Hani and Ishu's Guide to Fake Dating(49)

I haven’t added anything to it since that day on the Luas—neither has Ishu. Still, I can’t help but scroll through it every once in a while—always wondering about what it would be like if all of this were real and not pretend.

It’s as I’m looking at the guide wistfully on Thursday night that I notice a new user appear at the top of the screen. Unlike Ishu’s circular blue I, this circle has an orange N inside it.

I blink my eyes, wondering if I’ve imagined it, because the next moment it’s disappeared. But my heart is hammering in my chest. I couldn’t have imagined it.

Slowly, I click the blue share button at the top of my screen, half afraid of knowing the truth. And what I read makes my breath hitch in my throat: Shared with: Ishita Dey and Nikhita Dey.





chapter twenty-eight


ishu


BY THE TIME THE WEEKEND ROLLS AROUND, HANI AND I are still as awkward as ever. The easy comfort that we once felt with each other seems to have been stripped away. In fact, for most of the week Hani spent as little time with me as possible. Sure, she let me walk her to her classes like we’re a real-life couple, but for the entire week we barely texted or talked at all. Like we’re not even friends.

“So, will we see you at the football match tomorrow?” Aisling asks at the end of Friday. “Ten o’clock at St. Andrews, and lunch afterward?”

Hani catches my eyes at the invitation, and I’m not sure what exactly she’s thinking. She’s been a closed book all week.

“You know, I probably won’t make it,” I finally say. “Exams are coming up and … I have some family plans?”

“Oh.” Aisling doesn’t exactly sound disappointed, but she doesn’t look happy either. Who would have thought Aisling of all people would want to spend her weekend hanging out with me?

“Well, we’ll miss you,” Dee says. “But it’ll be like old times, with the three of us, right?” Dee’s smile flickers between Aisling and Hani.

“Actually, I won’t be able to make it either.” Hani doesn’t look at any of us as she says this. Instead, she focuses on her locker, fiddling with the books inside. “I’m busy this weekend.”

“Are you guys ditching us to hang out together?” Aisling does look a bit annoyed now, though she chuckles like it’s supposed to be a big joke.

“Definitely not.” Hani finally turns to her with a reassuring smile. “We wouldn’t do that to you guys.”

“Are you really busy this weekend?” I ask Hani as the two of us head out of school. Hani is walking toward the bus stop as usual, and I’m off to the Luas.

“Did you really forget?” Hani asks.

“Did … we have plans this weekend?” I distinctly remember Aisling and Dee trying to make plans with us, but as far as I know we didn’t settle on anything other than the football game.

“Your parents invited us to a dawat?” Hani turns to me with a raised eyebrow. It finally dawns on me—the dawat that Ammu and Abbu had reminded Hani of every time they ran into her. Turns out, they should have been reminding me.

“Shit.”

Hani chuckles, though her heart doesn’t seem quite in it. We reach the fork in the road, where Hani turns left and I turn right. She hesitates for a moment. That moment is all it takes for my heart to start hammering in my chest.

“You remember … the rules from the guide, right?”

I don’t know what I was expecting her to say, but it was definitely not that.

“Yeah?”

She chews on her lips before shaking her head. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” She doesn’t look me in the eye as she says this. Before I know it, she’s turning around and heading to the bus stop.

I heave a sigh, watching her retreating form for a minute, wondering why she would bring up our rules. Tomorrow will be the first time the two of us are going to be together without Aisling and Deirdre in a long time. Maybe, we can fix whatever is broken between us. Maybe there’s still time for us to figure things out.




Ammu is in the kitchen from five o’clock on Saturday morning. Even though I’m in my bedroom with my door closed, I can hear the sound of clinking pots and pans as she cooks, and the hoover as she cleans. At one point I venture downstairs, peeking into the kitchen to see her bent over the stove.

“Do you need help, Ammu?” I offer. Abbu is working at the shop until just an hour before the guests are supposed to arrive, so it’s just been Ammu all on her own, working away.

“Shouldn’t you be studying for your summer exams?” Ammu doesn’t even look up from stirring her pot of biryani.

“Yeah, but you’re all on your—”

“Go, study,” Ammu says. “I’m fine.”

Heaving a sigh, I slip back upstairs, trying to ignore my stomach rumbling at the smell of the delicious food. Ammu always goes all out when we have a dawat. She makes so many dishes that there’s hardly space for them on our dining table. She invites so many people that they can barely squeeze into our narrow three-bedroom house.

I try to go back to my studying but it’s difficult to focus when all I can think about is how Hani is going to be here in just a few hours.

Before I know it, it’s almost time for the guests to arrive. I change into a pink and white salwar kameez that’s pretty plain except for the floral patterns on its edges. It’s the urna of the salwar kameez that really makes it. It’s a mesh urna with garlands of pink and white flower patterns from one end to the other. I drape the urna on my front first. When I look in the mirror, it doesn’t look right, so I wrap it around the back of my neck instead. The patterns on the urna get hidden that way, so I settle for placing it across my shoulder instead.