A Very Large Expanse of Sea

Shirin continues to spend time with Navid, Carlos, Jacobi, and Bijan. Yusef joins them as well. Shirin appreciates that Yusef understands details about her that others do not: “Yusef wasn’t terrified of girls in hijab; they didn’t perplex him […]” (272). Shirin, however, finds herself uninterested in Yusef romantically. Shirin asks her father on New Year’s Eve, “How do you know if you’ve done the right thing?” (273). He tells her that it depends on whether the choice brings her “closer to humanity” (274). Shirin does not go into details with her father, who reassures her that he is confident she chose the right thing. Shirin, however, is not so sure.

Shirin returns to school after break, where everyone has moved on from caring about her photo. She does not see Ocean in class. The Indian girl who earlier berated Shirin for kissing Ocean in his car asks to talk with Shirin at lunch, now to commiserate: “People in this town are so racist. Sometimes it’s really hard to live here” (276). The girl says Shirin is brave to wear her headscarf. Shirin explains that she wears it because removing it, though it might lead to greater acceptance, would give those who bully her “all the power.” The girl, Amya, tells Shirin that taking it off would not make acceptance easier: “It doesn’t make a difference […] They still treat me like I’m garbage” (277). Shirin and Amya become friends. Shirin thinks it will be “nice” to have lunch with someone.

The next day Shirin talks to Yusef in the hall before practice. Ocean approaches and Yusef asks if he should leave. Shirin sees Ocean in his basketball uniform: “[…] he looked like someone I didn’t know” (279).

Ocean fights a player, resulting in suspension from basketball. He cuts the classes he shares with Shirin all week. Shirin tries to greet him when he does attend on Friday, but he does not reply at all.

Shirin continues to work diligently at breakdancing practice, for both the emotional stability the activity provides as well as her obligation to Navid. Navid is intent on presenting a strong and capable breakdancing crew at the talent show; although Shirin does not look forward to performing, she wants to do well for Navid. Shirin realizes the talent show is important to the school; it replaces classes for the day, and it is open to family. Her own parents do not attend. Only ten acts comprise the show. The crew is fourth in performance order. Navid and the boy are nervous. The group performs so well that they win the talent show, and Navid is thrilled. Shirin is confused by her sudden popularity after the show. The behavior of those around her—the same students and teachers who treated her intolerantly all year—shows “breathtaking levels of hypocrisy” (289) to Shirin in the form of party and lunch invitations and offers from boys to drive her home. Even Coach Hart tells her she performed well, astounding Shirin: “I’d broken up with Ocean over this” (289).

Days later, Ocean approaches Shirin at her locker. He looks thin and unwell. He compliments her performance: “You were so great” (290). Shirin’s emotions spill over and she tells him she misses him. He says he does not know how to respond. Shirin apologizes and drops her books. She hurries to practice, realizing later that she neglected to lock her locker. When she visits her locker after practice, her diary is out of place.

That evening, she reviews her entries, wondering if Ocean saw them. In her most recent entries, Shirin wrote about her irritation with students who forgot their “original cruelty” to her, her worry that Ocean would assume she likes Yusef, and how much she missed Ocean. She also sees a page on which she wrote “I love you, too, so much, so much” (293). Deeply embarrassed at first, Shirin ends up hoping that he did read the diary. She then sees a rip on the page where she detailed the conversations with Coach Hart and Ocean’s mother.

Shirin describes the events of the following day as “insane”; Ocean, having read her diary, quits the basketball team and punches Coach Hart hard enough to break his nose. Shirin sees the end of their fight at lunch; friends reach out to Ocean, but he calls them hypocritical. School authorities remove Ocean from school.

Several days later Ocean waits for Shirin outside her home before school. The two voice an apology simultaneously. They go to Ocean’s house; his mother is at work. Shirin comments on the cleanliness of his bedroom, and he admits to neatening up in the hopes that she would visit. Ocean tells her he read her diary; initially he looked to see what his mother said to Shirin, but he saw other passages including Coach Hart’s demands. Ocean apologizes several times for not grasping how intolerance affects Shirin daily. Shirin apologizes too and clarifies that his mother says a scholarship is necessary for his college education. Ocean insists that he will find another way. He has a hearing about potential expulsion the next week. They share how much they missed one another, and Ocean sits down beside Shirin on the bed. He kisses her intensely, and Shirin feels waves of emotion. She tells him she loves him, and that she wishes she would have said it earlier.

Shirin reveals in this closing chapter that her relationship with Ocean continues happily until May; then her parents say they plan to move again. Her time with Ocean after her parents’ announcement is a “sweet, strangled sort of agony” (307) as they both anticipate Shirin’s departure in July. Ocean and his mother begin to grow closer; his mother welcomes Shirin. Ocean is not expelled but chooses not to return to basketball. Students try to get to know Shirin on a more personal level. She tries as well, having learned to avoid wasting time; she spent too long already being angry and making assumptions about others. She regrets having lost time with Ocean, especially now that their time is so precious, but tries not to dwell on that regret: “Maybe it was enough to have learned that love was the unexpected weapon, that it was the knife I’d needed to cut through the Kevlar I wore every day” (310). Shirin describes her eagerness to “believe in people again” and credits Ocean for helping her shed the “stubborn layers of anger [she’d] lived in for so long” (310). When Shirin and her family drive away, Ocean texts a message to not “give up” on him; Shirin indicates that she “never did.”