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Back You Exist Too Much Save as PDF
Chapters (23)
  1. Title Page
  2. Dedication
  3. Chapter 1
  4. Chapter 2
  5. Chapter 3
  6. Chapter 4
  7. Chapter 5
  8. Chapter 6
  9. Chapter 7
  10. Chapter 8
  11. Chapter 9
  12. Chapter 10
  13. Chapter 11
  14. Chapter 12
  15. Chapter 13
  16. Chapter 14
  17. Chapter 15
  18. Chapter 16
  19. Chapter 17
  20. Chapter 18
  21. Chapter 19
  22. Acknowledgments
  23. About the Author

Other times her rage surfaced if I tried to set a boundary and assert some control. Suggesting we set a time to run errands or help with her résumé inevitably led to an explosion—how dare I not give in to whatever she wanted, the moment she wanted it, and have a life of my own that didn’t directly involve serving her?

“Better safe than sorry,” everyone says. But for a while I’ve been afraid I could never truly be either.

Chapter 15

15

“YOU FUCK WELL,” I SAY TO THE ARAB ENTHUSIAST AS he lies heavy on top of me, still inside me. He pulls out slowly and rolls the condom off, tying it in a knot and tossing it onto the nightstand. He then lies back against the pillow, his chest still heaving as I rest my head on it.

The Arab Enthusiast is a twenty-two-year-old Oriental Studies major—they still call it that out here. He’s a native Midwesterner, a double black belt in jiujitsu, and the linchpin in my attempts to distract myself until Matías returns. So far it’s working, despite the fact that I’ve almost called out Matías’s name several times during sex.

I met the Enthusiast through a friend. He had just come back from the West Bank, so we had plenty to talk about on our first date. He’d been once before—with Birthright Unplugged in high school, the alternative to Birthright Israel, which involves touring the occupied West Bank.

“So you’re Jewish, but Pro-Palestinian?” I asked as he chalked the tip of a pool cue. “Do you get a lot of heat for that?”

“Sure.” He shot his stick and sank two balls. “But I’m not changing my beliefs because of it.”

Over dinner a few nights later we discussed Egypt. There was unreported talk of protests brewing against unemployment and government corruption inspired by events in Tunisia, where a street vendor had lit himself on fire in frustration, spurring demonstrations that toppled their own fifty-year military dictatorship. The Enthusiast knew everything about what was going on in Cairo.

“Apparently more than ninety thousand people have signed up on Facebook for a ‘Day of Revolution,’” he told me. “And it’s supposed to happen in the next few days, in Tahrir Square.”

Over dessert I noticed a thin scar just underneath his left eye. “I got knifed,” he said when I asked about it, running my finger along the puffy skin. “By an Israeli soldier while I was protesting the wall.”

The idea of him resisting on Palestine’s behalf left me both thrilled and certain that I should invite him home with me. “So should we pay and get out of here?”