i.

Marina woke on a crisp day half-way through Nadia's second term at Las Encinas. She and Guzmán and Ander were in her room when it happened. Ander was showing Guzmán something on his phone while Nadia was translating an article for her international policy class when she thought she heard a sound coming from Marina's direction. She snapped her head up to stare at her and after a moment she saw it—Marina moved her lips and let out a low moan.

"Guzmán!" Nadia cried, "Guzmán! Marina! Look!"

Their parents were there in a half hour, and they and Guzmán and Ander all crowded around Marina's bed, crying and hugging her and calling her name over and over. Nadia was overjoyed. She wanted to hold Marina's hand, at least, but she'd never met Marina and Guzmán's parents before, hadn't known either of them for anywhere near as long as Ander, and she felt like an intruder. She stood by the door and wondered if she could slip out without being noticed. That was when Mrs. Osuna saw her. "You," she said, "Who are you? You're not a nurse, what are you doing here?"

Mr. Osuna peered at her for a moment, and he said "Aren't you one of those—"

"Father, she's my guest," Guzmán said, and then Nadia heard Marina's voice. It was tiny and weak, and everyone else had to fall quiet in order for them all to hear her. "Nadia?" she said tentatively. She looked uncertain at first, but then a smile bloomed on her face and she said Nadia's name with confidence. She held out a hand, and Nadia rushed over to take it.

88

Marina's happiness only lasted a few days after she woke. She'd had a miscarriage, and she started to get migraines that she had to take medication for, which left her feeling groggy and disoriented. Her muscles were weak and she needed help walking. All this Nadia learned from Guzmán. She had to hear it from him because Marina stopped accepting visitors, even her parents, and only allowed her brother to see her. She was querulous and given to throwing things across the room when she didn't get her way, and Guzmán was the only one of the Osunas who didn't start crying, or yell at her to stop. Samuel was desperate to see her, Nadia knew, but he was also angry and ashamed; and Nano had been gone for four months now, no one knew where he was. When Marina was released from the hospital, Nadia got a text from Guzmán that read: I won't be in school for a few weeks. We're going to stay home with Marina so we can help her settle in.

Nadia quickly texted him back: You don't need to keep me updated on your life. Then she bit her lip and typed furiously: Thank you for letting me know. Send Marina my love. Tell her I'm here if she needs a friend. That goes for you, too. She had to keep herself from texting again with: The friend part, not the other part. She sincerely hoped this wasn't what she sounded like when she spoke to him, but it was hard not to think so when she had the physical evidence in front of her.

With Marina awake and not seeing her, Nadia spent her free time with Omar and Ander. To her, her brother had always been a bit stoic. She'd never seen him have many friends, and certainly not any close ones. They'd never spoken much, and when they had it had usually been to exchange the simplest information—when their parents would be home, when family would be visiting, whether he'd be able to man the shop with her or not. Omar was the older brother expected to guard over his younger sister, keep her from other boys and the overindulgences of Spanish girls, but he had never taken that role very seriously. Nadia had never expected anything different from their relationship, never thought that they either of them had something deeper to share of themselves with each other. May had been the sibling she was closest to, even though she'd been older than them both. Nadia had always thought it was because May was more affectionate, and therefore easier to share things with.

But with Ander Nadia saw there were parts of Omar she didn't know at all. It wasn't that he was gay and now she knew, and it wasn't that he was suddenly unrecognizable to her, either. It was that with Ander she was able to see the full range of who Omar was, was able to see that who he had been with her for years, and who he still was in front of their parents, was only the faintest expression of everything he had to offer. He had a sly humor and he was teasing. He had an easy swagger that drew people to him and made them trust him, made them have confidence in him. He could make fun of you without hurting your feelings. And from what she saw, he knew a lot more about love and romantic relationships than she did. It hit her all of a sudden that maybe Omar had been closer to May, too, and that maybe the person it was hard to get close to wasn't him at all, but her. It hurt her to think that, but it hurt her more to think that she'd gone so long with Omar right there next to her, and she'd been blind to him. For all her devotion to her family, she'd somehow made her own brother feel that he wasn't important enough to her that he could be real with her.

He was important enough to her that Nadia lied to her parents easily.

"Mammi, Babba, Omar's taking me to the library downtown tomorrow to work on a school project, is that all right?" she called out from the front of the shop. Her mother popped her head in from the back and told her, "Yes, yes, just hurry and close down so we can have supper." Nadia smiled and nodded. She checked to make sure the door was locked and the blinds drawn, counted down the drawer, arranged all the receipts, then pulled the drawer out and carried it with her to the back of the shop.

The next day she and Omar went over to Samuel's, not the library downtown, where Omar met Ander and left her with a quick squeeze of her hand and a "Thank you." Christian was over, playing cards with Samu's mother and some of the neighborhood men. Nadia liked this about Samu's. Even without Nano, it was a place of congregation. She and Samu lounged on the couch in the living room, watching TV and not talking about Marina or Nano, or how he'd gone back to the same public school Omar attended, or anything else that meant something to them. Nadia looked out the window and did what she caught herself doing often now—before she fell asleep at night, when she brushed her teeth in the morning, when the shop was slow and she had no customers to help. She thought of Guzmán.

She knew Guzmán was in love with her. It was more than the words he said—that he wanted to date her, that he'd never wanted anyone so much, that they had a lot in common. Words were easy for him, too easy. He used them the way a butcher used a knife, aiming them precisely, whether he was lying or embellishing or confessing, so that he got the answer he wanted. Nadia knew he loved her because he wore it naked on his face. She could tell how different he was from both her and Omar because of it.

Omar'd had to hide who he was his whole life from her parents and even from her. He could move through the world and have people see him exactly as he wanted them to—straight, unassuming, harmless. She had never managed that kind of deception. The most Nadia had ever been able to do was contradict the assumptions people made of her. She took the ignorance of people who harassed her and exposed it for the bigotry it really was, stood up in class and spoke a foreign language with a better accent than any of the Las Encinas kids even though they were the ones with a lifetime of private education. But Guzmán had never had to hide or defend anything about himself, and so Nadia considered him closely, wondering what it felt like to never have to control yourself, to be so free. It made her heart skip a beat when what she noticed was his features softening when he looked at her, and a smile lighting up his face when he spoke to her, and his genuine curiosity about what she thought of mundane things. There was more than rich-boy flirtation behind his words. She wondered at how of all the things he could be honest about, it was this.

She knew, too, because of how upset he'd been with her at her reaction to Marina's HIV status. It was the only time he'd ever been truly upset with her, and it hadn't even been the worse thing she'd said to him. He'd been disappointed in her. It'd been as if he expected better of her, and that had been the first time Nadia thought that Guzmán truly cared about her opinion of him, that he could be hurt by what she thought of him. She hadn't realized until then that he gave so much weight to what she thought, hadn't realized that she in turn wanted to live up to the expectation his regard came with.

When her phone buzzed, she expected it to be Omar letting her know when he'd be back. It was Guzmán.

You should text me first sometimes.

Nadia couldn't stop the smile that came to her. She bit her lip to stop it taking over her entire face, shifted in her seat so Samu couldn't see it. She gazed at her phone, not answering him, just savoring the words from him on her screen.

This is why you should get on IG. That way we'd be able to keep up with each other even without calling or texting. Texting's almost archaic. Half my life is online.

Nadia wondered if he was really posting to his social accounts when Marina hadn't even been home for a month yet, and then she thought, Oh! Could I have checked his account this whole time? She suddenly felt silly, both because she'd been missing him again without noticing, and because hearing from him made her so giddy.

I miss you. What are you doing? Write me back.

Nadia didn't tell Guzmán that she missed him too. Instead she wrote: How are you? How's Marina?

He answered: Come over and see for yourself.

Nadia wanted to, but she'd promised Omar she'd wait for him at Samu's, and if she went across town to Guzmán's they wouldn't make it back home til late. Their father had relaxed since the past summer and was no longer looking for a wife for Omar, but that was no reason to risk provoking him.

I can't today, Nadia wrote, Can I come over another day?

Guzmán's answer was immediate: Come tomorrow.

88

Marina was the one who met her at the door. "Guzmán's not here," she said.

"Good," Nadia answered, "because I'm here to see you."

"Oh?" Marina raised an eyebrow at her. It made a wrinkle appear at the very top of her forehead, where her hairline started. Nadia recognized it as the very tip of the scar from her operation. She was in a wheelchair. Nadia hadn't known her condition was so serious that she couldn't walk.

"I don't really need this," Marina said, her tone airy. She waved a hand around, gesturing vaguely. "It's just Guzmán and my parents and the doctors insist I use it, on account I can't walk for more than ten minutes at a time without collapsing."

"I'm sorry," Nadia said, "I didn't mean to stare."

"Whatever." Marina turned and made her way down the hall.

All against the wall, and all around the rest of the Osuna home that Nadia could see, were boxes. Some were opened and others taped up, and they were labeled with the names of the rooms they were in. She hadn't been to Guzmán's since before Marina was attacked, and with the boxes everywhere it all looked so different that she couldn't recognize anything. Even the views from the signature floor-to-ceiling windows were partially blocked.

"Are you moving?" Nadia asked.

Marina looked over her shoulder at her like she was stupid. "Haven't you heard? We're bankrupt. We can't afford this place anymore."

"Oh," Nadia said, dumbfounded. She'd known that Guzmán's father was being investigated, Carla's too. She'd known that the watch Polo had attacked Marina for had brought to light dirty deals that both men had been engaging in, but she'd had no idea that it had left the Osunas in such a state. Guzmán had told her none of this.

Marina had turned in her chair, was looking at her with a face Nadia couldn't read. "What," she said, "do you pity us? Now that we're poor like you?" The words came like acid from her mouth.

Nadia blinked in surprise. Marina had never spoken to her like this before. Of all the Las Encinas kids, she had always been the kindest. At first Nadia had considered that maybe she was just some bored rich girl who thought the lives of those her family had damaged were more interesting than her own, but then she'd felt Marina's warmth. She'd seen in Marina what she hadn't been able to understand in her sister. She was a young woman who was looking for the truth of joy in life, but didn't know how to get it and keep it. Even more than her kindness, Marina had always been easy to be around. No carrying herself like she was better just because of her money, no delusions that anyone different form her wanted to take advantage of her. She'd been thoughtless and flighty, maybe even selfish, but she hadn't been slumming it. She'd accepted Nadia and Samu as they were and hadn't made them feel like they were worth less because of where they came from.

Nadia fixed her with a look she hoped didn't betray the hurt she felt. "No. I think I may be too poor to feel pity for people who got their money through bribing government officials and making public buildings that can't stand for more than three months."

"Ha!" Marina said, but it was full of bitterness.

Nadia couldn't understand it. She'd spent so long watching Marina in the hospital, hoping day after day that she'd wake. She'd come over expecting an extension of the brief reunion they'd had in the hospital room the day she'd woken up, and instead she was being insulted. She shook her head. She felt unmoored, suddenly, wanted to find something to help her locate herself in whatever it was Marina was throwing at her. "Why are you being—"

"Such a bitch?"

"—like this?" Nadia finished. "This is the first time I've seen you since…since before." She made an abortive gesture with her hand.

"So? You're just here to spy on me for Guzmán. You can fuck off and tell him not to bother."

"Why do you think I'm here because of your brother?"

"Why else would you be here?"

"Because I care about you!"

"Well I don't need it," Marina snapped. She drew her chin up, set her jaw. "I already have one suffocating sibling, I don't need you pretending I'm yours."

Nadia was too shocked to even glare. She'd told Marina about May in confidence. She'd told her about May as a way to reach out to her, to let her know that she was trying to understand her, and that she wouldn't make the mistakes with her that she'd made with her own sister. No one else at Las Encinas knew about May, not even Guzmán, and in fact Marina was the last person Nadia had spoken to about her. She and her family never mentioned her name at home.

The silence stretched taught between them. Nadia was the one who finally broke it. She said, "You're lucky to have Guzmán. He's the only one who can stand you." She turned to leave without waiting for an answer.

Nadia's heart beat quick in her ears as she left the house. Tears stung her eyes and she wiped them away impatiently with the back of her hand. She'd felt like this before. It was the same as after Lu had told her Guzmán was only being kind to her for the sake of a bet. All over again, she felt like these people were strangers to her and would always be so, that any distance she crossed was nothing to the distance between them. She felt stupid and silly for reaching out, for thinking that after just a few months of knowing her, she and Marina could be close. Worst of all, she felt exposed. Marina had brought her longing for May out into the open. What she'd said was tantamount to telling her she should be ashamed of it.

That night Nadia lay in her bed, unable to fall asleep. May and Marina were all tangled up inside of her, and after what Marina had said, she wanted to pull them apart. She didn't want to think of May when she saw Marina anymore, didn't want to go see Marina when she thought of May. She didn't want to think that if she ever saw May again, she'd push her away, just like Marina had. She remembered what she'd thought of Guzmán, about how he had such strict demarcations about people, but was steadfast once he let you into his life. She knew how easy it was for people to leave, and in her most honest moments, knew it was what she feared most.

There was a clatter at Nadia's window, and a moment later, Omar tumbled in through it. She left it open for him now, because his room was closer to their parents' and it was safer for him to come in through hers.

"Omar!" she heard a voice whisper up from below. "Omar! I love you!"

"Shhh!" Omar said, but his voice held laughter. "Go home!"

When he turned Nadia was sitting in her bed, watching him.

"Oh, shit!" he brought a hand to his chest. "You scared me," he whispered.

"You climb into my window in the middle of the night and you're the one who's scared?"

Omar shrugged. Nadia made a face at him. "Aren't you a little old to be playing Romeo and Juliet?"

Omar squinted at her in the dark, then took off his hoodie and climbed into her bed to sit next to her. They hadn't been in bed together since they were very little, back before their family had the store, when they used to sleep together with May. They'd used to tell each other stories late into the night and pretend to be asleep every time her father or mother came in to tell them to be quiet. Nadia scootched over to make space for him, just enough so he could fit, but not enough so that they weren't touching. It was only lately that she'd realized she'd missed Omar. She'd forgotten that when they were very young, maybe five and six, they'd been inseparable.

"Why are you so grumpy?" Omar asked.

"I'm not grumpy," Nadia snapped. Omar raised his eyebrows at her. Nadia made a face at him again, pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.

"Was that Ander?"

"Yeah."

"He just runs around all day, telling you he loves you?"

Omar got a dopey smile on his face. Nadia couldn't remember seeing him smile like that before she'd known about him and Ander. She wondered if he really hadn't or if it was just her who'd never noticed; she wondered how many of May's dopey smiles she'd overlooked. "Yeah," he said.

"Must be nice," she mumbled.

"What do you mean?" Omar asked. "Isn't that kid with the bad haircut into you, the uptight one?"

"You mean Guzmán, your boyfriend's best friend?" Nadia said pointedly.

"Whatever. I thought he was trying to get with you?"

Nadia took a moment before she answered. "Omar…Don't you ever feel like Ander is…too different from you?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean like, well, his mom. She had one conversation with Babba and he lost it."

"Yeah, but that's Babba," Omar said.

"Okay, well, what about all his money? Last break he went sailing in Corsica with his parents. You've been dealing so you can get your own place—which you don't do anymore, right?"

Omar ignored her question. "I mean, yeah, he's got money, but we don't really spend our time talking about sailing. Look, Nadia, what are you asking?"

"I guess—just—how is it so easy for you?"

"Easy?" Omar leaned away so he could look at her full in the face.

"No!" Nadia reached out, took hold of his arm with both her hands. "That's not what I meant. I mean…" She bit her lip. "How do you know you really like him?"

Omar shrugged again. "I just want to be with him. I like seeing him. And I don't get tired of it. Ten minutes, ten hours, it doesn't matter."

"It's really that simple?"

"I mean I'm climbing through windows, here, Nadia." She giggled, and it came out as a snort. Omar reached out and tugged on her nose.

"Is this really about that Guzmán kid?"

Nadia shrugged. It was about Guzmán, it was about Marina. It was about how much she was willing to let herself want, and if she was willing to get hurt for wanting. It was about how she sometimes wondered if Omar had been planning on leaving without telling her. It was about May, too, but Nadia didn't know how to say any of it.

"What do you see in him?" Omar asked her. "Isn't his favorite pastime making an ass of himself in front of our parents?"

"Oh, he does that more generally, actually. In front of teachers, in front of strangers… I think it might be a personality trait."

Omar laughed. "And you still like him?"

Nadia thought of the days she'd spent with Guzmán by Marina's bedside, of his smile, of how fun-loving he was and how he could surprise a laugh out of her; she thought about how much he loved Ander and how he went out of his way to protect his friends. Now at Las Encinas she didn't have only herself. She didn't have only her schoolwork and her academic goals. She had Guzmán. She wasn't anonymous in a sea of peers who identified her only as the Muslim girl. She could count on walking into school every morning, now with her hijab, to find Guzmán waiting by her locker, and he recognized her. It was such a relief to be known.

"I think…I like being with him," Nadia said. "And…"

"And?"

"I like that he likes me. I like how he looks at me."

Omar considered her, and again Nadia felt exposed. "What?" she asked.

"Nothing," Omar said, "I just never realized how alike we are, is all."

Later, after Omar left for his own room, Nadia thought about how just a few months before, their conversation would never have happened. If Guzmán, in his fit of spitefulness, hadn't told her Omar was gay, she never would have known. Instead of climbing into her bed to talk to her, Omar would have been living a life separate from her own, and she would have been languishing in her ignorance, totally unaware that he was planning to leave her, just like May did. It could have happened so easily. It would have been so easy for her to never have had the chance to face herself and see who she really was—if she was someone who would choose convenience and acquiescence over truth, if she was someone who could love her family without condition and without shame. She thought, In order for people to come back to you, you have to let them. Omar had let her come back into his life, and in return she had him back in hers. Marina had made it sound as though Nadia just missed her sister, that she wanted her forgiveness, but it wasn't so simple as that. What Nadia wanted was to be able to go back in time and be better for May, be for her what she knew now to be for Omar, so that she never would have left.

88

Nadia sat perched behind the register in her family's shop, chin in one hand, pen flipping between the fingers of the other. She was gazing into space, the conversation she'd had with Omar and a song she'd listened to with Guzmán weaving through each other in her mind. She was snapped out of her thoughts by a sharp rap on the storefront window. Guzmán was there, squinting in at her through the sunlight, and with him was Marina. He waved at Nadia, then pushed Marina into the store.

"Hey," he said.

"Hello," Nadia said, but her gaze was on Marina.

"We came to buy…" Guzmán looked around him, "this." He picked a tomato off a counter, walked around Marina, and placed it in front of Nadia.

"You came to buy one tomato?"

"Ah, yes. I'm thinking of using it in a soup."

"That'll be twenty-five cents."

"But I'm not done shopping."

"Then please feel free to continue, sir."

Guzmán gave her a soft smile and bowed his head. He looked over at Marina, then walked away, hands in his pockets, leaving Nadia and Marina facing each other.

Marina waited until he was at the very back of the store before she spoke. "You guys are so subtle." She picked up a potato, wheeled over to the counter, and reached up to place it next to the tomato. "I came to apologize," she said.

"Your suffocating brother isn't forcing you?"

"No. I asked him to bring me here." Marina looked down at her hands. They were fidgeting in her lap.

Nadia'd only slept a few hours, and it was only that morning that she'd been able to start thinking more clearly. Looking at Marina before her, with her hair big and curly around her face, so different from Guzmán, and her demeanor changed from the day before, Nadia thought about love, and how it had to be more than just a feeling—it couldn't be apathetic or dormant, or else it wasn't really love. In order to love, she thought, you have to act. You had to speak up, had to take a step closer to someone, had to forgive.

"Okay," she said.

Marina looked up at her sharply. "Okay? Just like that?"

Nadia pressed her lips together, nodded.

"Let me explain myself, at least."

"You don't have to, but if you want to, I'll listen."

"I want to." Marina took a deep breath. "You're the first person who's come to see me."

"Really?"

Marina nodded. "The only person. I remember before…" Marina's lower lip trembled, and Nadia wanted to reach out and hold her. "…At the ceremony last year," she continued, "I was so alone. Everyone was against me, even you, even Guzmán. I didn't know how I could face another day in that place. I'd always hated it, because everyone was always so fake, but that was the first time I'd felt like a stranger."

"Oh, Marina," Nadia said.

"Let me finish." Marina took another deep breath. "When I woke up I didn't remember at first. Guzmán was there, and Ander, and you. But then no one else came. It's been a month since I woke up, and Samu hasn't even called. Nano hasn't, either. And now I remember how everyone hates me." And with those words Marina's tears finally spilled over her cheeks.

Nadia's heart went out to her. She rushed from behind the counter, bent over her, hugged her.

"Don't believe that Marina, at least not about me," Nadia said. She pulled back, placed both her hands against Marina's cheeks and held her face. "I don't hate you."

"Even after what I said?"

Nadia shook her head, gave her a gentle smile.

Marina's in return was faint. She was still crying. She sniffled. "I have something for you." She pulled a small rectangular box from the pocket of her sweatshirt. It was a case for glasses. "Here. Guzmán told me gifts work on you."

"So you brought this, just in case?" Nadia gave her an exasperated look and shook her head, but she still took the case from her. Inside was a pair of sunglasses.

"Come on, let me put them on you."

Nadia leaned forward, and Marina slid them onto her face. "Look," she said. She turned Nadia's face to the glass storefront with gentle fingers on her chin. In her reflection, Nadia recognized the sunglasses as the ones Guzmán had worn the day after his father's benefit. She passed a finger over the frames. "Aren't these your brother's, for his hangovers?" she asked.

"No, they're mine, for my hangovers," Marina said, and Nadia remembered then that Marina had been wearing the very same ones the day after Samu's party. "He stole them from me," Marina said. Nadia laughed at the image this brought to her, of the Osuna siblings squabbling over a pair of sunglasses.

Guzmán came up behind them then from the back of the store. When he saw Nadia a grin spread over his face. "Hey," he said, "aren't those—"

"Don't even try it," Marina said, "I'm the one who bought them."

Guzmán shrugged. "They look better on Nadia anyway."

Marina stuck her tongue out at him. Nadia had to cover her mouth with her laughter.

Guzmán looked between them. "All made up?" he asked.

Marina reached out and took Nadia's hand between both of her own. "Are we?"

Nadia nodded.

ii.

With her brother dating his best friend, and herself being so close to his sister, Nadia and Guzmán drew closer and closer to one another; what they had between them became more than curiosity and flirtation. If Nadia had to name it, she'd say that Guzmán was someone who'd found a place in her life and fit himself into it. He became familiar to her, so that she knew his gestures and thoughts, his peculiarities and his real charms, not just the ones he put on display to get what he wanted. He was frustrating but he could be so sweet, and somehow, between her exasperation and her genuine attraction, he became an intrinsic part of her life. She didn't tell him this, but she felt she could rely on him. It was something she prized above almost anything else, the stability of someone you could turn to when you found yourself tired or uncertain or flagging. Beside that feeling lay a strange desire to protect him, to have him rely on her, too.

She and Guzmán, she and Marina, she and Omar and Ander, they all became enfolded into each other's lives. Nadia spent afternoons at Ander's place with Guzmán, and when Omar made it over from school, she and Guzmán would give them room to be alone; later, Guzmán would give her and Omar a ride home so that they wouldn't be late, dropping them a few blocks away so that their parents wouldn't see them climbing out of his car. Omar ragged on Guzmán almost as much as Guzmán flirted with her, and it left her in stitches to see how red his face got, unable to say anything because Omar was her brother and Ander's boyfriend. She spent weekend days in the new Osuna home, and Guzmán and Marina trusted her enough to let her see moments she knew they didn't share with anyone else. Guzmán once thanked Marina for staying alive and coming back whole, even apologized to her for having been friends with Polo. The day Marina started school again, one grade behind her and Ander and Guzmán because of all the time she'd missed, Nadia met her beforehand, and they walked onto the campus together.

Watching Marina and Guzmán together, Nadia saw that they loved each other deeply. There was a tactile affection between them that showed in hugs and kisses and ruffling hair, but it was also in quieter things, like how Guzmán knew all the medication Marina took and when, and set them out on a tray for her with a fresh glass of water. Nadia learned that when they'd been eight years old, Marina had started a tradition where she chose a day in the year to celebrate his birthday with just the two of them, a day separate from the one their parents had chosen. It changed every year, and it was always a surprise for Guzmán. Nadia thought it was the cutest thing, and was touched when Marina invited her to join in for the coming year.

Nadia had once wondered what she was to Guzmán. One day she learned. She overheard the tail-end of a conversation between Guzmán and his mother. She heard Mrs. Osuna ask, "Why do you spend so much time with that girl?"

She heard Guzmán say, "Because she's important to me."

One of the things Nadia enjoyed doing best was visiting the open market. She liked stopping by the different stalls to sample the food and touch the different fabric, and her father always gave her some extra money to purchase anything she spotted and thought they should start carrying at the shop. She liked best that it was open to everyone, and it was always crowded and bustling, full of all different kinds of people speaking in dialect and different languages, haggling for just the right price. On this visit, she brought Guzmán with her. They strolled down the cobbled streets, joking and teasing, the sweet tension of their friendship unfurling between them and wrapping them in their own little world. Nadia stopped at her favorite stalls to show Guzmán what she liked, and he insisted on carrying the cloth bag she brought with her for her purchases.

"You know, I'm surprised at you," Nadia said

"About what?"

"I thought you'd be angry and moody. About having to move and being broke and everything."

"I don't get moody, I get justly upset," Guzmán said. Then he shrugged. "And anyway, I have Marina. I have my parents. I have you."

Nadia laughed, and she wasn't even embarrassed at how delighted she sounded. "You have me how?" she asked.

"You're here walking with me, aren't you?" The smile he gave her managed to be smug and winsome all at once.

"Guzmán, I'm the one who invited you. You're the one walking with me."

"Always so superior and so precise," he said, and he had the nerve to sound fond. "You'll make a great secretary general one day."

"But I don't want to work in the Secretariat. I want to work with the ICJ."

"The ICJ?"

Nadia started to explain to him the different sections of the UN, and the kind of work she wanted to pursue when she got older. She was about to mention a documentary about the Hague Tribunal when out of the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of a mass of long, dark, curly hair.

The same thing that always happened happened again. Her breath stopped short, caught in her throat. Without another word to Guzmán, Nadia twisted around to get a better look of what she thought she'd seen.

"Nadia?" she heard Guzmán say her name. She turned right, turned left, and when she didn't see a woman with hair almost exactly like her own, she started moving. She pushed past other market-goers, using her shoulders and her elbows, dropping bags to the ground and cutting in front of people who were looking into stalls. Behind her, Guzmán apologized to the people she pushed, crouched down to pick up the things she'd knocked over. "Nadia!" she heard him say. But she had to find her. She had to find May. Nadia was sure she'd seen her, it had to be her, she couldn't be wrong this time, not again.

But she reached the end of the street that held the market and there was no May. A wave of panic struck her and she cried out. "No!" At that moment Guzmán caught up to her, reached out and touched her shoulder. "Nadia?" he said, and she flung his hand off her. She stood, chest heaving, body shaking, eyes wide but seeing nothing.

"Nadia. Nadia, talk to me," Guzmán said, but she didn't know how. Guzmán approached her slowly. He placed one hand on her elbow and with it gently guided her back towards the market.

"No," Nadia said, and shook her head. "No, no, no."

"It's all right," Guzmán said, "It's ok."

He brought her only to the very edge of market, at the end of the street where it was quieter. There was a stall manned by a woman wearing a hijab. "Excuse me," Guzmán said to her, "Could we please use your stool? It's only for a moment. My friend, she just needs to sit—"

"Of course," the woman said. She'd caught the sight of Nadia's stricken face. Guzmán thanked her. He placed a hand on each of Nadia's shoulders and lowered her onto the stool. Then he crouched in front of her.

"Nadia. Tell me what's wrong," he said. But what was wrong was so big, and she'd kept it to herself for so long, and it was so much a part of her that Nadia didn't know where to begin. She shook her head, and instead of speaking she let out a low moan and started to cry.

Guzmán dropped to his knees then. He gathered her up in his arms and held her close. Nadia sobbed into the fabric of his shirt, coughing and sniffling and gasping for breath. It was minutes before she quieted. Guzmán still held her. Finally, when the pain inside her subsided to the dull ache it usually was and what she felt most was a sore throat and an oncoming headache, Nadia shifted in his arms. Guzmán pulled back slowly. Nadia kept her face averted. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and Nadia used it to wipe her face, blow her nose.

Guzmán stayed kneeled in front of her, hands in his lap, but he didn't ask her anything. Nadia sent a silent thank you to him. She didn't know if she'd be able to say what she needed to if he spoke right then.

She cleared her throat. "I'm scared that I've numbed myself," she said.

Guzmán still said nothing.

"Sometimes I miss you and I don't even realize it until after I've been feeling it for days." Her voice was raw.

"I'm right here," Guzmán said. "If you miss me I'm always right here."

"But you can't promise me always, can you?"

"What do you mean?"

"And that's the thing, Guzmán, I'd never ask you to tie yourself to me like that, because that'd be unfair."

"Nadia, slow down, tell me what you mean."

Nadia took a shaky breath, and she told him. "I had a sister." She took another breath and she told him again. "I have a sister. Her name is May. May Shanaa. She's older than me, and smarter than me, and if she were around Marina would love her, and she broke my parents's hearts because she left us and we don't know where she is."

Nadia told him about how when she was little, the only person who could stop her crying was May; she told him how May helped teach her to read, and how she'd used to want to be like her. She told Guzmán about what it was like after May left, about how bereft she felt, and how she didn't have any time to be with her pain because she had to rush in and fill the gap that May left, rush in and be the daughter who wasn't a disappointment. She told him how May had reached out to her, and she told him how she'd failed her, again and again. She said, "I miss her so much, Guzmán. I miss her and it hurts. But I can't even ask her to come back. She shouldn't come back, because we'd just suffocate her. Like we're doing with Omar. She was right to leave, and she's better off without me."

Guzmán took each of Nadia's hands in his own and looked up at her with his face open and genuine.

"Nadia, do you trust me?"

"Ugh, don't try your Aladdin stunt with me."

His smile was quick, small. "I'm being serious. Do you trust me?" He rubbed the back of her hands with his thumbs.

Nadia's first impulse was to remind him how their relationship started—with his father's fraudulence, with her spying him in the showers with Lu, with his trying to deceive and humiliate her. The words I have no reason to were on the tip of her tongue. But she thought of how much she wanted May to come back to her, how much she wanted May to forgive her for all her shortcomings, for how little she'd known when she'd been at home; she thought of Omar and how she was only now getting to know him in ways that mattered to him, or how, even if it had only been for a moment, she'd asked him to be less than who he was. Nadia took a shaky breath.

"I do. So don't hurt me." The words came out harsh, like they were a curse and not a confession. She barely managed to get them out.

"Then believe me," Guzmán said. "You're the best person I know. You're brave and you're kind and you're honest. You protect the people you love, and you forgive people. You're so good, Nadia, and you don't even know it, because you're arrogant enough to think everyone should be like you—"

Nadia drew Guzmán into a fierce hug, didn't let him finish. She shut her eyes tight against what she was feeling because it was overwhelming her. "Thank you," she breathed out.

"Don't thank me," Guzmán said. His arms were tight around her. Nadia leaned all her weight against him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders, letting her hold on herself go, and Guzmán took all of her, held her up.

"Being in a family is hard," he said. "Families are hard. They hurt you, and they fuck up. But being alone is harder. Omar needs you. And if your sister ever comes back, she'll need you, too. I don't know her, but I know this—your sister loves you." He said it with so much conviction.

"It's impossible not to love you."

It startled a laugh out of her. She swatted his shoulder blade. "Don't exaggerate," she said.

"I'm not."

Nadia kept her eyes closed and held on to Guzmán. She held on and on and on, and he let her.

88

She shouldn't have cried in the chilly air. The next morning Nadia woke up with a stuffy nose and a raw throat, and her father made her stay home. Her mother manned the shop, and he made her tea with lemon in it and brought it to her in bed on a tray. He used a teacup she and May used to play with when they pretended to have fancy adult dinner parties. It made her smile.

"Thank you, Babba," Nadia said.

"Of course." Her father pressed a kiss to her forehead. He passed his fingers over her face in a loving gesture, then held her chin and smiled at her. "Call out if you need anything."

With her tea half-done, Nadia pulled out her phone. She opened the app she'd only just downloaded a few days before. The picture she'd chosen for her profile was one Guzmán had taken of her for their project over a year ago, back when she was just starting to learn how he could surprise her, just starting to think that she wanted him to surprise her. In the photo she is wearing a dark red hijab that sets off the curve of her brows and matches her lipstick; her chin is tucked in and her head slightly lowered, so that her gaze comes from below her lashes, and there's the tiniest curve of a smile at the corner of her mouth. Guzmán had managed to capture so much about her in just one frame—her playfulness, her intelligence, her self-possession. Nadia liked this photo of herself, liked the thought that it was what Guzmán saw in her.

She only had 4 connections so far, Omar, Marina, Samu, and Christian. She scrolled through the app, found Guzmán's profile, and before she could chicken out, sent him a request.

10:50 Shanaasaysnah: Want to start a virtual friendship to compliment our real one?

10:52 ✓ Friend request accepted by OGnunier
10:53 OGnunier: Anything for you ;D

Nadia spent the rest of the day exchanging messages with Guzmán. She had to talk him down from skipping school and coming over to her place to tend to her himself, and she kept rolling her eyes because even over the phone he was a raging flirt. He posted a picture of himself getting cold medication at a pharmacy with the caption, 'So she'll get better quickly and I can see her again.' Nadia was giddy with pleasure. She held the feeling close to her, promised herself she'd care for it, and care for herself.