Love from a to Z

Get on FaceTime
, I messaged Kavi. 
A situation is happening.
I looked at the clock. Oops, she was in class.
Well, there were only seven minutes left before senior lunch hour.
I may be in love. With a guy.
A message popped up right away. 
I’m texting from Fencer’s class. If he catches me I
might get suspended too. WHO?
I refused to add anything more. No way Fencer was going to get me,
Ayaan, and my Kavi.
I didn’t have to wait long.
“TELL ME EVERYTHING.” Kavi was walking down the crowded halls,
earbuds in. “I didn’t even wait for Noemi, okay? I fled. TELL ME.”
I could tell she’d just left Fencer’s class.
“I’m going to wait till you get to the Situation Room.” I watched her
walking toward the sunken foyer area, across from which were the windows
of the library. She opened the blue door that said 
LIBRARIES BRING LIFE TO LIFE!
and
walked through the turnstiles, waving at someone.
“Wait, say hello to Ms. Margolis.” She turned her phone and brought it
closer to the library counter.
Ms. Margolis, a pencil in her ear, peered at me. “Zayneb?”
Oh yeah, I wasn’t wearing hijab. “Yeah, it’s me. Sorry, don’t have my
scarf on.”
“How are you?” She looked at me carefully.
“I’m good. It’s nice to see you.” I waved.
“It’s wonderful to see you as well.” She waved back. “Now go talk to
Kavi. She misses you intensely.”
Kavi turned the phone back to herself and, after she’d walked far enough
away from Ms. Margolis, whispered, “I’m so sorry. I forgot you didn’t have
your hijab on.”
I didn’t say anything and just covered the camera on my phone with a
hand. “Just tell me when you get to the Situation Room. Then I will reveal
everything, including myself.”
“Okay, dish!” The brick wall was behind her. She was safely in our room
in the library.

---

I took my hand away from the camera lens. “It’s . . . Adam.”
“Who’s Adam?”
I scrolled through my phone and found the first picture with the Emmas
and him, by the water at his house, the one she’d seen before, and sent it to
her again.
“Oh wow, I remember. This guy? So cute. Okay, be in love.” She flashed
a thumbs-up. “I definitely understand!”
“No, this is . . . different.”
Kavi leaned back, raising her eyebrows. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I think he likes me back.”
“Of course he would! You’re awesome!”
“No, I mean, as in he seriously likes me back.” I thought about how he’d
left the apartment today.
He’d said, “For the first time in a long time, I’m feeling absolutely
good.”
Annabelle had nodded, rolling the IV machine to the door. “The
treatment will do that for you. Some people feel it right away. You just need
to continue your appointments with your neurologist in London.”
When Annabelle turned around to put her shoes on, and Auntie Nandy
went to her bedroom to get car keys to drive him back home, he said, “I’m
feeling good for other reasons too.”
Without exchanging glances, I knew what he was talking about.
I’d looked calm on the surface, but fireworks had exploded inside.
“Oh wow, you’re really feeling it. Your face is like rippling. I’ve never
seen it like this,” Kavi said, leaning forward to examine me so close, her
face took up the entire screen. Then, as she sat down, she zoomed out again.
“But wait. You said you don’t believe in dating. How does this work?”
“It doesn’t, actually. Work, I mean.” I lay back in bed and lifted the
phone high above me so Kavi could see the pitiful state I was in. “This has
been me for most of today. Lying here, tossing and turning.”
“Inflamed by passion? Tormented by desire? Horny?”
“Ew, but yeah, kind of.” I didn’t admit to her how much that was true.
“See, that’s why Islam tells us horny ones to lower our gaze around people,
not look at them like you’re eating them with your eyes.”
“Zayneb, did you eat him with your eyes?” Kavi giggled. “Because you
look like you’ve got a stomachache from overeating.”

---

“Astaghfirullah. That’s been me all day, saying astaghfirullah.” I
groaned. “And the worst thing is that he’s Muslim, too.”
Kavi sat up in the chair, her big eyes activated with interest. “But that’s
amazing, isn’t it? He’ll get you. How Muslim you are, because, girl, you
and Ayaan are super Muslim.”
“No, it’s terrible that he’s Muslim. Because if he wasn’t, it wouldn’t have
made sense in my head, and I would be over it. Because then maybe he
would have asked me out, and I could have been like, Nope, that’s not me, I