“I want to go home. I just can’t do this now. I want to go home.”

A small crowd began to gather.

Someone asked, “Sister Yulia, is everything okay?”

Yulia didn’t answer. She gave a small sigh.

“Okay, Emmeline. I’ll take you home now.”

I tried to feel sorry, but I couldn’t.

It didn’t matter that I’d said everything in front of her friends. They were temporary, after all. Now she’d probably remember that this was the point when everything ended, when she was supposed to get tired of collecting prayer beads and started looking toward, I don’t know, prayer wheels or those peaceful types of communes where everyone ate whole- grain breads and meditated at certain times. We’d go back to our normal routine. It didn’t matter that Brother Khalid, too, seemed to start coming home late and leaving early over the next few weeks. That was his business, right? If Yulia had told him what I had said, and he had taken it personally—because, you know, I implied his wife only saw him as a flavor of the week—that was his problem.

And maybe it was time for him to realize that, too.

I skipped Sunday school, but that didn’t help me feel less empty.

Eating well-balanced meals—making sure to try variants on brussels sprouts and broccoli instead of dishes that oozed cheese and carbs—didn’t seem to be the right solution, either.

Junk food just cast an oil slick on my skin and made my friends, the ones from school, the ones who knew me for my food-indicated mood swings and large casserole dishes of delectable leftovers brought to sleepovers, eye me worriedly when I suggested going for tacos or fried fish instead of staying in and layering lasagna or frying up sweet and sour chicken to be doused in tangy sauce.

What was missing?

Some part of me thought I knew.

But I didn’t want to listen to it.

Not yet.

Yulia wasn’t talking to me, so when my masjid friends—or at least, the people I thought were becoming friends, as much as it scared me—turned up, I had no one to blame.

At least they weren’t inside. They were all huddled on the porch, quickly rising up with wide eyes as I approached, my steps slowing as I reached up to awkwardly adjust my backpack.

“Sabrena. Hala. And . . .”

Rehan gave me an awkward wave from where he was seated on top of the bannister.

“We’ve come bearing gifts,” he announced, and I saw that on his lap was balanced a covered aluminum tray. Sabrena and Hala held up plates, smiling hopefully.

My lips thinned.

“Sorry, guys, Yulia and Khalid aren’t home,” I muttered, trying to sidestep them.