I shrug, dropping my hand. There’s a cloud hanging above my head, and the last thing I want is for her—or anyone—to see it. “Yeah, well. I’ll let you get back to your essay, but you’ve got to let me borrow one of these hijabs for the Eid jamaat, okay?”

“Only if you promise to let me borrow your Netflix password,” Syeda says back, but she’s grinning again as she considers her own work. “Or else I’ll have to bother Anam when you’re at USC.”

“It’s a deal,” I say, and turn away before my own smile can fall.

A few minutes later, I come back to Nazifa’s room to see her and Anam crowded around a laptop. I wrinkle my nose, trying to get a good look at the screen. “What did you guys choose?”

Anam rolls her eyes, but her smile is more earnest now. “Don’t worry, we picked from your preapproved list of films.”

“As you should,” I say, and join them on the bed, wiggling in beside Anam. “So which one is it?”

“Something called The Silent Clock?” Anam shrugs. “Nazifa picked it randomly from your list.”

“Oh! Yeah, it’s a British indie film, about this boy who finds an ancestral clock in his attic. He think it’s broken, but...well.” I grin, finally at ease. “You’ll see.”

“Already over your British-accent aversion?” Anam asks, raising her brows. “That was quick.”

“Well, it’s not like—” I cut off, staring at the screen as the main character shows up, walking down a busy London street. It’s only his back, but something about it looks... “No. Holy shit, no.”

I scramble for the laptop, trying to bring it closer, but the sheets slide under me and I fall off the bed instead, hitting the floor with a loud thud. My head bangs against the bed frame, but I barely process it.

“Oh my God,” Nazifa says under her breath. “Are you okay, Poppy? What—?”

“Give me the laptop right now,” I say desperately, clawing at the sheets to sit back upright. My mind feels like it’s on the edge of snapping in half. “Give it to me.”

Anam is watching me with wide eyes but she passes me the laptop regardless. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Shut up for a second,” I say, sliding my finger along the mouse pad, taking us to the halfway point of the movie, trying to find a scene where the actor is facing forward.

“Don’t tell me to shut up,” Anam says half-heartedly, but she’s looking over my shoulder with rapt awareness. Nazifa is staring at me like I’ve lost my shit, and she’s not wrong.