He felt his excitement drop as if hurled from a ten-story building. Maybe he’d been wrong about this girl all along. She didn’t seem like the type to shoplift. He had imagined that the connection he felt between them would certainly mean that she wouldn’t do something like that to his family. He tried to rectify his impression of her by telling himself that she didn’t know the store was owned by his family. Perhaps she just thought he worked there as a clerk. He felt dizzy, not knowing what to do. He could hear his father in his head, yelling at him to call the police. He didn’t want to do that to her. But he didn’t know what to do, so he stood like a statue, in shock, doing nothing.

Aria picked out the cheapest packet of gum she could find and walked toward the checkout counter. For a second, Omkar hoped that she would take the item out of her pocket and pay for it as well, so he could go back to seeing her in the way that he did before tonight. But she didn’t. Instead, she took a handful of spare change out of her pocket for the gum, hoping that the purchase would serve as further disguise for what she had taken. The noise from the cash register took up the space where their words did not. Aria was disappointed by his suddenly withdrawn demeanor; he had been so friendly before. But all she could think of was getting out of the place quick enough to avoid being found out. So when he handed her back a dime and some pennies, she pivoted and walked back out the door.

Omkar stood at the counter in shock for 30 seconds before the idea of following her shot into his head. The rush of the decision had already taken hold of him. “Papa, Papa, watch over the store for me!” he yelled upstairs, throwing his jacket over his shoulders and struggling to get his arms through the sleeves fast enough.

Neeraj came downstairs with a worried look on his face. “What is this?” he said, equally concerned and perturbed at his son’s request.

“It’s something I forgot at school. It’s very important.” Omkar’s apology was inherent in the way that he said it. Neeraj was visibly frustrated by his son’s immaturity in having forgotten something so important, but he nodded consent and Omkar sprang out the door.

He looked frantically both ways down the street as far as he could, searching for her. As fortune would have it, he could just make out the patched design of her camo pants and the edges of her hair being played with by the wind as she walked away from him. He began to follow.