleb Miller to make me tingle. We didn't have much time to work on our project today, so that was all the talking we did in class.

I spent the remainder of the hour stealing glances at Caleb, wishing I had something to say. I never had anything to say, and that was probably for the best. Something told me if I tried to talk to Caleb Miller, I would regret it later.

I walked home, because Abrahem got a job yesterday, and I didn't drive. I was tempted to demand he teach me how, but something told me
Ommy
would never go for it, and three of us sharing one car would probably get complicated. Besides, school wasn't that far from my house.

Sauntering down our street, I realized it was the quietest neighborhood I'd seen in a long time. Houses with neatly manicured fenced yards lined the road. Some driveways hosted parked cars and others were empty, as it was not five yet. It wasn't home, but I felt almost safe here. Almost.

Then a thunderous bang shot through the air. I knew that sound, had heard it before. A scream escaped my throat.
Stupid, Mirriam! So stupid! If you hadn't been noticed yet, they definitely heard you.
The last words my father ever said to me rang through my head. “Play dead, Mirriam.”

I threw myself to the ground. Concrete and asphalt slapped me in the face. I was out in the open here—vulnerable. It was a residential neighborhood. There really was nowhere to hide. I hadn't even surveyed the area to see where the shot came from. I lay on the ground, trying to breathe slowly so no one would see my chest move or hear my breath.

Only seconds passed before I heard, “Mirriam? Mirriam, are you okay?” The twang in his voice told me it wasn't Abrahem, and as far as I knew, there was only one other guy on this street who knew my name.

I opened my eyes and looked up to see Caleb standing over me. The tip of his snakeskin cowboy boot inches from my eyes.

I gasped as I adjusted myself to my surroundings.
It's a quiet street lined with little houses, neatly manicured with fence yards
, I reminded myself. Still, I couldn't shake the shot. I knew what I'd heard. Yet nothing had been disturbed.

“What happened?” I asked trying to figure out why no one had come outside, why Caleb wasn't disheveled.

“I—I don't know,” he said. “Can I help you up?”

I placed my hands to the sides of my chest, pushed myself up, and sprang to my feet. Caleb ran a hand across my face. My breath hitched and stilled. He dropped his hand and stepped back from me. “You—you scraped your face.”

From the burning in my cheek, I knew he was right. I'd scraped my face on the concrete, but when his fingertips traced the spot on my cheek, it wasn't pain I felt. It was more, and I knew he felt it, too.

That didn't matter, though. It couldn't. All that mattered at the moment was the bang that fired through the air. I was about to ask again what happened when Caleb asked, “How did you end up face down on the curb?”

“I heard the shot and played dead.”

“Shot?” There was something incredulous in his voice. His lips turned up at the corners like he wanted to laugh at me. “What shot?”

“You didn't hear it?”

He shook his head.

“There was no ripping bang?”

“I'm sorry. I was working on my jeep. I dropped the hood, and it made one hell of a noise. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you.”

My back arched, and my shoulders went up. “I wasn't scared. I don't even do scared.”

“Right. That's how you ended up face down on the curb.”

For a brief second, I had been terrified, and we both knew it. “I should go.” My feet didn't move, because there was something I had to ask him. It was the kind of thing that would throw everything off balance. That's what favors do. He would do it, and then I would owe him.

“Caleb, you won't tell anyone about this, right?”

His eyes sunk down, and his mouth dropped. “Of course, I won't.”

“Thank you.” I walked past him, looking down the whole time.

He followed behind me on his way to his own house. “Mirriam?”

“Yes.” I still didn't look at him.

“I'm sorry.”

Now, I was confused. “For what?”

“That you lived through what you did.”

Pity. It was the worst. “I had marble floors and two maids. Don't worry about what I lived through.”

Caleb

Mirriam ate at my self-esteem the way no girl ever had. It didn't make sense. Every time I thought I was getting somewhere with her, she shut me down. I didn't even know why I cared.
Yes, I do. I have one thousand reasons to care, and no way in hell am I driving around with some stupid pink flower.
At this point, I had five weeks and one day to get her to go out with me.

More than that, the way she got so snide so fast drove me crazy. It was a parallel insanity. More than once, I had thought about kissing her, which I didn't understand. I would never kiss an Arabic chick. She made me sick. I broke up with Kailee because she was always trying to scam or manipulate somebody, close friends included. Especially her closest friends. Mirriam wasn't a scammer, but a scammer might be better than her outright bitterness.

Either way, I would have some time to work on wooing her to be my prom date. Because I discovered that I blew a piston. Or my jeep did. As long as we're walking in the same direction from the same place, I could convince her we should do it together. I didn't really want to spend more time with her than I had to, but I wasn't willing to give Josh my savings either. Mirriam wasn't really the way she wanted people to think she was. The fragile girl I found in the curb was proof of that.

The next day, I was three paces behind Mirriam as she tried to leave the school grounds. I staggered here and there to talk to people. I took a step to one side and then the other. It wasn't like I was right behind her. Once we were off campus, there was less of a way to disguise that I was following her. But the point was kind of to talk to her. Before I could say anything at all, she whirled around on one heel and said, “Caleb, are you following me?”

“Uh, we live on the same street. I'm just walking home.”

Her chocolate eyes burned through me. “Where's your car?”

“It's a truck. And I blew a piston.”

“It's an SUV and whatever that is.”

“It's a Jeep.”

“Stay on your own side of the road.”

“Because you're the queen of the world?”

“Isn't your blonde girl going to get mad about you following me around all the time?”

“I don't have a blonde girl, and I'm not following you around. We live on the same street.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.” I wanted to lock my hands around this girl and shake her until she got some sense, or at least dropped the caustic bite that rolled off her tongue every time she opened her mouth. But I have to admit something about this exchange was hot, too.
Wait a minute, hot? I can't believe I even thought that for a millisecond.
It was the kind of conversation I'd never have with Kailee. A girl like Kailee would never be this blunt.

Mirriam sped up, to get rid of me no doubt. I'd never been so hated by a girl, but I had more than a thousand bucks riding on this, so I increased my pace to match hers. “So you've been here for two years?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Where were you before Killeen?”

“The East Coast. Texas really is as behind as everyone says.”

“The East Coast is a big place. Care to elaborate?”

“Will you quit asking me questions if I do?”

“You could ask some questions.”

“For what? I'd have to care.”

Bitch. But she kept talking to me, so while she claimed she was completely not interested, she was not
not
interested. This girl was such a guessing game. It was maddening.

“Glad I'm so insignificant.”

We walked for a while, and then she said, “Baltimore. We went to a refugee camp in Maryland, then a church from there, then the spare room of an American family's home, and finally the projects.”

“That's a lot of moving in two years.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Mirriam, I don't understand. I'm really not trying to start a fight, but if it was so much better there, why didn't you stay?”

“I can't really talk about it, but it wasn't safe for me to stay anymore.”

“So at least in that way, it's better here, right?”

“Except if they hadn't done what they did, it would be safe for me at home.”

“You mean the war?”

She shook her head violently. “No, Caleb. Not exactly, but I can't talk about it. Leave me alone, okay?”

“What's your favorite color? That I know you can talk about.”

“Black.” Of course. But then she surprised me. “Why does everyone think you're so cool?”

I laughed. “I didn't know they did.”

“Right.”

“If I had to guess, I'd say it's the football thing. It is Texas.”
But I've become much less cool, since you started publicly rejecting me every chance you get.
Something struck me. I could make a go for it now, and if she rejected me, no one would know.
Should I do it now? Or should I wait? I'll be walking home for a while.
“What are you doing Friday night?”

“I'm not allowed to date. And just so you know, if I were, I still wouldn't date you.”

Slam.
But at least, no one was around to see it.

“Wow, you're cocky.”

“Excuse me?”

“What makes you think I would ask you out?”

“Why else would you care about my itinerary Friday night?”

“Uh. You
are
my Gov partner. Maybe, I wanted to work on the project.”

“You don't really strike me as the type to spend a Friday night studying. And we haven't even nailed down a project yet. At this point, we don't have a project.”

“All the more reason we should be working on it.”

“Fine, I'll meet you at the library.”

“Fine... Hey, Mirriam?”

“What?”

“You should have seen the look on your face when you realized I wasn't asking you out.”