We left the coffee shop—together, still, whatever it meant that we weren’t ‘together’—and threaded our way through the pedestrians to the nearest subway station.

It was rush hour by now, the streets and sidewalks full of cars and people jostling and queueing and shoving to get to wherever they were going for their start-of-the-weekend fix of entertainment.

We were going to get ours at Sam’s house on the edge of Queen’s which meant catching subway line C a few stops north. We touched our passes to the electronic reader and stood next to each other in the crowded subterranean gloom of the subway tunnel for a few moments before one of the trains screeched up to us and we piled in through the automatic doors with what felt like a hundred other people.

There wasn’t a lot of room in the carriage so we had to stand holding onto a metal pole facing each other, only about a handbreadth apart. I was glad that I had remembered to pack breath mints in my bag that morning as I snuck one into my mouth.

Packed in like this, surrounded by people and six inches away from my face, Ali had nowhere else to look but at me. It was too awkward not to talk.

“So…” I said. “Tell me more about you.”

Was there still a smile hiding in that tight line of mouth somewhere, in spite of the awkwardness? Did she find me cute, or just ridiculous?

“What would you like to know?” Ali said coolly.

The question I had about her rose to the surface of my mind easily. “Well, for starters, what made you and your family come over here from Syria?”

“You really want to know?”

“Of course.”

It still took her a second to be able to say it. “My parents split up, and my Mom wanted to make a new start, so she left my Dad took her with me to America.”

“Wow.”

Ali looked at the floor.

Oops. “Hey, no, I don’t mean ‘wow’ like ‘that’s messed up’, I mean ‘wow’ like that’s really brave. Don’t worry; I get it. My parents split up too. Only my Mom didn’t leave—my Dad did.”

Ali raised her eyes to me again. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. My Dad’s a real jerk. What was yours like?”

Her eyes went to the floor again. I could see immediately that she did not want to answer that question.

“Who did you call before we left?” I asked, trying to spare her by changing the subject.

Ali’s eyes narrowed in puzzlement for a moment, then she seemed to remember what I was talking about. “Oh...you mean back in the coffee shop? Just my Mom. She said it was fine for me to go out.”

“Wow, your Mom is way cooler than mine.”

“Well, you don’t know her like I do...”

“At least she let you go out. I’m still technically grounded. My Mom will be going out to her writing group tonight; she’ll be back from that late but still earlier than I will, so before I left for school today I propped some books up in my bed to make it look like I’m in there sleeping when she gets home.”

“That’s—”

Just then the train lurched and Ali fell forward with the movement, her body pressing up against mine. For a split second the infinite distance between us was bridged and I felt the shape of her, normally hidden so modestly under her baggy clothes. In that instant I wanted to put my arms around her, to hold her to me, to embrace her in the safety of my super strength. But instead, not wanting to disrespect her, I put out an arm and grabbed her shoulder, stopping her from falling further forward into me.

The train returned to equilibrium and she righted herself.

As soon as she had her feet again, Ali recoiled, drawing back from me like she’d been zapped with a stun gun. The deer look was back; she seemed horrified that her personal space had been violated, that I might have taken advantage of her.

But when she saw that I hadn’t, she seemed to calm down, shoulders dropping again. The deer-look disappeared and the not-quite-smile returned.

“You know, Gonzalo,” she said, “there are two types of guy in the world...and I think you might be the second one.”

“What are the types?” I asked.

“I’ll tell you sometime.”

Perceiving that this too was a subject on which she did not want to be pressed, I asked Ali some other small questions for the rest of our journey, which turned out to have big answers: She wanted to go to college one day but wasn’t sure how she was going to afford it, like me. Physics was her favourite subject, like me (though English came a close second for me). She had a deep hatred for bullies, like me. All of that was highly promising. I was glowing inside.

Our stop came.