Hani and Ishu's Guide to Fake Dating(15)

“Okay, okay.” The thing about Bengalis is that they don’t let you leave their house without having some kind of food. Visiting someone and not eating is basically one of the biggest insults to Bengalis.

When I get upstairs, my room is a mess. I haven’t cleaned it in a whole week, and in that time the floor has accumulated enough dirty laundry to fill up the washing machine twice over. My desk has a pile of unreturned and unread library books that is half as tall as me. And my dressing table has so many bottles and vials and brushes that I could probably start my own beauty line.

I pile all the clothes into my wardrobe and shove the books and makeup into whatever drawers have remaining space. The room smells a little funky—probably from all the dirty clothes—so I throw open the window before changing out of my uniform.

The doorbell rings just as I pull on my trousers. I rush downstairs, hoping to beat Amma to greeting Ishita. No luck; Ishita is already inside when I get to the door. She’s smiling at Amma, and her smile is so awkward that it looks as if she’s in pain.

“Hey, you made it!” I try not to let on that I’m panting a little from running down the stairs so fast.

Ishita raises an eyebrow. “I did.” I can tell from the pained expression on her face that she’s trying to be nice—even if she’s failing pretty badly at it.

“Well, um. We should get upstairs?” My eyes flicker between Ishita and Amma—because Amma is looking at me with a bemused expression.

“Do you two share any classes?” she asks.

“No!” I say, at the same time that Ishita says, “Yes.”

“I mean …” I shoot Ishita a small glare. “We both do the core subjects … obviously. So … um.”

Amma nods, like what I said actually makes any kind of sense. She turns to Ishita and says, “I called your Ammu and said you’ll be staying over for dinner.”

“Great, thank you, Aunty.” Ishita shoots her another polite smile before following me to the stairs.

“What the hell was that?” she whispers as soon as we’re out of Amma’s earshot.

“What the hell were you doing?” I ask. “Why couldn’t you have just stayed quiet and let me handle it?”

“Um, maybe because you looked like a deer in the fucking headlights. We do have a class together. Biology, remember?”

I stop at the top of the stairs, fixing her with a glare. “No cursing at my house, Ishita.”

She rolls her eyes. “You can’t be serious.”

“If I wasn’t serious I wouldn’t say it, would I?”

For a moment I think she’s going to fight me on it. Instead, she closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and says, “Fine. No cursing in your house.”

I smile. I really hadn’t expected to her to give in that easily. This is Ishita Dey after all.

I lead her into my room and she takes it in with narrowed eyes. Even with everything hidden away from her eyes, I can almost see her bite back a comment.

“Your room is … nice.” She says it like it’s a struggle to say the word nice.

“Thanks… . you can sit.”

While she perches on the bed like she really doesn’t want to touch anything, I take the comfy chair by my desk, facing her.

“So.”

“So.” She holds my gaze for a long moment, before turning away and saying, “First of all, you have to tell your mom that we’re together.”

“What?” Lying to Amma is the last thing I want to do, and I’ve already done it way too much these past few days.

“Otherwise you’re going to give everything away,” Ishita says. “You were a disaster down there. Your mom definitely suspects something is up. Just easier to say that we’re dating, right?”

Would Amma even believe that? She knows me better than anyone else in the world and … Ishita is not exactly my type. Though I guess Amma doesn’t know that. There have never been any girls before.

“You weren’t much better, you know.” I shoot back at Ishita. “You shouldn’t have even rung the bell. You could have just texted me so I could open the door—”

“You didn’t even give me your number,” she points out. And I know it’s true but the fact that I’m even partially at fault for the disaster downstairs makes me even more annoyed at her.

“Well, you didn’t ask for it.” My voice comes out more like a snarl than anything else. It even takes me aback. I haven’t heard that kind of anger in my voice—or even felt this constant itch of irritation—since before Polash left for London.

Ishita raises her palms up in front of her, like she’s surrendering. “This is not how couples act, just so you know.”

“Because you know a lot about what couples act like?” The words are out of my mouth before I can take them back.

She observes me with narrowed eyes for a moment before shaking her head and standing up. “Okay, this is obviously a waste of time. I should just go home and find someone else to fake date. I didn’t commit myself to anyone yet.”

There’s a sinking feeling in my chest and it grows wider and wider with every step she takes. And she’s taking mighty slow steps like she doesn’t really want to leave.

I imagine Aisling’s smug face at lunch today, and Dee’s words from Friday echo in my head. That helps me swallow down my anger.