Soon Carlos and I start finding each other at different times, pretending it’s by chance. After the little kids’ naptime. Lunch, when he slips us some chocolate bars. Or down in the basement, where there’s a pool table and he practices tilting the cue stick from behind his back. Carlos is kind of a Peter Pan—the little kids just flock to him, like pigeons, cooing, nudging, and begging him to play. I start sneaking looks at Carlos—his slim hips, the way he runs in the courtyard, kicking the ball, calling to the kids, sliding in and out of Spanish. There’s a tickling warmth in my ribs.

“Good evening, madam,” he greets me, sitting down and setting the soccer ball between his feet. Sweat glosses his collarbone.

“Why ‘madam’?”

“You’re fierce. Scary. Like my teachers. My physics teacher, man, she was the worst.”

“I’m not that scary,” I say.

He grins. “Good to know.”

“Wait. When did you get here?”

“A few weeks before you.”

“You don’t get to walk at graduation either?”

“Amiga, that ship sailed.” His face looks suddenly tired, old, and he thrusts up from the step and walks away.

In the courtyard, I spot a group of the boys, standing in a knot in a corner, laughing loudly. Several of them are pinching their noses and pointing. Pushing through, I find Kamal hunched on the ground, his arms wrapped around his knees. His cheeks are streaked gray with tears.

“What’s going on here?”

The boys just giggle; most of them only speak Spanish.

“Tell me!” I demand.

“Stink.” A boy pinches his nose. “Stinky.”

I grab Kamal by the wrist and yank him away. Upstairs I make him strip off his clothes and then drag him into the shared bathroom, locking the door, and blast the shower. He’s sobbing. I’m furious at those boys, but at Kamal too, for being able to make a mess and cry when all I get to do is stuff my fear down and worry.

“It’s too hot!” he shrieks, but I grab him by the arm and force him under the streaming water. I scrub his slick body, then rub, hard with a washcloth, and he wails, “Rania, stop, you’re hurting!” But I cannot stop. Finally, he goes still and I do too, hating him, hating myself, and all we are becoming.

The next morning Rosa isn’t at our table. I ask Carlos, who keeps staring down at his drawing pad on his knees. “She has her hearing,” he finally says.

“I don’t understand.”

“Don’t you get it? They put her up there. In front of some kind of immigration judge. She’s lucky because the shelter got her a lawyer.”

“By herself?”

“Yup.” He bites the word off, bitter.

“But she doesn’t talk!”

“Exactly.”

He unwinds his long legs and leaves.