“Saira,” Amira said. “Make her sleep. She probably got very little last night, and she’s in no state to think clearly right now. Turn her phone off and lock the door until the snake leaves town or falls off a cliff or something. Get some rest, Ree. Don’t think about him … we’ll talk tonight. We got you.”

Don’t think about him. Easier said than done. But she nodded and let Saira help her get into bed. And miraculously, once her head hit the pillow, Reena fell into that blissful state of oblivion where everything was fine and her life wasn’t a cataclysmic mess.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Reena slept for only about half an hour, then floated through the rest of the day in a blur. Saira stayed, saying it was to run interference in case Nadim appeared. But her sister also curated a list of Bollywood movies for Reena, stating that these specific films would help with heartbreak. They got through two epic tearjerkers before Saira left and Reena went back to bed.

But despite the existential exhaustion, sleep eluded her. She didn’t toss and turn, or squirm and yawn, rather she just lay there, staring into the darkness, wondering how her life had gone so spectacularly wrong.

She hadn’t had one of these nights in a long time. The type of night she had sworn off years ago when she discovered a few shots of vodka numbed her self-loathing enough to get some sleep.

Somewhere around Reena’s fifth or sixth breakup, she’d made a conscious decision not to let her failed relationships get to her anymore. After all, she had enough to fret about in the other areas of her life, so why worry about her love life, too? She didn’t even cry after Jamil broke up with her, and they had been together for over eighteen months. She had loved his quirky hobbies and gregarious personality. And nothing over Eddie or Carlos, either.

But nothing about her short relationship with Nadim felt like any of the others. And, of course, this time the betrayal felt worse, too. No one had ever kept something so huge from her.

But Reena didn’t get a shot of vodka to help her sleep. Strangely, she didn’t want to numb the pain—she wanted to feel it this time. Like she needed penance for getting herself in this mess.

She tossed around and ended up facing her large mirrored closet door. Illuminated only by the faint streetlight through the window, she saw her reflection. And she couldn’t help but cringe at it.

She couldn’t lie to herself anymore. This wasn’t just about losing Nadim. She had been fighting this angst long before she planted herself on his lap to finally kiss the man who she’d grown to need so much. Long before Nadim even turned up in her hallway with a bicycle and a six-pack of beer, Reena had been fighting the deep emptiness that lay just below the surface. And she’d been fighting it in the way she’d dealt with everything: deflect and distract.