“Admit it. You’ve thought about it. You’ve thought that maybe you shouldn’t be doing these things. I know you have. I’ve seen it in you.” She wanted to hurt him, to tell him he disgusted her, but she clenched her teeth and waited. There was a long silence, and she could hear someone laughing in the background.

“Yes,” he said. “I’ve thought that. But it’s just one of many, many thoughts. It doesn’t take precedence simply because it occurred to me. This is who I am, Josie. It’s not bad, or good. It just is.”

She laughed. “Yes, guruji.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Whatever you say, Devesh, I know. I know it’s violence and anger and punishment.”

“No,” he said. “It’s not. That’s not what it is. That’s not what I want.”

“It’s what I want.”

He was silent, and she knew she needed to hang up before he said another word. “I’m going now,” she said. “I’m going.” She closed the phone and threw it hard across the room.

She would not have it. She would not listen to rationalizations and excuses for her behavior. She knew who she was.

There was a knock on the door and, when she didn’t answer, her aunt peeked in.

“We need to leave in about an hour.”

She put her head down on the bed. “What if I don’t go,” she said.

“Josie, don’t do this now.”

“I don’t—”

“Just get up, get dressed,” her aunt interrupted and tossed her mother’s diamond tennis bracelet on the bed.

They arrived late. Josie’s father insisted he drive, and it took them forty minutes to make a trip that normally took twenty. The lot was already half full of cars, and Josie knew there was no slinking off into a corner before anyone came. It made her nervous, and her heart felt like a mechanical hammer—beating her from the inside.