Love from a to Z

peace feels like, I need to take a crash course in learning to like it more.
Because I just wanted to yank Madison’s phone from her, superglue her
to a chair, and force her to watch the longest video on cultural
appropriation. And a marathon of videos on the more than five hundred
tribes living on the land Coachella takes place on. And a video on . . .
• • •
Only Adam, the guy from the plane, wasn’t completely in sync with the
crowd around him. He was quiet mostly.
I didn’t even know where he was when I feebly tried to take Madison on.
The only time he spoke up a bit was when we were talking about where
we’d been in the world, and Connor, who seemed to like the limelight,
started a chart on his phone to see which continent had the most visits from
all of us.
To record our answers, he barked names out one by one like he was a
teacher. And funnily enough, he said Zayneb properly when his eyes landed
on me.

---

Geesh, I don’t even know how I let this simple thing—him saying Zay-
nub, my name—immediately earn him a sliver of respect from me. I duly
listed the four continents I’d visited, like a good li’l student.
Emma Domingo has been to every single continent except for Antarctica.
She’s also visited her father’s “ancestral homeland,” as Connor put it, the
most, having been to the Philippines twenty-four times.
Adam is the one who’s been to the least amount of places.
Other than Doha, he’s only been to Canada, where he’s originally from,
two school trips to Belgium and France, and then England for college.
“So you’re the only one who hasn’t visited your parents’ country of
origin?” Connor asked.
“Well, I have. Because my parents are Canadian,” Adam said.
“I know your mom was. But your dad is originally from China.” Connor
lowered his phone.
“My dad’s grandparents are originally from China. Like how my mom’s
grandparents are originally from Finland.” Adam shrugged. “And, yeah, I
do plan on visiting China and Finland one day. And the rest of the world.”
After that, he hung back, observing, smiling sometimes, and looking at
the water and the night sky at other times. Not talking much.
Except when we were leaving and he walked Auntie Nandy and me to
the door and suddenly asked me if I wanted to volunteer with him on
Sunday at Hanna’s class at DIS. They were going on a field trip to an
animal sanctuary outside Doha.
So he, too, was unpredictable. Maybe. Kind of?
I said yes. Even though I’m not into animals, except for whatever animal
Squish ended up being.
I said yes, because I wanted to be around him more.
• • •
It was almost five in the morning here in Doha, after Fajr prayer on
Saturday, but I looked through the pictures on my phone from last night to
find him.
I knew there was at least one shot from yesterday that Adam had ended
up in inadvertently.
There it was. There he was. In the background behind us, the Emmas and
me. He was standing with his back to the fence skirting the water.

---

An angular face with the trace of a sad smile. Eyes that could faze with
their gaze, so carefully did they look at things.
And yes, like I thought, he had those eyes turned to the sky again.
• • •
This Is What You Missed, Bulletin II by Kavi Srinivasan, filed as FYI for Zayneb Malik:
Ayaan got an e-mail asking her to come see Kerr Monday morning. Sent on a Friday evening, the
e-mail was.
From the principal’s own e-mail address and NOT info@alexanderporter.
Fri. Day.
Oh. No. Do you think it has something to do with you-know-who?
Probably. We can’t figure out what else it could be. Ayaan is quaking.