“You are such a troublemaker,” I say to Anam, throwing myself onto one of the bean bags on the floor. Syeda joins me, offering me a consoling pat on the head. “You know we’re going to be yelled at when we go home tonight.”

“Well, screw that,” Anam says, sitting down on Nazifa’s bed with a grunt. “Can we trade families, Nazifa?”

“Absolutely not,” Nazifa says, snorting as she takes a seat beside Anam after stealing a jilapi from her sister. “Your mom is terrifying.”

“Cheers to that,” I mutter, digging the heels of my palms into my eyes. My brain is still sluggish, trying to recover from the disaster of yesterday. Watching Tangled (2010) with Anam helped, but there’s still a strange tension in my gut, and thinking about the inevitable fight with my mother tonight doesn’t help.

“I don’t get why she has to be like that all the time,” Anam grumbles, breaking off a piece of Nazifa’s jilapi and shoving it in her mouth. “She could take a night off once in a while.”

Syeda snorts, her eyes bright with fond amusement. Nazifa is Anam’s age, but Syeda is the oldest out of all of us, in her sophomore year of college. I’ve always struggled to comprehend why she would want to live at home and commute to college—but then I have to remind myself Syeda is majoring in fashion design and her family encourages her to pursue her dreams.

If I think about it too long, I get overwhelmingly sad. I wish my parents didn’t care so much about appearances. I wish our happiness was enough.

“You guys truly won the lottery,” I say, and I can’t help how wistful I sound. “How come everyone has amazing parents except for us?”

Syeda sets down the box of jilapi, squeezing my shoulder. “Hey, everyone fights with their family. It’s a normal part of growing up.”

“But this doesn’t feel like a fight. It feels like a war. And Anam and I somehow always lose.” I lean my head against the wall, looking up at the ceiling. “I bet if you murdered someone, your mom would help you hide the body.”

“I don’t know about that,” Nazifa says, but I can hear the soft smile in her voice. “Ma and Baba are wonderful, but we still have rules to follow, you know? Murder might be out of the cards.”

“Okay, maybe not murder, but your parents love you guys more than they love their rules,” Anam says bitterly. “Which is how a family should be, but whatever.” She shakes her head, her blue curls bouncing erratically as she pastes on a forced smile. “What’s the plan for tonight?”