But then she dumps my stuff in her and Baba’s bedroom—the only bedroom in the flat.

“You sleep there,” she instructs, without looking at me.

“Where will you and Baba sleep?” I ask.

“On couch.”

“But—”

“Not for discussion,” she says firmly, such finality in her tone that I can only swallow my protests and comply.

“Thank you, Mama,” I whisper, but she’s already turned away. If she heard me, she doesn’t show it.

I swallow the lump in my throat. All I want is for her to hug me, reassure me the way she did when I was a child, but I know that’s impossible. For now, at least. So instead I unpack my bags, change the sheets, shower, going through all the motions like a machine. Disciplined. Unfeeling.

And only when I’m alone in their bedroom, the door shut tight, do I pull the thin covers over my head and let myself cry.

18

The next morning, I wake up with a pounding headache and the pattern of my pillow pressed into my cheek. For a few short, blissful seconds, I forget I’m back at home. I forget why my throat feels so dry, like I haven’t drunk any water in days. Why my eyes are almost swollen shut.

Then I hear the clatter of pots, the click-click-click of the stove turning on in the kitchen—the kitchen—and everything comes flooding back to me in one sweeping, nauseating wave—

Fuck.

My lungs seize up as I’m assaulted by memory after painful memory, forced to relive every second of yesterday’s meeting, the look of profound disappointment on Baba’s face, the way Mama kept her lips pursed on the long subway ride home, as if she was trying to hold back tears.

I can’t remember the last time I messed up on such a catastrophic scale. I’ve never even been grounded before; whenever I did something wrong as a child, like accidentally scribble on the walls or shatter a plate, I’d be so harsh on myself that Mama and Baba would end up comforting me instead of handing down punishments.

But this is different. What I did was completely, undeniably wrong on every conceivable level. You can always fix or replace a broken plate, but when you hurt people—there’s no going back from that.

And that’s not even considering the legal implications. If Peter’s family decides to sue—which, let’s face it, they probably will because he’s their only child and I’m powerless and they’re used to having their way... If the school decides to expel me, put “criminal activity” into my permanent academic records... Or worse, if this ends up going to court... I’m not even sure how much lawyers cost, but I do know they’re expensive, a thousand times more expensive than we could ever afford, and if any of the court dramas I’ve watched are grounded in truth, a legal case like this could drag on for years. But what would the alternatives even be? Prison? Would they force my parents into jail in my place, because I’m underage? Or would they send me to some kind of juvenile detention center, where kids hide knives under their pillows and attack the physically weak like me?