She shakes her head. “We’re still talking about you.”
“I’m just sorry, okay? You know I love you. I would never … I didn’t mean to … and I know that you …” I sigh. “Just … that. I love you.”
A smile tugs at her lips and she leans forward, wrapping her arms around me. “I was mean yesterday.”
“Very.”
“I made you cry.”
“You did.”
“After everything else that’s happened.”
I ruffle her hair and it’s like I can feel the anger and resentment slip out of my body with every breath. “It’s okay. I think I get it. Will you tell me about Ali?”
“She just hasn’t been the same this year. She has her new boyfriend and this new attitude about everything. I told her about you and I thought she would understand, she would listen, but … she was weird about it. I should have told you before.”
“She was weird, how?”
“Like … she kept asking me weird questions,” Priti says, furrowing her eyebrows together like she’s trying really hard to remember exactly what was said. “She asked if Ammu and Abbu would force you to marry a man. And like … if you would be killed in Bangladesh if you went there now.”
“Well, yeah. Everyone can smell the lesbian on me now,” I joke.
She smiles, but I know she’s still thinking about Ali. “I don’t know if Ali is a racist or a homophobe or both. But … she sent the text. She said it was because everybody deserved to know about you. You were deceiving them by keeping it a secret.”
“I’m against Catholic ethos, not how an all-girl school should be run.” I remember the words from the text that had been sent out, even though I wish I could forget them.
I suddenly remember the conversation I overheard in school between them last week. “Is that what you were talking to her about when you were supposed to help me steal the henna tubes?”
Priti nods. “I didn’t know how to tell you. I thought … I could just make it go away. But I made it worse.”
“You should have told me.”
“You were already dealing with Ammu and Abbu, and Chyna and Flávia, and then even Sunny Apu was being horrible to you. I thought you had enough on your plate.”
“So you were trying to protect me?” The irony of it makes me want to laugh. By protecting me, Priti hurt me more than she would have if she had just told me the truth from the start.
“I’m sorry. I thought I was helping.”
I press her closer to my chest and say, “Next time, leave the protective sister act to me, okay?”
“Okay, okay,” she concedes. But I already know that she won’t, and I’m okay with it.
26
ONSATURDAYIWAKE UP WITH BUTTERFLIES IN MYstomach. These butterflies are completely different from the ones I feel because of Flávia; around her, I feel anxious in a pleasant way. Like I’m going to throw up, but at least there’s a pretty girl in front of me. Now I just want to throw up.
When I get into Abbu’s car with all my things, Priti’s already there with her schoolbag full of books.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“I’m going to help you,” she says, tapping her book bag like that should explain everything. “I’ll just study there,whilehelping you.”
I slip into the seat beside her, even though I know Ammu probably won’t be very happy about this. But Abbu doesn’t seem to mind. He even puts on Rabindranath Sangeet and sings along for the entire drive, even though Priti and I groan and ask him to shut up.
As Abbu gets everything in the restaurant in order, I pull a curtain in front of the corner booth and stick a copy of the poster I made onto the cloth with some tape. I hung copies up around the school throughout the week, in the hopes that people would actually come down this weekend. It’s a simple poster—one of the pictures from our Instagram blown up, with NISHAT’SMEHNDIon it in cursive and the date, time, and place of the pop-up shop printed neatly below. Above it I hang Flávia’s banner.
“Is that—”
