The Henna Wars(61)

“Do you want to stay for dinner, Nishat?” Flávia asks.

My watch says it’s already seven o’clock. I asked Priti to tell Ammu and Abbu where I was going, but I’m sure they’re wondering about me. I don’t really want this strange evening to end, but I’m also not entirely sure that I want to sit through a dinner with Flávia, her mother, and Chyna.

“I should probably get going, actually.”

“I’ll walk you to the door,” Flávia offers. We walk out of the sitting room in silence. I’m keenly aware of her presence beside me; of our arms nearly touching, and the sound of her breathing. The sound of mine.

We swing by her bedroom, where she picks up my still-damp school uniform and slips it into a plastic bag for me.

“Will you be okay going home in that?”

“I don’t really have much of a choice.” I shrug.

“Maybe my mom can give you a lift? So you don’t have to get the bus all by yourself, I mean.”

“I don’t want to bother her at dinner time. Thanks, though.”

At the doorway, a heavy silence hangs between us. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say or do. I don’t know whether this will end like the party or not; whether I should be annoyed or elated.

Flávia clicks the door open but before I can slide out, she steps close. Her fingers tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, brushing against my skin and sending a jolt of electricity through me.

“You’ll text me when you get home?” she asks.

And the thing is, even though this is something that countless people have asked me to do—my sister, Chaewon, even Ammu—this feels different. Flávia’s voice is laced with so much concern, her eyes sparkling with something like hope, that even though it’s a familiar request everything about this moment feels brand new.

I gulp down the lump forming in my throat, and nod. She smiles and I slip out the door.

It’s only when I arrive home that I realize we never even worked on the decorations for my henna booth.



Priti is waiting in my bedroom, a math book open in her lap. She doesn’t look happy, though whether that’s because of me or math is hard to know.

“Hey.” I try to be as nonchalant as possible, like I haven’t been out for hours at Flávia’s house. Like this isn’t an unusual occurrence.

“What took you so long?” Priti sounds distinctly like Ammu.

I shrug, and this just seems to agitate Priti further.

“Apujan, you’re supposed to be careful. You can’t just …” She takes a breath and shakes her head. “You don’t remember what Flávia and Chyna did to you?”

“It wasn’t Flávia.” I can’t help the small smile that appears on my face as I say her name. I want to tell Priti more. I want to tell her about going to her house and meeting her mom and the unicorn onesie, and the almost-kiss. But what if nothing comes of it?

“How can you possibly know that?” Priti’s voice is laced with suspicion.

“Because. I know,” I say. “Can you trust me? Flávia and I are … working things out.”

Priti doesn’t look impressed. She purses her lips and picks her book up from the bed, standing. She’s shorter than me, so she can’t exactly tower over me, but it feels like she does as she looks at me with disdain blazing in her eyes. “She’s given you no reason to trust her, Apujan,” she insists. “You can’t possibly have forgiven her so easily.”

I shrug again, because there’s really nothing else I can say. “Look, she’s …” I’m unsure how exactly to finish that sentence. “… not what you think.” I finish awkwardly. “We’re working it out. You don’t need to worry about it.”

“If you’re going to act like a lovesick fool, Apujan, don’t come crawling to me when things go wrong.” With that, she turns on her heels and disappears. My bedroom door slams closed behind her.

I feel all the excitement from the past few hours slip out of me as she leaves. I sink into the bed where she left her impression, and find that apparently she’s also left her phone behind. The screen is open to her text messages with Ali. Before I can slip out of it, the texts catch my eye; I scroll through them, trying to wrap my mind around what Priti and Ali are talking about.

Priti: I just can’t believe you could do something so sick. That you would stoop so low.

Ali: I said I’m sorry, I don’t know what else I can do to make it better

Priti: turn yourself in?? tell Ms. Grenham you sent it.

Ali: I’ll be suspended, Priti. Maybe even expelled. I can’t do that.

Priti: Then you shouldn’t have sent the text.

“What are you doing?”

I drop the phone onto the bed like it’s suddenly caught flames. It might as well have. That would probably be better.

“You left your phone.”

“So you thought that meant looking through it was okay?” Priti sounds angry but her eyes are moving nervously from my hands to where the phone has landed.

“Was it Ali?” I ask.

She looks away from me—somewhere above my head—clears her throat, and says, “Was what Ali?” Her voice is too controlled, too stoic.