Ammu frowns. “Okay, that’s good, Nishat. You can help your Khala with the wedding.”
“No, I’m …” I try to remember the word for lesbian in Bengali. IthoughtI had committed it to memory, but clearly not. I wish I’d written it on my hand or something. Like a cheat sheet for coming out.
“You know how Sunny Apu is going to marry Abir Bhaiya?” I try again.
Ammu and Abbu nod, both looking equally bewildered by the turn this conversation is taking. I’m right there with them, if I’m being perfectly honest.
“Well, I think in the future I won’t want to marry a boy at all. I think I’ll want to marry a girl instead,” I say lightly, like this is a thought that just popped into my head, not something I’ve spent years agonizing over.
There’s a moment when I’m not sure they understand, but then their eyes widen, and I can see realization settling into them.
I expect something. Anything.
Anger, confusion, fear. A mixture of all of those things, maybe.
But Ammu and Abbu turn to each other instead of me, communicating something through their gaze that I don’t understand at all.
“Okay,” Ammu says after a beat of silence passes. “We understand.”
“You do?”
Ammu’s frown and the chill in her voice suggests anything but understanding.
“You can go.”
I stand up, though it feels wrong. Like a trap.
The mug of tea burns into my skin as I grab hold of it and carry it upstairs, stealing glances back the whole way up. I’m waiting—hoping—for them to call me back. But there’s nothing except silence.
“I told them,” I say as soon as Priti slips in the door. It’s just past nine o’clock. I don’t even give her a chance to breathe.
She blinks at me. “You told who what?”
“Ammu and Abbu. About me. Being a lesbian.”
“Oh,” she says. Then,“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“What did they say?”
“Nothing. They said … ‘okay, you can go.’ And that was it.”
“Wait, you actuallytoldthem?”
“I just said I did, didn’t I?”
“I thought maybe … you were kidding. Like an April Fool’s joke or something.”
“It’s … August.”
She rolls her eyes and shuts the bedroom door behind her before flopping onto the bed beside me.
“You okay?”
I shrug. I’ve spent the last few hours trying to figure out exactly that. I’d spent years going through all of the various scenarios of coming out to my parents. None of those scenarios had includedsilence.My parents have always been forthcoming enough about their thoughts and feelings; why is now the moment they choose to shut themselves up?
“Apujan,” Priti says, wrapping her arms around me and resting her chin on my shoulder. “It’ll be okay. They probably just need to think, you know?”
