The Henna Wars(75)

“You’re right. Please don’t say anything else.” She gets out of her chair, and I watch. There’s nothing else I can say, really. Reassuring her wouldn’t make things better. And it wouldn’t be honest.

“Can I …” She stops and looks me in the eye. “I want to pull out of the competition. Everything that’s happened … it’s all wrong. I see it now and I should have seen it before. You were always right and I always knew it. I just … I didn’t want to see it.”

I shake my head. “I don’t want to win because you let me,” I say. “I want to win because I earned it.”

“Even if everything is stacked up against you?”

I shrug. “Even if everything is stacked up against me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

She hesitates for a moment, taking me in. I think she’s going to protest. Or say something. But she doesn’t. With a wave of her hand, she turns and disappears from sight. I hear the front door click open and shut, and only then do I start breathing normally again. My chest hurts so much with all the anxiety I’ve been holding in.

I stare at the full mug of tea Flávia left behind. Untouched.

All I can think is that at least she won’t remember me as the girl who makes terrible tea.





31

“WHAT DID SHE WANT?” PRITI ASKS WHEN I COME upstairs and slump down on my bed, taking a deep breath, like that will make the events from the past few weeks disappear from my mind.

“We … broke up.” It feels strange to say it aloud. Especially since I never really said aloud that we were together. Our relationship was shorter than Kim Kardashian’s last marriage.

“I’m sorry.” Priti lies down on the bed next to me and wraps her arms around me. It’s super awkward because half her body is on me, but it’s a nice gesture, I guess.

“Thanks,” I mumble, extracting myself from her slowly. “But you don’t have to pretend that you’re not happy about it.”

Priti turns to me with a frown. “I’m not pretending,” she says, like I’ve accused her of doing something horrendous. “I know I was resistant to her, but …” Her shoulders rise in a shrug. “If she made you happy … that’s the most important thing.”

I sigh, and turn to my side so Priti and I are face-to-face. “She’s Chyna’s cousin.”

“Yeah, that part is weird,” Priti agrees, scrunching up her nose. “Is that why you broke up?”

I take a deep breath. “Not exactly, but it played a part. Mostly, it’s because Flávia doesn’t want to come out and … I don’t want to have a secret relationship. Plus, I can’t imagine being with Flávia when Chyna is saying awful things about me being a lesbian.”

“I’m sorry, Apujan,” Priti says again, laying her head against my shoulder. I pull her closer and close my eyes. “You know … you should tell everyone that Ali sent the text. You don’t have to protect her.”

“I’m not protecting her,” I scoff. In reality, I’m trying to protect Priti. It’s hard enough losing your best friend of many years to something like this. Letting it fizzle out into nothingness instead of blowing it up to the entire school seems like the better option.

“We’re not friends anymore, so you should tell everyone.” Priti says it confidently, but I can see the hurt behind her eyes. She hasn’t been quite the same these past few weeks.

“I think losing you as a friend might be the worst punishment she could ever have.”

“I can think of a few others,” Priti mumbles.

I roll my eyes. “I think we should put all of those shenanigans behind us. We were pretty terrible at them.”

“I told you you aren’t James Bond,” Priti says, nudging me with her shoulder. I have to laugh, because I’m not sure why I ever thought sneaking around and sabotaging Chyna of all people would actually get me any positive results.



Ammu calls me into her bedroom on Saturday morning. When I show up at her doorway, Ammu is sitting on her bed with a bottle of coconut oil and a hairbrush by her side. Abbu is on the rocking chair by the bed, reading a book about the Bangladeshi War of Independence.

“Come here.” Ammu pats the spot on the bed in front of her. When I scoot into position, she pulls me closer and begins running the hairbrush through my hair. It tugs a little at my tangles. It hurts, but only slightly.

When we were kids, Ammu used to brush my and Priti’s hair every night before bed. We loved it so much that we always fought about who got to go first, until Ammu worked out a system: we would each go first every other day, so it was always fair.

“When was the last time you put oil in your hair?” Ammu asks accusatorily, running her fingers through the strands. “Look, your hair’s gone all dry. Once it all falls out there’s no getting it back, you know.”

“My hair isn’t going to fall out, Ammu.”

“You never know. You have beautiful hair, like I had when I was young. And now, look.” I don’t know what she’s talking about, because Ammu’s hair is still long and thick and black as ink. “Don’t cut off your hair, okay?”

I frown. “Why would I do that?”