So that is how I spend Sunny Apu’s engagement, trying to construct the perfect coming out moment, and wondering if that even exists. I try to think back to every movie, TV show, and book that I’ve ever seen or read with gay protagonists. Even gay side characters. Each coming out was tragically painful. And they were all white!

“What are you doing?” Priti asks when she spots me typing on my phone in the midst of the engagement ceremony. Everyone’s eyes are turned to the bride- and groom-to-be so I thought this was the moment I could Google “gay happy endings” without someone peering over my shoulder.

I quickly slip the phone into my bag and shoot her a wide-eyed, innocent smile.

“Nothing. Nothing at all.”

She narrows her eyes like she doesn’t believe me, but says no more. She turns back to the bride- and groom-to-be.

I know Priti will try to talk me out of it if I tell her what I’m thinking of doing. But I also know I can’t be talked out of it now.

I can’t keep living a lie. I have to tell them at one point or another.

And tomorrow is going to be that point.

It’s weird, but after I’ve made my decision I feel like I’m on borrowed time. Like this is my family’s last day together and something is about to break open between us. When we’re driving home from the engagement party, it’s past midnight. The streetlights cast a strange glow on the road ahead, marred by the bright, full moon in front of us. It’s a clear night, for once. Priti is dozing in the backseat beside me. Ammu and Abbu are speaking in a low hum, so I can barely understand what they’re saying.

I wish I could bottle this uneventful moment—a flash of time when we’re all at peace, together and apart at once—and keep it with me forever.

I wonder if this is what things will be like tomorrow too, after I’ve told them.

But then the moment’s over and we’re home and stumbling out of the car. Our churis jingle against each other, sounding too loud and bright in the dead-of-night quiet on the streets.

Inside, I strip my face of all the heavy makeup Priti carefully dabbed onto it just hours before. I slip out of my itchy, uncomfortable salwar kameez and bury myself in my blankets, where I pull up Google again and translate the word lesbian into Bengali.

The next morning, Priti flits off to her best friend Ali’s house with a smile on her lips. She’s promised to tell Ali every detail she can about the engagement party, and the upcoming wedding. With pictures.