“I’m sorry.” Priti lies down on the bed next to me and wraps her arms around me. It’s super awkward because half her body is on me, but it’s a nice gesture, I guess.

“Thanks,” I mumble, extracting myself from her slowly. “But you don’t have to pretend that you’re not happy about it.”

Priti turns to me with a frown. “I’m not pretending,” she says, like I’ve accused her of doing something horrendous. “I know I was resistant to her, but …” Her shoulders rise in a shrug. “If she made you happy … that’s the most important thing.”

I sigh, and turn to my side so Priti and I are face-to-face. “She’s Chyna’s cousin.”

“Yeah, that part is weird,” Priti agrees, scrunching up her nose. “Is that why you broke up?”

I take a deep breath. “Not exactly, but it played a part. Mostly, it’s because Flávia doesn’t want to come out and … I don’t want to have a secret relationship. Plus, I can’t imagine being with Flávia when Chyna is saying awful things about me being a lesbian.”

“I’m sorry, Apujan,” Priti says again, laying her head against my shoulder. I pull her closer and close my eyes. “You know … you should tell everyone that Ali sent the text. You don’t have to protect her.”

“I’m not protecting her,” I scoff. In reality, I’m trying to protect Priti. It’s hard enough losing your best friend of many years to something like this. Letting it fizzle out into nothingness instead of blowing it up to the entire school seems like the better option.

“We’re not friends anymore, so you should tell everyone.” Priti says it confidently, but I can see the hurt behind her eyes. She hasn’t been quite the same these past few weeks.

“I think losing you as a friend might be the worst punishment she could ever have.”

“I can think of a few others,” Priti mumbles.

I roll my eyes. “I think we should put all of those shenanigans behind us. We were pretty terrible at them.”

“I told you you aren’t James Bond,” Priti says, nudging me with her shoulder. I have to laugh, because I’m not sure why I ever thought sneaking around and sabotaging Chyna of all people would actually get me any positive results.

Ammu calls me into her bedroom on Saturday morning. When I show up at her doorway, Ammu is sitting on her bed with a bottle of coconut oil and a hairbrush by her side. Abbu is on the rocking chair by the bed, reading a book about the Bangladeshi War of Independence.