“You’re so obsessed with this girl who doesn’t even care that you got outed to the entire school. You don’t even care about what’s been happening here. With us. With me. Ali and I have been on the rocks for weeks. Weeks. And of course I couldn’t tell you about it because oh no, poor Nishat is dealing with so much. We must all walk on eggshells around her, in case she gets too upset. And Nanu is sick, which you would know if you actually bothered to keep up with her on Skype like you used to before you got too smitten with some girl who doesn’t even care about you. Who was obviously just using you to win this stupid business competition.”

“She wasn’t …” The words get stuck in my throat. Not that Priti is listening anyway. She has sprung up and is pacing around the room, her hands on her hips. She looks strikingly similar to Ammu.

“You want to know something? Ammu and Abbu are doing everything they can. They have been ever since we got here, but you can’t see it or appreciate it. They may have messed up after you came out to them, but they just want to be able to look people in the eye when they go back to Bangladesh. Is that so, so wrong?”

There are tears pricking at my eyes, and despite me trying my best to stifle them, they somehow manage to sneak out until Priti blurs in front of me. My little sister doesn’t sound like my little sister at all.

When she stops, turns, and sees me rubbing at my eyes, I expect her to come to her senses. That’s how it usually goes with us: we get angry, we say things we don’t mean, but then we come back to ourselves. Go back to our rhythm. To being sisters who are there for each other no matter what.

But Priti recoils from me, like my tears are something heinous. Before I know it, my bedroom door is slamming shut behind her.

25

PRITI CATCHES THE EARLY BUS THE NEXT MORNING. OR SO Ammu tells me, when I stumble down the stairs. I’m not sure how to feel about it. If anyone should be angry, it should be me, for how she lied to me.

“Ammu,” I say, at the edge of the doorway, ten minutes before my bus.

She looks up and catches my eye, a frown on her lips. We’ve gone back to barely speaking a word to each other since I was outed to the whole school.

I blink back the tears prickling behind my eyes and swallow the lump in my throat.

“Is Nanu sick?” I manage to get out.

The look on Ammu’s face, stricken and sad, makes me instantly regret saying anything.

“She’s … she’ll be okay.”