"There you are. Have you been hiding?"
Raj had found Bilal in the glade behind his mother's home. Bilal liked being there despite grass and stones dotting the ground that were not friendly to his skin. He enjoyed the ways the sun filtered through the leaves of the trees and transformed everything. He huddled in the shadows and hoped to become so small that he would eventually disappear.
Bilal didn't answer, and Raj sat next to him. Bilal wanted to be alone, but if anyone was going to interrupt his poor mood, then he was happy it was Raj. Bilal cared deeply for Lawrence because he was funny and upbeat and liked adventure enough to be best friends with an alien and a forty-year-old man. But he disagreed with Lawrence's idea that if anything bothered you, you should "just get over it." Unf
