“How could you do that, Samir? God, you’re the worst,” I say as my throat tightens painfully, and I turn, ignoring the way his face falls as I leave his room.

In the privacy of my own walls, I brace myself for the conversation I’m about to have.

I light three different candles and take a deep breath.

Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

In and out. Inhale and exhale.

I press call.

“Myra,” my dad says. Already, there’s heavy disappointment in his voice. I wish for once, for once, he would take my side when it matters. I know it’s too much to ask of my mother, but he was raised by Dadu. Just once, can’t he let me have this? “Samir said you were outside with a boy today.”

I swallow past the lump in my throat. There’s only one card that’s going to let me go unscathed: the reminder this is all for school. “Yes. I’m tutoring him because my teacher asked me to.”

“On a Saturday?” my mom asks. Even through a phone screen, she’s intimidating. “You should have told your teacher it’s against your religion to be alone with a boy.”

Stop blaming your rules on our religion. I don’t say that. It won’t matter to them.

“We’re never alone,” I lie. “We always study in the library, so there are lots of people around.”

“What are you tutoring him in?” my dad asks, eyes narrowed.

This isn’t going to go over well. I inhale deeply and murmur, “English.”

A silence follows before my dad shakes his head at me. “That’s a waste of your time. Assisting your teacher is one thing, but tutoring this random boy one-on-one is another. If we’d known Miss Cannon was going to leave you on your own, we wouldn’t have agreed to let you help her. You should be focusing on science anyway. Samir said you do this every day.”

I want to strangle my brother for his obliviousness. Why would he ever tell my parents that? It wasn’t enough to say I was tutoring a boy, he had to go into depth about it? I never took him to be that clueless.

“It counts as a grade,” I say, biting the inside of my cheek. The copper taste of blood floods my mouth. “Miss Cannon is substituting it for one of my projects.”

My mom scowls. “So? Tell your teacher you can’t do it anymore. She can’t force you to tutor this boy if you don’t want to.”

But I do want to. Maybe it was a forced situation in the beginning, but it’s far from that now.

“Private tutoring will look good on college applications,” I say instead, lowering my gaze.