Free The Vow by Jessica Martinez

getting fouled and having all that adrenaline screaming at you to throw a punch. I’m mostly sure I’m not going to.
    When did I become so unimportant to him? Why push me so hard, for so many years, to yank it all away?
    There’s quiet from above; then his voice starts up again, still controlled, always controlled. But why is he wasting words on Mom? He should be down here. I want him at the foot of my bed, explaining what I did to let him down, because at some point he stopped believing my future was worth anything. He didn’t even try.
    There’s a knock on my door.
    “Can I come in?” Sarina calls.
    “Yeah.”
    The door swings open, then closed behind her. She’s wearing my basketball camp T-shirt from two summers ago, sweatpants, and glasses.
    “Nice look, four eyes,” I mutter. She got contacts for her fifteenth birthday, so I don’t get to make fun of the glasses nearly as much as I used to.
    She ignores me and settles into the chair at my desk. It swivels, and she’s immediately turning herself with one toe, the other leg tucked beneath her. She doesn’t speak, so I let her just spin.
    “Do you want something?” I say finally.
    “No. Do you want me to leave?”
    “No. Just don’t make yourself puke on that thing.”
    She spins for another minute or so, and I wonder if she really is going to make herself throw up. “It’s louder in here,” she says.
    “What, Mom?”
    “Yeah.”
    She’s back to whimpering now, possibly running out of steam.
    “She must’ve really hated it there,” Sarina says softly.
    I try to remember what Mom was like when I was little, when we were still in Jordan, but I can’t. She’s just there, in all my memories, but not smiling or crying or anything really. “I think she’s just being Mom.”
    “Maybe.”
    In the dark I can see the outline of Sarina’s head, profile and ponytail, turning and turning, an asymmetrical lump of clay on a pottery wheel. “She’ll be better tomorrow,” I say, knowing she won’t.
    “What if she’s losing it because life sucked there?”
    “It didn’t suck. I remember it, and it didn’t suck. Not that I want to go back, but it didn’t suck.” Maybe I didn’t need to say it three times.
    “I remember things too,” she says, “but eight isn’t old enough to know if a place sucks. I just remember the us . Not so much the there . The cousins, Teta, food smells, that big black dog from next door, the uncles yelling at us for knocking over the TV stand. That’s not real life; that’s a family reunion. That’s summer vacation. Why did we stop visiting, anyway?”
    “Don’t know.”
    I should be relieved. She’s worried, and that means she’s not a complete idiot. But I’m not. I feel like I’m on the Qwik Drop at Kentucky Kingdom right before they slide the floor out from under you, when you know it’s coming and you can’t avoid it or speed things up or know the exact moment you’ll be falling.
    “Everything will be different now,” she says.
    I have nothing to reassure her. She’s right. It’s silent for a moment; then a fresh whimper from above leaks down and over us both.
    “Do you think she’s crying because it sucks to be a woman in Jordan?”
    “Of course not.” My answer is quick and firm. Then I start to feel sick because I have no idea, haven’t even thought about it, but now I have to keep pretending. “It’s not Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan or anything. Women work and vote and do whatever, just like men. You know all that.”
    “I don’t know anything,” she says.
    “Of course it’ll be different,” I hear myself saying, “but Mom went to university there.”
    “Yeah.” Her voice is thin with doubt. She stops spinning, and I can see the whites of her eyes glowing at me. “But how different? I don’t remember enough, and besides, a lot could’ve changed. I don’t even know—can I go out by myself whenever I want in Jordan? And do I have to be totally covered? Plus, my Arabic isn’t