My brother’s team is gunning for first place, trying to snag as many points as possible.

In a minor act of defiance, I keep my earphones in and listen to Ace’s playlist on repeat instead of paying attention to the student commentator’s play-by-play of the competition on the overhead speakers. Dadu and I are squeezed between two families who are far too enthusiastic.

I cringe away from the cheering mother on my left and hunch toward my grandma as she fiddles with her misbaha. The bleachers are far from comfortable, but Dadu isn’t complaining, so I won’t either. I distract myself by texting Nandini and Cora until Samir’s group comes forward.

My brother is in his element, our school’s colors painted across his cheeks. He spends a third of his time controlling the robot, another third cheering on his teammates, and the last third discreetly looking at the bleachers. His gaze is focused far above me and Dadu, where a lone girl is sitting with a book in her lap, toying with a cross necklace.

I squint, trying to figure out why she looks familiar before it clicks. She’s one of the students that I used to tutor in English after school. What was her name...?

Leah.

I look back at my brother, but he’s paying attention to the competition again. I barely understand what he’s doing, but there’s a huge smile on his face.

Something painful twists inside me. I wish I was that comfortable with my own passions.

After a while it becomes hard to look at Samir’s beaming face, so I direct my attention back to my phone. As the minutes pass, I resist the urge to text Ace. It’s hard. Harder than it’s ever been to ignore someone’s texts.

I miss him. A lot.

Sitting in the bleachers gives me a lot of time to think. About who I am, who I want to be, and who I can be. The choices I want to make. The sacrifices those choices will require.

My friends are right. I like Ace. Being around him makes me happy in ways I didn’t know I could be. I want more than three weeks, and I don’t want our relationship to be a pretense we put on for other people. I want it to be real.

But no matter what, it’s something I’ll have to hide from my parents. They’ll never approve of him, no matter what I say, no matter what I do. It’s not a fight worth attempting, not because I don’t want to fight for Ace, but because it’ll be pointless. They’ll force me to stop seeing him, and I’ll lose their trust forever.

But I want to be with him.