Before Karina could check on Prem, a playground teacher jogged over, breathless. “I saw that, Miss Olander. Throwing an object at someone? You are going to pay a visit to the principal’s office.” Before Karina could explain, the teacher took her by the upper arm and moved toward the building doors. Prem looked up at her from the bench, his face now streaked with tears. She touched her nose with the fingertip of her free hand as she was being pulled away and he did the same, the invisible thread that bound them.

When Prem had started kindergarten at Karina’s elementary school last year, he worshipped his big sister and her friends by extension. Her parents were happy knowing they were at the same school, where Karina could look out for him. Prem was so nervous that first day as Karina showed him around, pointing out the playground where she would see him at lunch. “Look, you love monkey bars!” Prem smiled at her, then spontaneously threw his arms around her torso and squeezed tight. “Okay, okay,” she said, unlatching him before anyone saw. “You’re a big boy now.” She touched him lightly on the tip of his nose. “You’ll be fine. I promise.” He nodded solemnly, placing his fingertip on his nose, then hers.

Karina had had a hard time adjusting at the school herself, mainly because there wasn’t a single other person there like her. There were the white kids, the Chinese kids, the Indian kids and the Spanish-speaking contingent. But the combination of Karina’s features—milky tan skin, dark eyes, thick wavy hair, prominent nose—made her feel like she didn’t quite fit in anywhere. People were not unkind, but she sometimes felt like a puzzle to be figured out. The first time her father had picked her up from soccer practice, the other parents looked on with confusion when he waved from the car, trying to reconcile his pale, freckled complexion with hers. One mother intercepted her on the field to confirm Karina knew him before letting her go, making her acutely aware of how mismatched they looked. Her name only made things worse. Derived from carus, the Latin word for “love,” it was also a Hindi name meaning “flower,” “pure” or “innocent.” Her parents were drawn to its meanings in different cultures; it appealed to their sense of their two ethnicities coming together in one child. When she was younger, Karina bought into their explanation, but now she resented having to repeat and spell her name for everyone.

Prem wound up with a different combination of features: his skin fair, his hair straight and fine, and his long, dark eyelashes looking as if they’d been curled and given a heavy application of mascara (totally wasted on a boy, in Karina’s opinion). People were always surprised to learn they were brother and sister, and while there were moments when she wished they weren’t, it still bugged her when someone expressed disbelief. Karina and Prem were the only two members of their club, even if no one believed they could belong together.