I still didn’t say anything. I couldn’t if I wanted to.

“Please believe me. You—you were my friend.”

I turned around slowly. I don’t know what she was expecting. A hug? A tearful confession that it’s okay, that I forgave her for tricking me when I trusted her with things I never thought I’d tell anyone? That it’s all right that she thought I was a murderer? It was all I could do not to imagine myself breaking off her long fake nails and sticking them straight into her eyeballs.

I tried to do what I did best. I took a deep breath. I counted to five.

But that was the old me.

“Fuck off, Tehani.”

I walked to the car without looking back at her. Then I pulled out my phone and sent a text.

Alexander, hi. I’ll be back in the US soon. Shall we meet on Friday? I was thinking we could do drinks at the hotel bar first, if that was all right with you?

He could whip me for my insolence if he wanted to, but I suddenly felt brazen. It was time for me to move forward one way or the other. It was time for me to start taking back control over my life.

I would love nothing more, Clara. I’ll send a car for you at the usual time.

Good things were definitely coming my way.

36

KAAVI

“You didn’t need to come drop me, you know,” Amaya said, giving me a small smile. We were both sitting in the back of the car while my mother, who was having trouble letting me out of her sight, sat up front with the driver.

“It’s fine, I told you. It’s the least I could do, after everything you’ve done for me.”

The truth was, I would breathe a little easier once she was safely on her flight back to LA. All loose ends tied up. Any chance of what she knew coming back to bite me in the ass subdued, at least for now.

“I have something for you,” Amaya said, pulling out a box.

“What’s this?”

“Open it so.”

It was a box of photographs of us from when we were younger. I hadn’t seen most of them in years.

“Thanks, Ams, these are great.”

“Thank Seetha. She’s the one that hoards everything like her life depends on it.”

I laughed.

“I’m going to post a throwback album of these on Insta. You mind?”

She looked at her watch again and shrugged. “Sure, why not.”

In a way, it was kind of nice having her back in my life. My mother, however, disagreed vehemently, even when Amaya and I explained the truth about what Spencer did to her. I think she still thinks that Amaya will swoop in and insist on taking Nadia away someday. Amaya has assured me that she wants nothing of the sort. She never wanted children, she said. She wanted Nadia to be safe, of course, and she knew the best place for her was with my family.