THE OMEN GIRL | Wattys 2020 Winner

𝟏𝟐

Naqi wipes his hands on his robes and says, "Stay here."

I look over at him. "What?"

"Stay here," he repeats. He does not look at me, and turns from the sink.

He stalks out of the kitchen.

I pause, and then follow after, frowning, because I won't be letting Naqi tell me what to do.

Out in the mess hall, people are wiping down and setting the tables. They move light and slow in the morning. Naqi steps up to Roaz, who has picked up a heavy stack of plates. I pause.

Naqi says something. Roaz replies. Then back and forth until veins are bulging from Roaz's temple and neck, and Naqi is—I don't know. It's hard to see. The hard line of his back is mostly to me.

Naqi shoves him. Roaz drops the stack of plates, and the glass and clay shatters like a scream, and then the two are throwing punches. They topple to the ground. They have each other by their collars and are scraping each other through broken glass until their robes stain red at the elbows, at the backs.

Pea is crying. People are shouting. In the heat and the din and the taste of iron, Roaz fumbles his hand over a shard of glass. He is not thinking. He takes a hold of it despite its cutting, and aims it at Naqi's temple and, I'm there, I've moved. I'm grabbing Roaz's arm. I wrench it down at the wrong angle. He yowls over the snap.

Roaz's friend comes in and kicks me in my mask, where my mouth would be, and the mask cracks. A shard of it falls and splits open my lip.

Someone else yanks me away – Naqi, it's Naqi – and just like that, the two of us are back to back, brawling. We swing out at anyone coming at us. I punch someone in the ear. Naqi twists someone's arm and slams them against the side of a table.

His face, when I see it, is red. I've never known that colour on him.

I only know Naqi by the white of his smile, by the yellow of the sun around him. I never knew he could be this shade, where the white of his teeth are bared for me, where the yellow of his bruises are caught for me.

#

We're barred from breakfast and lunch and dinner, Naqi and I. We're given a bucket of water instead, to hold over our heads as we kneel in the dust of the courtyard outside the mess hall. People go about their chores. They brush their brooms around our space. They stare when they think we do not see.

I do not hang my head. I tongue the edge of my lip, of the cut, and taste salt. I stare ahead and say, "I didn't ask you to do that."

"Yeah," Naqi says.

"You're crazy," I say.

"Yeah." He says.

"It's all your fault this happened, you khab."

"I mean," and he can only twitch out a smile, because his face is set with bruises, "I wasn't the one that broke Roaz's arm."

"You started it."

He pulls in breath. "Yeah." He says, "And by the stars, did it feel good."

I shake my head. "I don't get you."

"What?"

"You heard me. Your head is full of static, you messed up, make believing khab."

He laughs. He would raise his hands if they weren't already raised. The water from his bucket spills. His arms tremble like mine, and he winces.