Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel by Sara Farizan

  TELL ME Once more

HOW A CRUSH

SHOULD

Experience

SARA FARIZAN

ALGONQUIN 2014

Too Past SARA FARIZAN

IF YOU COULD Exist MINE

For my Mr. Miyagi, Chris Lynch,

and my Fairy Godmother, Elise Howard.

Give thanks you for believing in me, even when

I don't believe in myself sometimes.

Contents

I

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Xi

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

20

Twenty-ane

Twenty-2

Twenty-three

Twenty-four

Twenty-five

Twenty-6

Xx-7

Twenty-8

Twenty-nine

30

Thirty-1

Xxx-two

Xxx-three

Acknowledgments

Reader'due south Guide

Most the Author

About Algonquin

One

My copy of The Color Purple lies in forepart of me on my desk, the spine bent and wrinkled from the many times I've pored over the book. I have so many things to say about the beautiful prose, the characters, only I won't . . . because I, Leila Azadi, am a Farsi scaredy-true cat. I tin't believe even English language grade makes me anxious these days.

"Now, when Walker describes Shug through Celie'due south eyes, what is she trying to convey?" Ms. Taylor has, of grade, managed to touch on the one subject area in The Color Imperial that I tin can't fifty-fifty begin to comment on.

Please don't call on me.

Delight don't phone call on me.

Ms. Taylor is eyeing the class like a hawk about to swoop down on some unsuspecting field mice. A really hot militarist with great hair and an appreciation for literature, I might add . . . which reminds me, I should stop burdensome on her in course, especially since information technology's the start of the school year.

Ms. Taylor sets her sights on my friend Tess. "Any thoughts?" she asks.

Tess looks upwards at Ms. Taylor with those mousy optics, her servant glistening nether the fluorescent lights. I've told her to stop wearing it at school, but she insists her teeth will not exist compromised for popularity.

"I think Celie finds Shug bonny . . . like in a romantic style," Tess says.

The snickering begins with Ashley Martin and Lisa Katz. They're the girls every guy at our school has fantasized about since we were in ninth class, which I find strangely disturbing. I'm pretty sure Mr. Harris, our science teacher, has been seeing Ashley outside of school. I should probably tell Ms. Taylor that considering she and Mr. Harris have been dating since the commencement of the school year. They have never said anything virtually it, simply it's then obvious, especially when he comes all the way from the scientific discipline edifice to borrow chalk from her. I should get him a gift card to Staples and tell him almost all the discounts he can get on function supplies.

Mr. Harris is similar one of those guys who loved his fourth dimension in high school and decided never to grow up. I would probably detect him endearing and dreamy similar everyone else if I didn't resent him for dating a woman far superior to him . . . and if I wasn't failing his snooze of a course. Why would I ever care most frictionless dispatch anyway? How is that always going to become me a girlfriend?

Not that I dare think nearly that. I'grand not ready to announce my lady-loving inclinations as yet. I can hear the whispering, knowing that what they are snickering about could easily be me. I'm already different enough at this schoolhouse. I don't need to add anything else to that.

As Tess struggles through her reply to Ms. Taylor's question, Ashley cackles with the fervor and depth that only a bitchy blond sixteen-year-old tin muster. Manifestly Lisa is no longer interested. She looks dorsum to her notebook, hiding her face by pulling her chocolate-brown bangs down. It's a habit she's had since we were kids.

Lisa and I went to the aforementioned private simple school. She's richer than God—her father is some kind of CEO—plus she'due south attractive and dresses well. Considering our totally different social circles now, it's difficult to believe nosotros were friends every bit kids. But back then we both had an obsession with Roald Dahl books, and that was all that was necessary.

"Very good, Tess," says Ms. Taylor. "Celie does take strong feelings for Shug. Is it possible for her, even though she is married, to exist attracted to another woman?"

The course is silent again. I detest when this happens. I've never done well with awkward silences or pauses. I can always hear people breathing. I can hear myself breathe. It'south the most uncomfortable feeling ever. Usually I'd make a joke or something, merely this subject is too risky. They'd all know.

"Robert? What practice you think?" Ms. Taylor has caught another of Armstead Academy'due south finest in her talons now. Robert Peters is on the soccer team, rows on the crew squad, and gets great grades, but I don't understand why he works so hard. His parents own a tater bit brand pop in New England, and Robert will inherit the company when he grows upwardly. He always has a Gatorade bottle with him, full of piss-yellowish Gatorade and vodka. He gets a picayune loopy from the alcohol by history, which is two periods away, but keeps it together enough that teachers don't observe.

"I don't know, Ms. Taylor. I've never been married and I'yard not a lesbian." Everyone laughs, this fourth dimension including me. I don't really mean information technology, but the fake express joy is high schoolhouse protocol. Everything'due south a distraction when you're rich and handsome, like Robert. Why upset the condition quo? Though I'grand not one to talk. My dad's a surgeon.

My parents are both originally from Iran and think education is the most important thing. To give them credit, Armstead has facilities and resource beyond those of a lot of small colleges. Nosotros take a sleek fitness gym to train Olympic athletes (we've had two in the past 8 years) and our dining hall is like a castle out of Harry Potter.

At first, when I came here in 9th class, I really loved the place. I got along with everybody, I loved my classes, and I enjoyed sports. Information technology all kind of went awry afterward coming together Anastasia this past summer at a Global Young Leaders of the Futurity camp, where we spent ii weeks having mock debates while representing our countries in the United nations. I was put in the People's democratic republic of algeria group, the only Middle Eastern state other than Israel represented. Anastasia was representing Ghana, but she was from France.

Anastasia had a reddish birthmark near her countenance that she didn't seem at all self-conscious about. Ane day she cornered me in the dorm lounge and talked to me virtually the concept of privilege and how I was a naive, spoiled girl who didn't know anything about the world around me. I plant her fascinating.

By the fourth dimension the Festival of Nations came around, where we all dressed upwards in inappropriate ethnic garb from our represented countries, Anastasia came up to me while I wore a hijab and she was wearing a dashiki, which was clearly meant for a homo. We looked ridiculous, simply we had been talking for days almost our favorite musicians, her melodramatic poems, and my crap photography skills, and by this time there was this . . . tension between us. I had no idea what that tension was; I just knew I shouldn't pursue it. But I couldn't cease thinking about it, either.

Anastasia asked me to help her notice her djembe pulsate in her dorm room before the festival got underway. We went upstairs to her room, and she locked the door. She swung me around past my arm and asked me if I

had ever been properly kissed earlier. I thought back to playing spin the bottle in 6th course and kissing Andrew Cassidy. His osculation tasted like Fritos, a snack I can't stand. Then there had been my semiformal appointment, Greg Crawford. We kissed for ten minutes. I wanted to feel something, but I didn't.

And so here was Anastasia, gently tugging at my hijab-covered arm, breathing softly on my lips, looking at the shape of my eyebrows and pushing back my head scarf with her other hand. I told her that no, I didn't recall I had been properly kissed. And then it happened.

She inched closer. My ears were warm plenty to heat up a Hot Pocket. My stomach felt the fashion information technology had on the Thunderbolt coaster at Vi Flags New England. I wondered if Anastasia would know that I practiced kissing on my pillow and could never quite figure out where my natural language was supposed to go.

All my wondering was put to rest when our lips met. The kiss started tedious, her lips figuring me out, asking whether information technology was okay to continue their dance. I backed away slightly, looked her in the eye—and started to cry.

And and then I knew for sure what I had been trying to avoid for then long. Everything rushed to the surface. I cried as I remembered throwing the dress I had received for my 3rd birthday on the floor. I cried as I remembered wanting to be best friends with a daughter in fifth grade because she was so pretty. I cried equally I remembered always rescuing the girl, played past a stuffed animal, while pretending to be Indiana Jones. I cried and Anastasia kissed my lips again, this fourth dimension aggressively, her tongue asking for acceptance. We missed the festival, but we couldn't have cared less.

Our fling lasted through a couple more make-out sessions, but Anastasia ended up liking some guy named Enrique by the time the mock Un summit rolled around at the end of the summer. I was heartbroken. I threatened almost every country at the conference with any military capabilities People's democratic republic of algeria had. My other group members had to appease everyone afterward past offering to export more than oil. After days of the two of u.s.a. not speaking, the plan came to an end and Anastasia pulled me aside in the girls' bathroom.

She said this was simply the beginning for me and I was going to find someone special. She said she was a mess and I could do better. At the time I didn't believe her, simply I was willing to put up with her melodrama for ane terminal buss. We broke apart when we heard a toilet flush. A Japanese girl came out of the stall, washed her easily, and booked it out of there.

Subsequently this past summertime, I came dorsum a lilliputian wiser to the universe, having met people from all over the globe. I realized I was different, and that Anastasia might not have been the only one who had figured that out nearly me.

"Leila, what exercise you recall?" Ms. Taylor's question pulls me out of my daydreams. I experience everyone'due south optics on me.

What do I think? After the summer I was thinking likewise much. I started noticing things I hadn't before, like our hallway janitor, who had to clean up the snack wrappers we tossed onto the floor, fifty-fifty though a wastebasket was a few feet away. I started noticing how all the blackness kids in our class, seven in total, saturday in i spot by themselves and were always pointedly asked what they thought in grade whenever we studied slavery or the civil rights motion. Greg hates beingness asked, and I don't know why he doesn't say something to his mother, who is on the board of trustees.

I too began to notice how white everything was. The students, the students' teeth, and the fences surrounding the outdoor swimming pools nosotros never used. We all seemed to categorize ourselves without always explicitly maxim anything. Where does that get out students who don't have a clear category?

"Can Celie be attracted to another woman?" Ms. Taylor is standing virtually my desk. Ashley Martin folds her arms and Robert Peters guzzles his Gatorade bottle.

"With a husband every bit awful as Celie'due south, I don't blame her. Am I right?" I say with a chuckle that near sounds real amongst the laughter of my peers.

Two

"What are you up to?"

Greg pulls up a chair adjacent to me in the computer lab. I quickly minimize Anastasia's Facebook page and turn to him. So perhaps I'm non completely over her.

"Oh, nothing. What'south up?"

"I saw the new trailer for Zombie Killers Part V. It's pretty ill."

"No way! The teaser trailer wasn't supposed to come out until November!"

"Hey, I know a guy. Here, I'll show you," he says, commandeering my computer as I shift my chair a little to the side.

Greg's the kind of guy I wish I could beat out on. He and I accept a lot in common. We both like comic books and hip-hop, and we both think that Naya Rivera is our dream daughter—though he doesn't know that. He types in a web address and hovers the arrow over grainy footage of zombies parachuting out of the sky.

"Holy crap!" I say, and Greg turns to face me.

"I know!" We expect at each other in excitement, but his eyes linger a petty too long. I scoot abroad as he rubs the nape of his cervix and looks back at the screen, almost as an apology.

At the semiformal dance we went to last year, he told me he'd liked me for a long time. I intendance nearly Greg . . . I just wish he didn't accept a crush on me. I suppose it's flattering and makes me feel pretty. Other people have told me the same affair, only I never feel that way. I experience . . . not all the same assembled, if that fifty-fifty makes sense.

After our make-out session last spring, I didn't call Greg for about two weeks. Eventually he called and asked if I was okay. I told him I didn't want to ruin our friendship by dating, and I could tell he was upset, merely he agreed that our friendship was more important. I knew he'd exist fine and engagement some hot girl who would care for him like crap, and I'd be left to moon over some girl of my ain.

"I thought McNair died in the last one," I say, watching the trailer on the screen.

"Well, he came dorsum as a zombie."

"Just he'due south a zombie hunter. So he's hunting his own kind? Talk about self-loathing." God, nothing in this franchise makes sense. When women in bikinis who accept cypher to do with the plot bear witness up, Greg clears his pharynx. I pretend I don't observe and hope I'one thousand non blushing.

I haven't had a crush on anyone from school, which is a blessing. At Armstead everyone knows everything near everyone, even people y'all've never had a conversation with. While the school is physically impressive and has a lot of land and buildings, there are less than six hundred students, grades seven through twelve, inhabiting its halls. At that place are paintings and photographs of former educators and students, most of which look to be of the WASP variety, dating from the school's inception in the 1800s.

The campus boasts several athletic fields, a behemothic gymnasium, a hockey rink, lawn tennis courts, squash courts, a performing arts center, a photography lab, a science edifice, a edifice for the middle school, and 3 computer labs. In that location'southward also a library, which is small and mostly used as a identify to nap or read magazines.

The Zombie Killers trailer ends and Greg moves to a chair next to mine. "Are you going to Lisa Katz's party this weekend?" he asks, checking his Facebook newsfeed.

"I didn't know I was invited." Greg and I aren't exactly in the cool group. We're more in the centre—non popular simply non ostracized, either. There are a few well-established tiers within the social hierarchy at Armstead, even so Greg and I have somehow managed to remain floaters.

The absurd kids are Ashley, Lisa, and their shopping buddies, some jocks, and some billionaire kids. I don't understand how absurd kids discover one some other. It's like they have sonar for who is socially acceptable and who isn't.

"Yeah, information technology'due south similar a back-to-school thing," Greg says. "Virtually anybody's invited. You going?"

"Oh, I don't know. I have a ton of work."

"Homework? It'southward a Lisa Katz party, Leila! I've heard her firm is badass. We've got to cheque it out!"

I don't tell Greg that I went to Lisa'southward house all the time when I was younger. She and I always had a pretty good time, until her mother showed up. Stephanie Katz always put me on edge. There was something about her that fabricated

me nervous all the time. She didn't yell or scream. She would but phrase things in a certain way that made you feel inferior or useless, similar "I didn't think you were familiar with Charles Dickens's work," or "Your mother has such an interesting accent. The style she says ' vatermelon' instead of 'watermelon.' "

Lisa and I stopped hanging out when she came to Armstead in 7th grade. I came in ninth grade, and Lisa wasn't superenthused to see me in her class. By the time I got here from my quondam school, Ashley had kind of swooped in on Lisa. They had this weird bond that I didn't understand. They talked nigh clothes and Television shows I never had an interest in. It was like watching a Seventeen magazine article come up to life, where the models look like they're laughing near something you just wouldn't understand. I think I had a window to join in but blew it when Ashley looked down and saw I was wearing sandals with socks. I have since remedied this, only in my defense force it was cold and those sandals were inside Armstead wearing apparel lawmaking. I don't think Lisa or I really missed each other that much, only sometimes I wonder how she's doing when I see her in class. She seems so . . . different now.

Lisa'southward older brother, Steve, died final yr in a automobile accident on Route 128. Dorsum when nosotros were younger, Steve would hang out with me and show me his X-Men action figures when his sister had to practice the piano. Lisa hated playing, but her female parent insisted it was a skill she would be thankful for in the future, and she had to exercise every twenty-four hours at 5:xv. I heard "Für Elise" over and over once more while Colossus and Sabretooth duked it out for supremacy. Sometimes Steve let me, as Colossus, win.

During Steve'southward funeral service, Lisa saturday quietly adjacent to her mom, pulling downwardly her bangs in forepart of her optics. For the shivah, a few days later, I went over to her house with a plastic bag in my hand. Ashley and all the pop kids were leaving as I walked in. We said hey, and they pointed me in Lisa'south direction. I stood around for a while, feeling a little out of place. I hadn't been to her house in ages. The house seemed twice as large every bit I remembered and then empty, even with all the mourners ignoring the table full of food. Lisa made eye contact with me and excused herself from a grouping of her father's business partners.

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