Srishti drags me to the corner once I’ve filled the cup to the brim with all the chakna I can probably jam in, her eyebrows raised. Her short, straight hair is pinned back with orange butterfly clips, matching the rims of her glasses and oversize T-shirt. She looks like a middle grader—severely out of place here.
“So?” she demands.
I don’t respond; my mouth is stuffed with aloo bhujia.
“Krishna!” she hisses. “After all that talk last night about grabbing his face and kissing his perfect lips—as unappealing as that sounds to my asexual ass—I’ve been dying to know. How did it go? Andwhywas there barf?”
“I nearly threw up all over him.”
“Youwhat?”
I painfully chew and swallow the mouthful of bhujia, the salt coating the snack only furthering my dehydration. “I think it was the chole bhature.”
“Or the four shots of vodka you chugged earlier.”
“Not you too, please,” I say, grimacing. “Priti already gave me shit about it. Jumped at the chance to sayI told you sothe minute shecould. Speaking of, the two of them—Rudra and Priti—were on the balcony when I ran out. And Priti, she was crying. Or at least I think she was, because her eye makeup was running down her face.”
“Priti?” Srishti looks just as baffled as I feel. “Ice QueenPriti?”
“Cross my heart and hope to die.”
“That’s so weird.” Srishti frowns at Priti, who’s standing to the side with Rudra, both drinking beers straight from the bottles. “Although, shehasbeen off this whole summer. I know she’s always avoided you, but usually she’s at least cordial with the rest of us. I’ve barely spoken a word to her this time. Who knows what’s going on with her?”
I certainly don’t know, but my curiosity is piqued. Not that I’ll ever find out, because Priti hates me. I’m the last person in the world she’d ever deign to confide in.
Believe it or not, we used to be best friends once. Sharing Barbie dolls and playing with them for hours, watching cartoons while devouring Nani’s buttery pav bhaji, and attending Mulund’s summer camps together. But that was before Papa got a job in the US and we moved abroad when I was ten.
Somewhere along the line, the 7,509 miles between Priti and me made us drift apart. Because when I came back the first summer after we emigrated, I found I’d completely lost Priti. She had anewbest friend now: Rudra.
Ever since, my trips to India have been ruined by her constantly making faces in response to everything I do and say. Sure, my acquired accent, slang, and mannerisms have everyone here believing me to be cooler than I am, and Srishti often jokingly (and proudly) introduces me as her One and Only American Cousin, but Priti’s more sardonic about it.
While Desis brought up in India are unnecessarily enamored with the US, which isn’t all that great, they’re also quick to judge, like mycousins automatically assuming I wouldn’t sleep in the room without the AC because I’m too delicate. Or, if you’re Priti, mocking me at the dinner table in front of everyone for pronouncing words and sentences wrong in Hindi.
Just because I’ve spent almost half my life in the US doesn’t make me any less Indian. I’ve been brought up by the woman who’s also Priti’s aunt. Growing up, we might’ve been worlds apart, but our values are the same, and Priti forgets that. Or maybe she knows it and she just doesn’t want to miss out on the chance to provoke me, to prick me where it hurts most.
“Off topic,” Srishti says, dragging me back to the present. “But he’s looking at you.”
“Who? Amrit?”
“No, Rudra.”
I start turning my head in his direction, the one she’s not-so-discreetly glancing in, but she smacks me. Hard.
“Ow!” I protest, rubbing my arm.
“Don’t you know the rules?” Srishti whisper-scolds me. “When someone says a hot guy’s looking at you, thelastthing you do is turn to look at them.”
“Did you just sayhotandRudrain the same sentence?”
“Why, you don’t think he’s hot?” Srishti leans toward me. “Okay, you can look now. He’s talking to Priti again.”
I turn back to look at them, threading my eyebrows together. Priti’s whispering something to Rudra. “I... guess? He has a nice ponytail.”
“Fits his whole mysterious-guy-in-a-hoodie vibe.”
“Did you know that ninety-five percent of mysterious guys in hoodies are stalkers?” my cousin and Srishti’s younger brother,Manas, says, walking up to us. “Don’t tell me you guys are crushing onRudra.”
Srishti glowers. “Were you seriously eavesdropping?”
