The Vow

Chapter 11

Annie

It breaks through my dream like a fist shattering glass and pulls me out. The idea is that strong. It is hands reaching for me, gripping my arms and lifting me up. Now I’m sitting in bed, panting in the dark, staring at where the moonlight splashes over the waves on my walls. I feel just a little like I might throw up—the idea is that good. My hair and T-shirt are soaked with sweat and my heart is racing because the idea is better than good. It’s amazing. So amazing I can’t believe my brain came up with it.

My alarm clock says 2:36. I grab my phone from the nightstand and dial Mo.

The first call goes to voice mail, so I call again. Second call, voice mail. This is ridiculous. He’s a light sleeper. Third call, he picks up on the fourth ring.

“Are you kidding me?” He’s groggy and angry, but whispering, which is good since his parents’ room is right above his.

“Mo, I have an idea.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Mo, seriously, wake up. I have an idea.”

“Are you kidding me?” Still groggy, but angrier now.

“Wake up. I have to ask you something, and if you ask me if I’m kidding you one more time I’m going to assume you’re still asleep and start singing that Shania Twain song.”

“I’m awake.”

“Good.”

“Your question,” he mumbles.

I take a shaky breath, suddenly nervous. But this is our salvation. I knew the minute it reached into my dream and grabbed me that it was meant to be. This is not the time for nerves.

“Mo, will you marry me?”

Heartbeats. His. Mine. Nothing but blood pulsing between us as I wait for him to speak.

Say something. This silence feels dangerous, like we’re lying in a bed of broken glass, afraid to move or even breathe. Mo is never speechless.

“What are you talking about?” he asks finally.

“I’m talking about you staying here.”

“But like getting married married?”

“They can’t deport you if you’re my husband,” I say.

“Are you crazy?”

My mind is spinning too quickly to cringe at the word. “Mo, think about it. You could stay.”

He lets another long pause go by, and I can feel the weight of the idea pushing down on me. No, on both of us now. “It can’t be that easy,” he says.

“I think it is. I mean, I don’t really know, but it’s something people do, right? I haven’t researched it or anything, but . . . I mean, Mo . . .” A nervous laugh comes out. It doesn’t even sound like me. “You could stay.”

“I could stay,” he repeats robotically.

I want to melt his shock, snap him out of his daze so he can hear what I’m saying. “You could stay.”

“Are you kidding me?” he whispers, then laughs too.

I’m laughing for real now, with relief and joy and terror all rolling through me. But I’m scared to stop laughing because I feel a little like I might cry.

“Wait,” he says. “No.”

I stop, winded.

“I can’t get married. I’m not eighteen.”

“Yeah, you can. You just have to have your parents’ permission.”

“Both of them?” In his voice I can hear he doubts me, doubts that I know anything.

“Uh…I’m not sure. You don’t think they’d do it? I mean, obviously, I’m not the Muslim daughter-in-law of their dreams, but your dad is obsessed with the your Harvard prospects, and your mom—”

“It’s not that simple,” he says, cutting me off.

“I don’t think it’s simple, but they love you, and maybe your mom can convince your dad.”

He exhales loudly. “What about your parents?”

“What about them? I’m eighteen.”

“Eighteen with all the freedom of an eight-year-old.”

“I have freedom,” I say defensively. “I just choose not to freak them out with it.”

“You’re afraid to stop for a Big Gulp on the way home from work because they might have panic attacks and call the police. They’d lose their minds if we got married.”

Mo is never this critical of them, or at least not out loud. Hearing the truth is surprisingly defeating.

“I wouldn’t tell them,” I say softly.

“Are you kidding?”

“No.” My throat tightens. A lie that big would be the worst kind of betrayal. “We wouldn’t tell anybody.”

“So not married married, then?”

“Well, like legally married. Are you asking if I’m going to have sex with you?”

He snorts. “Hilarious.”

“Because the answer is no.”

“There was no invitation. But seriously, the irony—can you imagine if people did find out? Years of insisting we’re just friends, and then we secretly elope? The humiliation would kill me.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“You know what I mean,” he says.

“Yeah.” My calves ache from standing all day, so I pull my toes toward me and feel the dull pain along the backs of my legs.

“So if we get married right away,” he says. “I guess that would make me a permanent resident.”

“Not a citizen?”

“I don’t think so. I think you have to be a permanent resident for a certain amount of time first.”

“Like a learner’s permit.”

“Sure, whatever. And then we get divorced.”

“Yeah.” I pull my knees up to my chin and rub my calves. I’ll be a teenage divorcée. “So what do you think?”

He lets another thick pause follow.

“My family,” he says. “I don’t know if they’ll be okay with leaving me. If I want them to.”

I stop massaging the muscles and pinch the skin on the backs of my legs just hard enough that it hurts. His family. Sometimes I forget Mo isn’t all mine. He loves them—of course he loves them—but he has to see this chance for what it is, the only way. His family will float back into life in Jordan like they never left. Sarina is so pliable, and Mrs. Hussein can be just as depressed there as here.

But not Mo. He thinks too much. He’s too outspoken, too conscious of not fitting in.

“I’d be alone,” Mo says.

“You’d have me.”

The words tumble out, falling somewhere between us. I wish I hadn’t said them. He knows he’d have me. He meant having me isn’t enough.

“What are you thinking?” I ask.

“That I hate that question.”

“Just tell me.”

“My brain is seizing up,” he says. “System overload. Let’s just . . . Let’s just . . . I don’t know. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Okay.” This is all wrong. He’s supposed to be ecstatic. He’s supposed to see that this is our miracle.

“Good night,” he says.

“G’night.”

I’m about to hang up when I hear “Wait, Annie, are you still there?”

“Yeah.”

“Thank you.”

I open my mouth to speak, but stop. My stock responses—It’s nothing or No problem—don’t fit. It’s not nothing. And it’s problem after problem after problem. I blink. Now that my eyes have adjusted, it looks like the mural is moving. All around me the blue strips are undulating like real currents. I’m at the center of a whirlpool.

“Annie? You still there?”

“Yeah,” I say, squeezing my eyes shut. “You’re welcome.”