PicoBlog

We met in a school for girls, saddened by our hysterical siblings, abusive fathers, callous mothers, absent wealth, tucked behind a humid thicket of trees, learning to endure bad feelings. The only way to survive was to choose a buddy. Through a glass half-empty we see Maha Tiimob, smiling with a million teeth, tossing over her shoulder strong braids that she learned over 7 years. Her gnawed fingers; pale in our tired eyes; concealed by the public meltdowns, with an ignored shudder of each other’s cracks; we spiraled and suffered in reprieve. Vibrating through 64 students, a pain tuned each girl, Inveniam viam aut faciam.

Snuggled together in doubled cloth our defiance spun us. Finesse, Maha’s laugh booms with soprano, and she curls her fingers. That smile and cackle sticks in my ears when I close my eyes, resting on her. Her warm chill; nausea from a broken spell of her eyes, sparkling, glimmering. I have not spoken to Maha in 7 years. I see her in the mirror now. The young woman I try to understand. The young woman who turned 25.

10-24 is a special, scientific time where the mind ‘re-wires.’ We considered our roles in adolescence. We return to this place for Maha. There’s a great cause for glittering celebrations throughout 25. That full year into 26 is incredible; an explosion of all that could be. In the mirror I see the lessons in endurance that Maha will never learn: When to walk away; How to say yes; When to stop interrogating. To follow your intuition with respect. To be a kindred spirit with yourself. In the absence of Holton, to find and keep a discipline.

Maha went to Washington University in St. Louis, not far from the place of death, Troy, Illinois. She studied Public Health. I only remember her excelling in writing code, outrunning the IT Department’s firewalls. Maha always dueling with head of IT, Ousman, who coached her in Track & Field. I ran the 1600, sometimes 400. I don’t remember her event. Maha wanted the University of Pennsylvania. I look in the mirror, away from the day she locked herself in the Senior Lounge. A gray void had swallowed Maha before any decisions.

Maha was shot and killed last night, wakes me up on Tuesday, September 5. I open my eyes on 17 year old Maha: gloomy and thin, wearing navy leggings, a fading navy crewneck, a short plaid skirt, in a cold sunlight; Spanish class. Her cheekbones cut deep by her wounds. Hollow gray eyelids lose her chiseled ash gaze into the horseshoe of desks facing Señora Lopez. Eyes stray over her lonely sacrifice to focus.

I see her in the mirror, learning to fly against fantasy’s pull of what could and should be. At 25, I tire, I deserve something. Maha played along; back and forth. I love a push and pull. Life itself. She is a smart girl. In Middle School, Maha was jailbreaking phones, getting detentions with me, prancing, bouncing from the Holton rush of mental stimulation. Sometimes we’d burn out. We wanted a lot of things we weren’t winning; dreams of medical school. I received a 2 on my AP Bio exam. That look in the mirror. An all or nothing kinda gal. There she is. Maha took a few semesters off, as did I and others, but we kept to ourselves; unwilling to share and expose a stray from the path. Oh Maha would laugh at my naïve arrogance, Fell down and hit her head, Maha would mock your spotlight. In a laugh, you defend, woe is me.

In the Junior Lounge, a girl moans to Maha, No, I don’t have my wallet with me.
You have five dollars right there, get you home. I know it will, Maha enjoys herself.
You think I’m in a mental state to go on the bus?
Maha uncurls her fingers, her palm and wrist twirling before this audacity. She always felt it for you; all hope relinquished. That’s what made her the voice of every joke. That she felt dirty too.

I notified one person. The only girl I knew who didn’t know; a remaining buddy, in the epilogue of Holton-Arms Class of 2016. One week, after the phones stopped ringing, our class reunited for a vigil. A place to share all the wonderful things we miss about Maha. Maha laughs. Maha cried, and when she cried, there were few who could keep up. Those are her buddies.

There is a distance between you and a buddy. That place is your relationship. It is the anchor, passing through your unit. A buddy from this pool of 64 girls tethers you with understanding your rush to Find a way or make one. Together, a ghost, in perspective, purpose, under pressure.

In two days, there is no one left to tell. Four of us bring each other and flowers. I bring a strawberry cream cake to Maha’s family home. The same house we visited 12 years ago. Now the walls are primary colors; the lights warmer. We sit around the dining table, between the kitchen and salon with two sisters, Pia class of ’19 and Zada ’20. I follow the slopes of each nose, and curve of their cheeks for Maha. Absolutely scattered in my head, scratchy and jumpy like the lost channel, with hair splitting and dried, I pull my roots, humming frustration. Hannah, this will never make sense. You’re looking for answers. There are none, a peer reacts. We used to burn with resistance, drawing loose ends around defining proofs. Scared with a missing lump in my chest, every reflection ties to Maha. Every conversation resurrects those young girls. I crave the class, snuggled into trauma pleated bonds. In peeled cuticles and sleepless dazes my memory clouds Maha. Lost in her mirages of our gothic campus, shimmering career, Main Line house, family approval.

Now there was no one from our class in my city. Or there were; Intimately tied to our raw loss of Maha. That tethering weight swung around their precious class rings. Levity is not in these girls. Nostalgia’s nausea boils my stomach. I swallow the will in my heart to call a buddy. Only a boy would do for heartless, mindless relief. I reduce that whole world into a voice soothing Hannah.

Ten years ago, I’d asked this very boy from the brother school, Class of ’16, to Holiday Ball. Two years ago, I ran into him, and we exchanged numbers, but I never called. There was no balance when we were 15. Always he only asked for dates through the grape vine. Now I craved this gross abyss of relief. Mindless levity. A heartless escape from taking stock of this life. Over three charmed dates, I saw the other side of fate; a fictitious life; All that was not. I woke up in a hangover with throbbing gashes through two left feet. Hannah, he is not your buddy, my buddy presses through the phone. The loneliness of adulthood sets-in: Everyone is not your buddy. My mother affirms, “Everyone has an agenda.”

A buddy follows your feelings, and brings you home. A buddy knows your priorities when you forget. A buddy doesn’t leave you behind. Some let you believe that you’re a buddy and gain trust, your loyalty. Maha thought she found a buddy in the man who murdered her.

I am a strong person, because I am kind, says my buddy. Today gun violence is the #1 cause of death for adolescents. A loss to violence stretches through our generations, and hardens endurance. I wish I trusted every peer in this class. To call and say hi. To give one’s time. To join histories. To not choose the silence that killed Maha.

I am alone. I do not call her, waiting for the balance, to reveal completed ambitions, collapsing together in a sigh of relief. We remember her in the playful game of Operation. Maha was a buddy. She’s alone and on her own. I see her in our pursued abandon between scrutiny and assimilation. Maha, my magnificent star. Trapped in a place I passed through myself in an older man, stubborn conviction, wasting away. I press my mirror’s skin, breaking the reflection, Maha.

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