Boys, Laila came to see, treated friendship the way they treated the sun: its existence undisputed; its radiance best enjoyed, not beheld directly.

Hassan couldn't read a first-grade textbook but he'd read me plenty. That was a little unsettling but also sort of comfortable to have someone who always knew what you needed.

Hassan knew He knew I’d seen everything in that alley, that I’d stood there and donenothing. He knew I had betrayed him and yet he was rescuing me once again, maybefor the last time. I loved him in that moment, loved him more than I’d ever lovedanyone, and I wanted to tell them all that I was the snake in the grass, the monster inthe lake.

Hassan knew He knew I’d seen everything in that alley, that I’d stood there and done nothing. He knew I had betrayed him and yet he was rescuing me once again, maybe for the last time. I loved him in that moment, loved him more than I’d ever loved anyone, and I wanted to tell them all that I was the snake in the grass, the monster in the lake.

But for a moment, standing there with Tariq in the sunlight, it was as though those years had never happened. Her parents deaths, her marriage to Rasheed, the killings, the rockets, the Taliban, the beatings, the hunger, even her children, all of it seemed like a dream, a bizarre detour, a mere interlude between that last afternoon together and this moment.

I was glad I didn't have to return his gaze. Did he know I knew? And if he knew, then what would I see if I did look in his eyes? Blame? Indignation? Or, God forbid, what I feared most: guileless devotion?

I'll put it on my table where I keep my drawings," Hassan said.His saying that made me kind of sad. Sad for who Hassan was, where he lived. For how he'd accepted the fact that he'd grow old in that mud shack in the yard, the way his father had.

Remember Amir agha. "There's no monster, just a beautiful day,

And, just like that, he had thrown at me his own little test. If I was going to toy with him and challenge his loyalty, then he would toy with me, test my integrity.