More Than Just a Pretty Face by Syed M. Masood

Author:Syed M. Masood
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: 2020-08-03T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

It was picture day for the contestants of Renaissance Man, and my tie wasn’t sitting right. I’d gone with a half-Windsor knot, which seemed like a good middle road between the casualness of a four-in-hand and the fuddiness of a full Windsor. The problem was that while I knew a lot about the knots in theory, having watched a gazillion YouTube videos on how to tie, this was the first time I’d worn one in real life. It looked a little lopsided and kept drifting to the left.

Don’t get me wrong. I looked awesome in my deep blue suit, but even though I got a ton of compliments from all the other kids at school, I couldn’t stop fussing with the tie.

It was Sohrab, ultimately, who noticed. He gestured for me to give it to him. “My father makes me tie his every day. Has since I was ten.”

“Why?”

“For days like this, I suppose.”

I watched as Sohrab looped the silky snake around his own neck and began twisting it. It looked like he was doing exactly what I’d done. The task gave him the perfect excuse not to look at me as he said, “I am sorry about the other day, when you were talking to Kaval. I should not have… I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“It’s cool,” I told him. I’m really good at letting things go. People screw up. I get it. I screw up all the time and I forgive myself pretty much right away. Seems only fair to do the same for other people. “Just admit that you were wrong about me not being funny, and we’ll call it even.”

“You know how I feel about lying,” he said.

I rolled my eyes.

“I meant what I said at the party at our house. No one likes you because you’re funny. They laugh when you tell your little ‘jokes’ because you want them to, and they want to do what you want—”

“Because I’m gorgeous.”

He shook his head. “Because you’re true.”

“What does that even mean?”

Sohrab didn’t answer. He was done with the knot, so he forced the tie over his own head and handed it to me. I put it on and tightened it. The knot was perfect.

“You look good,” he told me.

As if I didn’t know.

“Have you seen Zar?” Sohrab asked.

“Have you thought about when you want to stop asking me that and just talk to him yourself?”

He looked away and smiled a bit. “A little.”

“You know how sensitive he is about the fact that he dates—”

“He’s sensitive about it because he knows it is wrong. Deep in his soul, he knows he is dooming himself to eternal torment.”

“Um… yeah. I don’t think that’s it.”

Sohrab folded his arms across his chest. “Sometimes it surprises me how little you seem to know about Islam having been a Muslim all your life.”

“Sometimes it surprises me how little you know about Intezar, you know, having been his friend all your life.”

That seemed to take the fire out of him. “That was clever,” he said.

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