Priti is waiting in my bedroom, a math book open in her lap. She doesn’t look happy, though whether that’s because of me or math is hard to know.
“Hey.” I try to be as nonchalant as possible, like I haven’t been out for hours at Flávia’s house. Like this isn’t an unusual occurrence.
“What took you so long?” Priti sounds distinctly like Ammu.
I shrug, and this just seems to agitate Priti further.
“Apujan, you’re supposed to be careful. You can’t just …” She takes a breath and shakes her head. “You don’t remember what Flávia and Chyna did to you?”
“It wasn’t Flávia.” I can’t help the small smile that appears on my face as I say her name. I want to tell Priti more. I want to tell her about going to her house and meeting her mom and the unicorn onesie, and the almost-kiss. But what if nothing comes of it?
“How can you possibly know that?” Priti’s voice is laced with suspicion.
“Because. I know,” I say. “Can you trust me? Flávia and I are … working things out.”
Priti doesn’t look impressed. She purses her lips and picks her book up from the bed, standing. She’s shorter than me, so she can’t exactly tower over me, but it feels like she does as she looks at me with disdain blazing in her eyes. “She’s given you no reason to trust her, Apujan,” she insists. “You can’t possibly have forgiven her so easily.”
I shrug again, because there’s really nothing else I can say. “Look, she’s …” I’m unsure how exactly to finish that sentence. “… not what you think.” I finish awkwardly. “We’re working it out. You don’t need to worry about it.”
“If you’re going to act like a lovesick fool, Apujan, don’t come crawling to me when things go wrong.” With that, she turns on her heels and disappears. My bedroom door slams closed behind her.
I feel all the excitement from the past few hours slip out of me as she leaves. I sink into the bed where she left her impression, and find that apparently she’s also left her phone behind. The screen is open to her text messages with Ali. Before I can slip out of it, the texts catch my eye; I scroll through them, trying to wrap my mind around what Priti and Ali are talking about.
Priti:I just can’t believe you could do something so sick. That you would stoop so low.
Ali:I said I’m sorry, I don’t know what else I can do to make it better
Priti:turn yourself in?? tell Ms. Grenham you sent it.
Ali:I’ll be suspended, Priti. Maybe even expelled. I can’t do that.
Priti:Then you shouldn’t have sent the text.
“What are you doing?”
I drop the phone onto the bed like it’s suddenly caught flames. It might as well have. That would probably be better.
“You left your phone.”
“So you thought that meant looking through it was okay?” Priti sounds angry but her eyes are moving nervously from my hands to where the phone has landed.
“Was it Ali?” I ask.
She looks away from me—somewhere above my head—clears her throat, and says, “Was what Ali?” Her voice is too controlled, too stoic.
“Was she the one who told everyone?”
“I thought you said it was Flávia. You said she and I were the only ones who knew.”
“I said she and you were the only ones I told.”
“Well, then—”
“Priti.”
She looks up, holding my gaze for only a moment before looking away. “I’m never going to forgive her for it, if it makes you feel better,” she mumbles.
I take a deep breath, trying to process this information. It wasn’t Flávia. It wasn’t Flávia. It wasn’t Flávia.
