Love from a to Z

AN INTERLUDE
H
ERE, ONE MUST TAKE THE
reins of the story from both Adam and Zayneb. Their
observations of the events that unfolded next differ so vastly that it’s hard to
understand what actually happened if we rely solely on them.
To find the truth and present it clearly, one has to wade through two vats
full of emotions and perceptions—i.e., their journals—to collect and clutch
at those stray facts, proven to be facts as they showed up in both journals.
These mutual bits were then combined with the feelings for each other
they’d admitted to themselves up until this point, and thus I present the
following to you.
• • •
Reading the caption below the glass-enclosed thirteenth-century
manuscript, Zayneb let out a small “oh.”
Adam came to stand beside her.
They stared at The Marvels of Creation and Oddities of Existence folios.
Adam wondered if he should bring up that he knew she had a Marvels
and Oddities journal just like him. Wondered whether that would sound
slightly stalkerish, or whether it was cute. Or perhaps even romantic?
The truth remained that he had previously wanted it to come up naturally,
and here it was now right in front of them.
Zayneb wondered if this—being presented with the real Marvels and
Oddities—was a cosmic moment of significance in her life. The universe,
or, in fact, the creator of it, sending her a message. That her life was on the
right course.
And then her phone buzzed.
An e-mail from Fencer.
The subject line read Analysis assignment = D- for extensive use of false
equivalencies.

---

Zayneb stared at the notification and then swore.
It was a muttered swear, quiet in its volume but strong in its impact. On
Adam.
He tilted his head at her (in her journal, she recorded this tilt as being
“judgy”) and asked, “Whoa. Everything okay?”
She said, “No. My beeping”—as Adam recorded in his journal—“social
studies teacher just gave me my first D ever.”
“That stinks.” He tried to think of something to say to make her feel
better. “Can you do the assignment over?”
She shook her head. “I can’t. He’s like a crazy Islamophobe who hates on
us Muslims.”
Adam was taken aback. At this fact and the intensity of the way she
pronounced it. He thought he glimpsed a . . . Was that a snarl on her face?
“Can you go to your principal? Speak up? If this teacher is treating you
unfairly?”
Zayneb surprised herself by grimacing at Adam. At him using the word
“if.” She was surprised both that he had said “if this teacher is treating you
unfairly”—as if she wouldn’t know whether someone was treating her
unfairly—and that she had made a face at him so openly.
But he was in the wrong to use “if” so effortlessly, so she held the
grimace and exploded with “It’s because of the principal I’m here in Doha
for two weeks!”
Adam put his right hand in his pant pocket and pinched the seams inside,
something he did when he was getting worried.
Zayneb’s expressions were getting him worried.
He’d never seen anger completely taking over someone’s face as it was
now, plainly and frankly, in front of him.
“I spoke up, as you said, in the stupid teacher’s class, and then, yes, I
took my frustration out by doodling a simple knife, BUT I WAS GOING
TO ADD THE FORK, and then I got suspended for one week!” She walked
ahead for a bit then paced back. “That’s why I’m here in Doha!”
Her voice was loud.
He looked around, wondering if the other visitors were getting as
alarmed as he was. Luckily, the family nearby had exhibit headphones over
their ears as they stood in front of a video on Islamic calligraphy through
the ages.

---

“Whoa. Okay, do you want to sit on that bench over there to talk about it
or even go to the café downstairs?”
She marched to the bench and took a seat. Then she stood up, agitated,
wanting him to understand the depth of her predicament. “He got me
suspended. Got my friend removed from student council and now just gave
me a D for dishing up the same BS he teaches in class.”
Adam walked over to the bench and sat down at one end. He was
confused about how to proceed.
Pragmatism, his old friend, poked him. Ah, yes.
He’d take it logically and find out why she was suspended. “So you got
suspended for speaking up in class?”
“No, for drawing a knife.”
“Okay. Can I ask why you drew a knife?”
“To accompany the hashtag EatThemAlive, which is this movement to
get racists removed from their jobs. Which we plan on doing to Fencer, my
teacher.” She sat down at the other end of the bench. “STILL plan on doing
to him. Get his racist ass fired.”
Adam blinked at the Marvels of Creation and Oddities of Existence
display right across from them. “Because he hates on Muslims?”
“Yes, completely for that reason.” She lifted her phone and scrolled
through it. “Like, look at this gross article he passed out in class just last
week.”
Adam reached for it and drew a breath at the title. 
GIRL BURIED ALIVE IN HONOR KILLING.
He flicked through, reading slowly. When finished, he lowered the phone
“Whoa.”
That irritated her, the “whoa,” the third one he’d muttered in the span of a
few minutes.
It sounded too much like the reaction of her classmates to that buried-girl
article.
She stared at him. Wait, what are his views on issues like these anyway?
Like, did he even have any of the same values she did?
“Could you stop saying ‘whoa’ like that? It’s kind of annoying.”
He looked at her. She found him annoying?
“WHY ARE YOU GUYS JUST SITTING HERE?” Hanna stalked over
to them. “I went ahead to the ceramics room and thought you were behind
me and almost went to the science room. But you guys are just taking a rest
here?”

---

Zayneb turned to her. “Yeah, we are. Because we’re old. And your elders.
Have a little respect, ’kay?”
Adam raised his eyebrows and took his hand out of his pocket. He wasn’t
worried anymore.
He was getting tired.
And he wanted to get Hanna away from Zayneb. “Hanna, do you mind
just waiting in the ceramics area? Zayneb’s kinda upset at something right
now.”
Looking crestfallen, Hanna walked away, glancing back at Zayneb a few
times.
“She’s got nothing to do with your teacher,” Adam said quietly.
Zayneb, guilt flowering within at the way Hanna looked back at her over
and over, with a mixture of shock and shame, felt her anger quelling.
She was about justice. And this, what she’d just done to a little kid,
wasn’t very just. “You’re right. I’ll apologize to her.”
Adam sat up. That was refreshing to hear. She’ll apologize to Hanna.
And she seemed to have calmed down. “Well, I’m sorry that you got
suspended. That your teacher is a terrible person.”
He looked at her face and saw that it was true—she had calmed. A bit.
A frown knitted her brow, though. “I can’t sit still when things are wrong.
I need to do something about it. Or I can’t rest.”
“Well, we are what we want.”
Now Zayneb tilted her head at him. (In his journal, he recorded this tilt as
being “in disbelief.”) “What does that mean?” she asked.
“It means whatever we want in life is what defines our existence.”
“Okay, so what do you want?” It must be something super peaceful, chill,
zen, Zayneb thought. If he was as good as he appeared.
“I want peace. I want to see it in the things around me, natural and not,
but mostly natural. The marvels of creation.” He nodded at the manuscript
displayed in front of them. “I want to examine how the wonders around me
are connected, find peace through that. What about you? What do you
want?”
He smiled encouragingly, and the frown she wore softened, because his
smile was that open.
She also felt satisfied about being right about him. About his wants being
so chill. Peace.
But the truth was there couldn’t be peace without—

---

She took a breath. “I want justice. And I want it now. For everyone.”
His smile grew as though he liked hearing that, and she, for the first time
in a long while, had a sudden, beautiful thought: He likes me for the way I