- Sundus and I first met in middle school. We became friends not because we got along, but because she was new, afraid, and out of place. New people rarely came to AlNajem school, and when they did, it was their parents who sent them there them to change the rebellious nature of their personality. Our school was dull and small, and all the new people looked the same: shocked, processing how they ended up in the gray and pink uniform. Sundus’s mother wanted Sundus to be better, reserved and smart, but the school only reminded Sundus of what she didn’t want to be, reserved and smart. I knew who I was supposed to be too, but I also didn’t know who I wanted to be. I used Sundus to understand life and I helped her in her attempts to experience life outside of the school’s gate. She met Sami, Moe, and many others, and when she returned with her unfixed braid and her smirk, she described to me what was outside the gate. “There is a narrow street that leads to a boys’ school, and they stand outside of it, not like us,” she said. “Join me, next time.” I never agreed to join her because the images she created in my head were enough, and I always thought of the part when she gets caught, but she never did.
- Before the flood, and by the end of our senior year, Sundus had dated 11 boys from the boys’ school at the end of the narrow street. Her longest relationship was three months with Moe. She felt like he could be something more than a boy from the boys’ school, but Sundus’s plans to run to a different country after graduation ended the relationship like the ten others before. I learned about Sundus’s escape plan on a Thursday during January. Her family vacationed in a cabin every May, and from there, she would escape to somewhere, anywhere that was still not determined. When she told me her plan, I feared the part when she gets caught, but she never did.
- On the day of the flood, I helped Sundus escape during our PE class to meet Moe, again, at the end of the narrow street. She was supposed to end things with him and cried in the bathroom before I watched the school’s gate for her. It started raining before the morning bell as we sat in the playground. Our gray skirts transformed into a shade of darker gray when a raindrop fell on them. We were aware of the floods, they would happen every few years but only killed ten or eleven people, and it was never people we knew. Our city was built without storm drains, and when it rained, it only rained for an hour or two. It never was an issue, but on the breakup day, it rained all day. We were moved to the school’s roof when the flooding rose. I sat, waiting for Sundus to make an appearance. I didn’t betray her and stayed silent about her leaving the school’s gate.
- After the flood, when the water drained, they found her body. She appeared in my dreams with her unfixed braid and wet gray skirt. She confirmed that she escaped and the body they found was just a girl who looked like her. After all, we were all the same.
Batool Alzubi is a second-year English PhD student with an emphasis on creative writing and Middle Eastern Literature at Oklahoma State University. Her work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Bacopa Review, Santa Ana River Review, and On the Run.