“Someone’s capacity for forgiveness says more about them than you.” Liza burrowed deeper into her grandmother—loving the enveloping softness, the astringent smell of arthritis ointment and the soft curl of rosewater perfume and Pink oil hair cream. Granny had been the most solid thing in her life for so long, but her sturdy presence made Liza think of another person who always put her at ease. She pulled away from Granny; her mascara made two spidery crescent moons on the older woman’s shoulder. Liza reached for the silk-lined turban, and Granny pulled it off, letting the bone-white cloud of hair rise with static electricity.

“Can you oil it for me?”

Liza stood and settled herself behind her seated grandmother. She was happy to occupy her hands, happy to toil with the cottony strands until they parted into neat little rows. Dipping her finger into the Blue Magic, she slid it across her granny’s soft scalp.

Should she trade a secret for a secret? Tell Granny everything about Dorsey—about how wrong she had been? But everything had already slipped through her fingers. Did she want to see the look of disappointment on her granny’s face when she told her how much free work she had done for weeks? How many lies she’d lapped up? How she had faked her smiles and let WIC shit on Dorsey just to seem “down” and worthy of his attention? She didn’t want to share that part of herself with her granny—the shallow, weak, silly, gullible side. Instead, she dragged Blue Magic down another row.

The days rolled into weeks, and Liza couldn’t lift herself out of her fog. She hadn’t received a “36 Questions” text since the last one. No IFFs, no four a.m. selfies, no GIF parties, all of it sixty to zero. Dorsey really was done with her. She had also lost more than ten thousand followers. There didn’t seem to be a bottom on this roller coaster from hell.

When the day came for her Pinoy hip-hop event, Liza threw out the schedule that the radio station gave her and played all the artists that Dorsey and Park had recommended to her. Listeners came to the station to taste Filipino dishes from local chefs and dance on the makeshift dance floor. The Filipino embassy had even come by to take a few pictures, and magazines and newscasters interviewed her about her choice of musicians. She gave all the praise to her advisers, Joseph Park and Dorsey Fitzgerald. When she walked outside the booth to pass out radio station T-shirts and beer cozies and interview community members, she scanned the crowd constantly for Dorsey. He wouldn’t be coming, she knew, but hope was the last thing she had, and even that was wearing thin. What had he said that night of the snowstorm? Once he was done with someone, he cut them off completely.