This isn’t working. Why can’t you see it? Why can’t you see ME?

There’s something I need to ask you.

My words echo on the line. I hate when there’s a time lag on calls, and I can hear my own voice bouncing back at me. It makes me so self-conscious.

“Sure, sweetie,” Ima says a moment later. Her voice is warm, guileless. I can’t imagine Ima hiding stuff from me, and not being absolutely straight and honest with all of us. And yet she did. She hid something huge. And… and she sent me back here, where it all began, without knowing a thing.

I open my mouth, play with the words, try to formulate them into a question. I don’t want to accuse or demand, but I do want to know—

“Is that Ashira? Can I speak to her?”

“Just a minute, Mali. Shir?”

I picture Ima, probably doing a million things at once in our large-but-oh-so-old kitchen back in India. Maybe there’s challah dough rising on the counter, a tower of vegetable peels, soup bubbling on the stove. Mali’s around, so Ita Naomi is probably also, and then Abba could walk in any minute with some guest….

Even if I ask, even if I find the words — Ima’s not going to tell me anything I don’t know. Not with everyone around.

“Never mind, I have to go to school now,” I say, the words dry and sandpapery on my tongue.

And then I stand, holding the silent phone, feeling even further away than before.

There are lots of things I don’t like about school, but geography class probably tops the list.

It’s just… boring.

The teacher is Miss Wolff, and for some reason half the class is obsessed with her. I don’t understand why; she teaches as if she memorized the textbook the night before. She also seems to think we’re around five years old.

“Great question, Michal! We’ll get to it next lesson,” she says, jotting something down in her planner. I’ll bet she’s going to look it up in the meantime.

We’re reviewing the differences between immigrant, emigrant, economic migrant, and refugee, and I’m sorry, it just is… Boring. Like, no other word for it.

I push my textbook to one side of my desk, position my pencil case carefully, and slip the letter out of my bag. Yes, I’ve brought it with me. I don’t know why. I just… feel like I need it with me. Maybe I think if I read it one more time, I’ll figure out what it means.

The words haven’t magically changed and shifted into something more coherent. I read it again anyway, beginning to end, sentence by sentence. I trace the heavy, angry, purple ink with my fingers, wishing the paper could speak, give me answers.

I CAN’T LIVE LIKE THIS ANYMORE.