IN ANOTHER LIFE

The first time I saw Aisha, she was not supposed to be on our street. Our street was for kids on bikes, for white picket fences, for moms calling their kids in for dinner at six sharp. It was not for a small girl in a blue hijab who stood at the edge of the sidewalk like she was afraid to cross it. I was eight years old. She was seven. Her backpack was bigger than her. Her hijab was too big for her head too, it kept sliding down over her eyes and she would push it back up with a small, annoyed hand. "Are you lost?" I shouted from my driveway where I was shooting hoops. She shook her head fast. "No." "Then why are you standing there?" She looked down. "My mom said I should not play here. She said your people don't like us." I did not understand what "your people" meant. We were just kids. We didn't have "people." We had names. I left my ball and walked to her. Her bag was heavy with books, some with gold Arabic writing I had never seen before. "I will help you," I said. "You'll drop it," she said, but she let me carry it. I held my hand out. She hesitated for one second, then held it. Her hand was small and sweaty. "I'm Daniel," I said. "I'm Aisha," she said, fixing her hijab. "Where's your house?" She pointed to the small house at the end of the street, the one that had been empty for a year. The paint was peeling. "They will be mad if they see you with me," she whispered. "Who?" "My mom. Your mom. Everybody." I puffed my chest out. "If my mom shouts, I will tell her you are my friend. Then she can't shout at my friend." That was how it started. A small lie to protect a friendship that should not have needed protecting. That night, my mother whispered to my father in the kitchen. I heard her from my room. "That Muslim family moved into the Hendersons' old house. With small kids. I hope Daniel won't get too involved." My father sighed. "We mind our own business. Let them be." But kids don't know how to mind their business. We know how to share candy. For three years, Aisha and I were inseparable. Every day after school, I would wait at the corner where her school bus dropped her. She would come down, her uniform neat, her hijab pinned perfectly, and we would walk home together. On Sundays, she would wait for me after church when my white shirt was too tight and my tie was choking me, and we would sit under the big oak tree behind our houses. That oak tree was our whole world. She taught me how to write my name in Arabic. Daniel in Arabic looks like art, I still remember it. I taught her how to sing church songs and she would laugh, covering her mouth, saying "Astaghfirullah, I shouldn't sing this." We promised each other everything under that tree. When I was eleven and she was ten, she brought a small pin. "Promise we will always be best friends," she said, serious like an adult. We pricked our thumbs, pressed them together. "Best friends forever. In this life and the next," I said. She smiled, that gap-tooth smile that would later break my heart without trying. "In another life," she whispered, correcting me. I didn't know then that another life would be the only place we would ever be allowed to love each other. *** I am sixteen now. Junior year. The oak tree is still there, bigger. But we don't sit under it together anymore. Not since last semester. Because last week, everything changed. Aisha was fasting. Ramadan. She doesn't eat or drink from morning till evening. That day, it was too hot. She fainted during lunch break, in front of everyone in the school courtyard. I didn't think. I didn't think about religion or moms or streets or what people would say. I just ran, picked her up, and carried her on my back to her house. Her hijab shifted a little, her breath was hot on my shoulder, her small hands holding my shirt weakly. Her mother opened the door. I will never forget that look. It was not angry. It was fear. "Aisha, inside. Now," she said, her voice shaking. Aisha slid down, didn't look at me, and ran inside. The door closed hard. I stood outside, my shirt wet, my cross necklace out of my shirt from running. That night, my mother sat me down. "Daniel," she said, "You are not a child anymore. You are becoming a man. You need to know, some friendships cannot enter adulthood." "What do you mean, mom?" She looked tired. "Aisha is a good girl. But she is Muslim. You are Christian. Her family will never allow it. Our family will never allow it. If you continue, you will destroy her life and your own." I nodded. What else do you do when your mother talks with tears in her eyes because she is scared for you? But the next day in school, junior classroom, second row near the window, I saw her again. She was wearing a new hijab, a deeper blue, pinned tighter than before, like armor. She was trying so hard not to look at me. The guys at the back were whispering. They had seen me carry her. "Yo, Daniel got a thing for the hijabi girl," one of them laughed. I wanted to punch him. Instead, I just looked at Aisha. And for the first time in eight years of knowing her, when our eyes finally met across the classroom, my heart did not beat like a best friend's heart. It beat like a man's heart. For a woman he was forbidden to love. She quickly looked down, but I saw it. Her hands were shaking. Her pen left a long ink line on her book. She felt it too. Under the desk, slowly, secretly, she pushed a small folded paper towards my desk. Our fingers touched for half a second. Half a second was enough to ruin both our lives. I hid it in my palm, heart beating in my ears. When the teacher turned to the board, I opened it. Three words in her neat handwriting: _We need to talk._ Outside the window, the old oak tree was swaying.