Jana twirled her noodles with her chopsticks. “I’m thinking an apology isn’t going to mean much to you, but…I am sorry. You always brought out the worst in me. I mean, it’s no wonder—after so many years of everyone telling me I should be more like you.”

Kamila was very glad she wasn’t drinking her yuzu-lychee fizz at that moment, because she would have spit it all over Jana’s face and possibly ruined that perfect red lipstick (she made a mental note to ask Jana the shade when they weren’t in the midst of repairing a twenty-seven-year-old relationship). “You’re kidding,” Kamila said. “Why would anyone tell you to be more like me? You are the very definition of a perfect Indian daughter.”

“Did you forget about the unwed-mother part, Kamila?”

“Okay, but that’s a new development. For my entire life people asked me why I couldn’t be smart and respectable like Jana Suleiman.”

“And people asked me why I couldn’t be fun and easygoing like Kamila Hussain.”

Kamila glared at Jana, eyes narrowed. Finally, she sighed. “But I had more than just petty comparison as reason to dislike you…I mean, you did hook up with the guy I was seeing when we were eighteen, and you didn’t tell the nosy aunties that it was you, not me, fogging up his windows outside your house.”

Jana frowned. “This is all because of Bronx? Didn’t he hook up with every brown girl in the neighborhood?”

Kamila raised a brow. Was that supposed to make her feel better?

“Fine, fine. You’re right. I shouldn’t have done that. I knew you were seeing him. I didn’t think you were exclusive, though. He lured me with his Rumi poetry.”

Kamila snorted. “Really? Rumi?” Kamila and Bronx weren’t exclusive—it was casual. But him fooling around with Jana stung a little more than if it had been anyone else.

Jana shrugged. “Honestly, I wasn’t used to guys paying any attention to me. Especially guys who’d shown an interest in you first. I kind of wanted to see what it would be like to be you for a moment. Anyway, that guy had a major South Asian fetish.”

“Well, yeah, duh.” That NAMASTE shirt he always wore gave that away. But Kamila was young and stupid back then and thought he was soooo respectful of her culture. “It wasn’t Bronx Bennet that pissed me off. It was the fact that you didn’t come clean when I was accused of being the one in his car. Even after my mom gave you my graduation party because of it.”

Jana froze. “She gave me what?”