The.
Actual.
Fuck.
I am so shocked by this piece of information that I go stock-stillfor a moment, just staring at Rudra. Rudra frowns down at me, noting the change in my body language and expression.
Just when I thought Priti and I could start being cordial to each other... I discover she’s been lying to me. This whole time.
My mind flips through every moment we discussed our post-summer plans, when my cousins would ask me to show them pictures of Johns Hopkins and I would eagerly tell them how stoked I was for college, and Priti would not say a single word. She said she had been giving entrances to go to NIFT.
But the whole time, she was applying to American universities?
Rudra’s starting to look suspicious, so I swallow my shock and crack a smile. “Yeah, she said something about that. Which colleges was she applying to, again?” If Rudra and she were applying together, the chances are at least one college in New York made her list. I make a quick guess. “I know of FIT.”
The suspicious look on Rudra’s face vanishes. My guess was correct. Shedidapply to FIT—Fashion Institute of Technology.
New York City is justthreehours away from Baltimore.
This is too much to take in, even for me, and I usually have a high tolerance for anything Priti related. Worse, ithurts.It hurts so bad tears spring to my eyes. I’m trying hard not to let them roll out because it would be super embarrassing to start crying in front of Rudra.
His attention is off me, though, and back on Priti, who’s walking our way. I quickly swipe at my eyes as Priti approaches, holding out a palm piled with blueberry-flavored Big Babol strips.
“Gum, anyone?”
Rudra takes one. I shake my head stiffly.
I rarely lose my wits, but I want to smash something hard right now. Only, I have to be smart about this. I can’t tell Priti I know. Notyet. I’ll just use this piece of information as a trump card instead and fling it at her when she’s least expecting it. Maybe then I’ll be able to get her to be honest. For once.
The attendant signals that he’s done, and Rudra moves past me to pay him, whispering, “Excuse me.”
I stay quiet, but Priti’s hawk eyes note the sour twist to my features. “Why are you sulking?”
“I saw you,” I grit out.
Priti looks slightly taken aback by the intensity of my tone, but she doesn’t sway. “Saw what?”
“I saw what you were watching. In the car.”
“So?”
Rudra gets back, and that’s a sign we need to leave, but the challenging arch of her eyebrows sends me over the edge, and I can’t help it. “What do you mean,so? Priti, Srishti and I asked you if you wanted to watch the showwith us and you said you weren’t interested. You could’ve just said you didn’t want to spend time with us.”
Rudra looks comically confused at having waltzed right into the middle of our silly fight, but we both ignore him.
“I had work to do,” Priti says, her nostrils flaring. “And that was theonlytime you asked. Otherwise, you usually don’t bother. You’re always giggling away in the corner, sharing jokes. Completely ignoring your other cousin—me!”
“Ignoring?” I say, and it comes out in a high-pitched squeak of disbelief. “I try to bond with you every time, for fuck’s sake! Every summer I’m here. And everyone—not just me—ends up getting snubbed.”
“Hey,” Rudra says, glancing over at the few people in the petrol pump, who are all beginning to look in our direction. “I think we should leave—”
I step toward Priti. “You know, even though you’ve been so nastyto me this whole summer, I still hoped we might be able to have a decent trip. But you make it impossible.”
“Imake it impossible?” Priti takes a counter step, and we’re practically fuming in each other’s faces. “I know what you call me, you know.Ice Queen.You think I don’t notice you rolling your eyes every time I’m in the room, but I do.”
“If you weren’t so horrible to me, maybe I wouldn’t. Mocking my accent, my Hindi—”
“I wouldn’t do any of that if you didn’t try so fucking hard all the time.”
