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Was that the way I felt about my mother? Or was that just how I saw myself?

I reached for my phone. I needed to message Beth. I needed to speak to someone before I completely spiraled away.

I did something last night.



Don’t know if it worked.



I waited awhile, refreshing Kaavi’s social media feeds, hoping for something. It was the middle of the night in the US. I doubted Beth would even reply.

I was in luck though. My phone dinged back a few minutes later.

What did you do?





I fed some information about Spencer to one of the gossips.



The information was real, by the way. Information he hadn’t wanted to share with me either. Information that left him feeling embarrassed and upset and made me wish I had never stumbled upon it to begin with. I don’t really know, to this day, whether it was the information or the way he reacted after I told him I knew that made me see him as a completely different person.

Oh wow. Have you heard anything yet?





I sighed.

No. Not yet. The waiting is driving me crazy.



It must be! But what else can you do now? It would be nuts to go over there and see for yourself, right?





Would it be so crazy though? Crazier than spiraling over here?

You think I should head over there? See what the damage is?



I guess it’s not the worst idea, ya know? Maybe it’ll help you get some closure too.





Beth was right. I couldn’t accomplish anything from hiding out at home.

I threw in the towel and made my way to the Fonsekas’ at 2:22 p.m. There was still no sign of anything online. For all I knew, Aunty Josephina hadn’t even gotten around to doing anything yet. Maybe I had left it too late. Maybe I should have come a month earlier. I thought cutting it close was a good thing—that it wouldn’t give them enough time to repair their engagement. If the wedding was called off, there was no way they would make amends to go through all of this a second time. It would be too embarrassing.

There were no events scheduled for today, so I took a box of old photographs from our school days in case I needed an excuse to speak to Kaavi. She’d see through it, I’m sure, but it seemed like the kind of thing an old friend who had no secret agenda might do just before a wedding.



* * *



—

THE HOUSE WAS quiet. Eerily so, especially after the hustle and bustle of last night. The tents were gone, the chairs were folded, large garbage bags sat on the edge of the garden, along with crates of glasses and silverware, probably waiting to be picked up. There was no one at the entrance to stop me from going inside, so I gently pushed open the side door, the one that led to the large pantry where the family would usually eat.

Tehani sat at the table, alone. She had a bowl of cereal in front of her, which she pushed around without actually taking a bite, distracted by something on her phone.

“Um, hi,” I said softly. “I don’t want to disturb you.”

She snapped to attention, alert and straight.

“Amaya,” she greeted me. Was it me or did her smile flicker a little?

“Um, I was wondering if Kaavi was around. I wanted to give her—”

“She’s upstairs. They all are. Family meeting.”

Her voice was dry, and I didn’t ask why she wasn’t included.

“Let me just text her and let her know you’re here.”

“Oh no, don’t trouble yourself. I really just—”

“Done. See.” She waved her phone around, though I couldn’t really see anything from so far away.

“She wants you to come up.”

“I—I thought you said they were in a meeting?”

“Yeah, well, that’s what she says—Tell Amaya to come join us in the office.” She half-heartedly waved her phone at me again, but I still couldn’t see a thing.

“Um, okay.”

I made my way out to the living room and just reached the stairs when a tearstained Laura launched herself at me.

“What’s going on?” she asked. She sounded stricken.

“I—I’m not exactly sure.”

“Oh god, oh god, oh god.”

My chest tightened.

“Hey, relax.” It was more for my sake than hers.

“Look—” She peered around and then dragged me into a downstairs guest room. Hers, I assumed from the mess and empty suitcases.

“I can’t understand Sinhala, obviously, but did you hear about the huge fight this morning?”

“There was a huge fight?” My pulse quickened as a choking sensation made its way into my throat.

“Yes! Oh god. It’s Aunty Fiona—she—she—well, she burst into Uncle Nihal’s office. And then she started screaming all this—well, I don’t know what it was. But she was so angry, and oh god.”

Was it working? Were they calling off the wedding as we spoke?

“And then, well, she ran downstairs, still screaming. And she was screaming at Uncle and Kaavi. I—well—I tried to talk to them, but they just asked me to wait in my room. I think they called Spencer and asked him to come over too. Oh god, I don’t even know why they would do that, because he showed about half an hour later, looking super upset. I just—” She wrung her hands. “Oh, I just don’t know what to do!”