Maybe Mom has a point. How dare she? But comedians use their lives as inspiration all the time. Natasha couldn’t have crossed the line when she only did what countless other artists have done, right?

Or maybe she did.

She sends a text to the thread she has with Anuj, Suhani, and Zack.

I’m really sorry for hurting y’all with my videos. Love you all so much.

The conviction she had just seconds ago is replaced by a sharp regret. How could she have said those things? Why didn’t she even consider what would happen, how they’d feel, if they saw? The thought of them, all of them, hearing all that makes her nauseated. She sees herself the way they see her. The troublemaker. The disappointment. The hassle.

But right now, she has to focus on the next hour. She has to get it together, or at least appear to get it together, before she has the conversation she’s been anticipating for days.

She takes one more deep breath and glances in the mirror. She tries to conjure an inspirational quote from the multiple ones she read on Instagram this morning. But her mind draws a blank.

Never mind, she doesn’t need Instagram therapy to get through this. All she needs is the faith that today, she’s going to start taking control of her life.

The Starbucks bathroom is poorly lit but she can still make out her full cheeks, round eyes, and the new layer of fat on her chin, all such contrasts to Suhani’s and Mom’s angular faces. It’s as though the Joshi DNA decided to soften before it got to her.

She crouches under the hand dryer in an attempt to get rid of the wetness that pooled under her arms during Mom’s phone call. She should have taken one of Suhani’s perfume samples. And some of her makeup.

She sees Karan just when she opens the bathroom door, at a round table near the entrance, wearing a salmon-colored Lacoste polo that has to be new. It’s surreal that he’s just sitting here and scrolling on his phone, as if he’s anyone else and not the person she grew up with and thought she’d be with forever. This is the longest they’ve gone without seeing each other and she’s reminded of the things that define him, the ones that became blurry in her memories, like his widow’s peak and the scar above his left eyebrow from a fall on the ski slopes during one of their joint family trips. Depending on who you asked, Karan could be either “adorable cute” or “hot cute.” Ifeoma and Payal always thought he was too short. But Natasha would take Karan’s compact, huggable build over height any day.

He sees her from his periphery. “Hi.”