Other Side

07 | Dead Language

"Only one more touchdown!"

Talia dragged her hands down her face, not wanting to look at the screen, already knowing it would give the 49ers a two-score lead. There was no way the other team could recover from that in what little was left of the fourth quarter.

"Just one—come on, come on, come on!"

In the suspense, she teetered on the very edge of the couch, knowing only one more exaggerated throw of her hands would send her headfirst into the hardwood. She blamed the quarterback for her insanity, surprising her and all of San Francisco with the best season they'd had in years. She could finally relate to her father's rants about the greatness of Joe Montana back in the day, but she was sure he would kill her if she tried comparing the current team to the one from his early college years.

"Come on, yes, yes—wait, why is he rushing with thirteen yards to go? What the hell?" She drew her sweatshirt over half of her face, recoiling in her spot as she watched the running back avert defensive player after defensive player. "Shit, yes, yes, TOUCHDOWN!"

Zaid sat stone-faced behind her as she hopped around the living room, resembling the fans on their fourth beer in the audience. With one more screech, she cleared her throat and adjusted the hem of her gray sweatshirt, attempting to regain an ounce of her decorum.

"I'm going to sound sexist," he said, voice low, fingers dribbling against his chin, "but I have never seen a girl get so excited over a herd of burly men bringing an oval over a line."

Her lips curled into a stupid, wide grin. One day I will convert you, she thought and plopped back down on the coach, listening to the thrill in the commentators' voices as they narrated the replay, knowing he wouldn't change his mind any time soon.

Her interest in the game wavered as she grew more aware of his burning gaze analyzing every one of her reactions, or maybe she just knew this game couldn't end in a loss. Whatever it was, she didn't understand how he couldn't find another place to lounge around in this two-thousand-something-square-foot house when it was clear he had no interest in the sport playing on TV.

Regardless of their disagreement, about an hour and a couple thousand commercial breaks and timeouts later, the game ended, as did their excuse to avoid conversation. She shut the TV off and let them bask in silence, playing with the loose strings of her sweatpants.

"So, what are you actually reading?"

"Poetry," he answered, stone-faced.

She quirked a brow, but when he didn't respond, she couldn't suppress a snort. "You enjoy poetry? And you were making fun of me for watching a sports game?"

"I see we share the judgmental gene," he deadpanned, handing the book off to her again, as if she'd gained the ability to read it in the last hour. "For what it's worth, it's not full of the lovesick ramblings of thirteen-year-olds on the Notes app at four a.m. This book is centuries old, Talia." He pointed to the name of the writer, as if she could read it as well, and chuckled. "Well, maybe not my edition. It was my great-grandfather's, which I suppose makes it ancient enough."

As she listened to him describe the text, and the long history of the sha'ir—or poet—Talia wondered what it was like to come from a literary family. Every person directly related to her seemed to thrive off numbers and formulas, making more calculators and textbooks populate her house than actual prose.

"You don't find the writings difficult?" she asked after he'd finished, drawing one knee to her chest. She rested her head on it, watching him through her eyelashes. "Seventeenth-century literature was impossible for me in high school. I can't imagine reading something ages-older than that."