3

"THIS IS SERIOUS, ZEE," I SAY TO ZEE. "WITHOUT MY MARYLAND OFFER, I'll have to find some way to get to another NCAA Div One school in order to try for a walk-on. That means I've got to get better-than-good grades and find an interesting extracurricular activity to write about for my college essays!"

"Hmm?" she says, distracted. She's scanning the crowd of masticating teenagers for someone while editing a video for her social media channels under the handle @theZeeBakri, where she posts about makeup and sometimes hijabi fashion to a following of around 280K on IG and even more on TikTok.

"I'm right here!" I grumble. A couple of Flashes walk past our long table, waving but not coming over to speak. Must be busy.

"Sorry, I'm listening," she says. She reaches across the table and pats my hand. "So, what are you going to do?"

"I've no idea. I was counting on an athletic scholarship, but now it looks like I might have to pivot, capitalize on preexisting strengths, and identify new breakthrough opportunities, blergghh, something, something." We'd had some loud, very gesticulate-y unicorn startup CEO in his late twenties come in and give a talk in the first week of senior year, an alumnus of Dunia who then went to Yale or similar. It had really annoyed me when he went on and on about how he was a self-made wizard, conveniently forgetting to mention that his dad is like some multimillionaire developer who's real chummy with politicians and who obviously could give him the seed money to fail and pivot, aka he had a Daddy Fund. "I'm supposed to meet with Ms. Tina next week to go over the options, see what I can do to improve my chances at getting into a US college, given all that's changed."

"Okay, college essays are all about growth and introspection, not really about having interesting extracurricular activities, so that's something to keep in mind."

"I think if you're good enough at something, they'll want you."

"In that case, you're good at writing, maybe we can figure out how to capitalize on that preexisting strength?" Zee's makeup tutorials feature hilarious monologues that were mostly the result of my ideation and input.

Shit. The Unicorn got us.

"I'm not awarded or anything, though," I remind her.

"We'll figure it out." Zee snaps her fingers. "Ooh, maybe you give out advice to junior sprinters and other athletes! I'll zhuzh you up, make you camera-ready. Then you can be a major TikTok influencer, like me!"

I shake my head, scoffing. "Right, like it's so easy to be a big influencer. Also, being an influencer isn't likely to get a school to scholarship-fund me, which is the actual mission, if you recall. You know I can't attend any of the schools in the US without a full or at least very generous partial ride."

She shrugs. "Hey, some TikTokkers be earning big money. At least I'm brainstorming. Seriously, though? I still don't get why competing in the NCAA is so important to you, beb."

"Sports are my best chance at being successful in life, given that I'm not a gifted student." I'm not you, I don't say.

"Isn't there a spectrum of possibilities between these two poles? Life isn't about achievements."

"None I will accept," I reply. If I couldn't run competitively, I'd have to find some other way to shine. I must.

Being a winner is my identity.

Zee chews on her lower lip as she contemplates me. As supportive as she is, she doesn't understand my yearning to distinguish myself because she has her own Family Fund. An uncomfortable silence grows between us, broken only when her phone vibrates. She drops her gaze and starts scrolling through her phone. Her tone is light as she says, "I wonder what Taslim is doing right now."

"He's right there, eating." I point to Taslim, slouched in the center of a long table filled with his usual coterie of sucky-phants/jock buddies, biting into what looks like the cafeteria's regrettable veggie burger offering. I'd clocked him as soon as I entered the cafeteria—not that I'd been searching the crowd for him, of course. He's just very hard to miss.

"Tee and Zee," she says, her eyes faraway. "Dunia's future power couple."

"You guys need to meet-cute ASAP," I say, rolling my eyes.

"Y'know, the weird thing is we kind of know each other by sight, because we grew up attending similar society events, though we've never actually talked to each other." Her expression grows dreamy. "In any case, our first meet-cute should preferably take place when I'm wearing heels, because I'm smol."

She goes back to scrolling through her social media accounts while I wonder morosely about what my options for extracurricular excellence are. We're only seven weeks in through senior year, but there's limited time left to find something extracurricular to be good enough at before college application deadlines in January; that along with my hopefully much improved grades should ensure that some good-enough school would give me at least a partial scholarship. If this all sounds very vague, it's because I'd never given this path a lot of thought—I'd never expected to need a plan B.

But it's time to face the truth: I am unlikely to graduate a top athlete from my high school. That's over. I need to pivot. An unfamiliar panic fizzes in my stomach as I try to figure out my next steps. What would be my next move? I'd always had a plan for my future, had always known what my next steps would be: an athletics scholarship to study at an NCAA Div I university so that I'd be able to break more sprint records, then graduate and work as a coach for the national team, win Malaysia her first Olympic gold in athletics, and be set for life, no biggie—only now I'm staring down the barrel of an ordinary, mediocre life....

Going from seeking podium finishes to being an average person scares me. What's the point of doing anything in life if I'm not going to be the best? And how would my failures impact my mother?

"Ooh!" Zee squeals, jolting me out of my dour thoughts. She looks up from her phone. "I know where Taslim will be this Wednesday after school, and you're coming with me."

"Oh?" I say cautiously, remembering the time Zee suggested we camp out in the hotel lobby where an up-and-coming boy band J-qoo were filming a music video, oh, I don't know, a plane ride away in Langkawi. When we were thirteen.

Zee is unconcerned with my concern. "In the comments section of his latest post, his teammate Shyam asked if he's going to skip out on group nosh after javelin practice as usual, to which Tee said he was and he'd be doing ‘the usual' with Deepak."

"So?"

"So that means, we'll know where he's going to be Wednesday after javelin practice, because we're going to follow him. See what Tee gets up to in his spare time."

"You mean stalk him."

Zee shrugs. "So, I like to do a lil' recon on my crushes before taking action, big deal."

"I'll just let you think about how creepy it is, if a guy was doing that."

"It's not stalking if he's posting about what he's doing on IG," Zee said huffily. "But I understand if you're concerned with the law."

"Okay, fine, whatever. Drag me to prison with you."

"It's going to be fun, you'll see," Zee says cheerily.

I look up and see Taslim watching us, almost as though he knows something's up. I hold his gaze boldly until he flushes and drops his gaze. I win, Taslim, I gloat. For some reason staring him down has set my underused heart racing and my stomach flip-flopping like an electrocuted fish. I make a note to remind myself to take antacids before our proposed criminal activity.