“Riya? Is that you?”
She turned her head toward him. “Yes, Papa,” she answered, feeling every bit the teenager.
“Okay. Dhillon is with you?”
“Yes, Papa. Dhillon is with me.”
The same conversation used to happen every night when they were kids. When they were still friends. Her parents had always taken comfort in the fact that Dhillon was with her, keeping her safe.
The door clicked shut, and she turned back to Dhillon. But he was gone.
She couldn’t help thinking about the last time he’d kissed her, at that tenth-grade dance. Her fifteen-year-old self had been thrilled that he had liked herthat waybecause she didn’t ever think he would. She’d gone to bed that night dreaming about him, waiting to see him again the next day.
“Riya! Riya!” Samir was shaking her. “Wake up. Fire! We have to get out!”
She sat up, and Samir grabbed her hand. Smoke was everywhere. Riya coughed and jumped out of bed, letting Samir lead her out.
“Where’s Mom and Papa?” she shouted.
“Not home yet.” She and Samir were almost down the steps.
They ran outside and found Dhillon there with his mom and sister. Samir deposited Riya with them and charged back into the house.
Riya tried to follow, but Sarika Auntie’s hands held her back, even as she shouted for Samir to come back. She and Dhillon had locked their gazes for a moment. Their kiss from earlier that night was simultaneously the most important and the least important thing in their lives.
Sirens sounded in the distance just as Riya saw her parents’ car pull up. She ran to them.
“Samir is inside.”
Her father ran into the house.
The next time she saw Samir, he was being carried out by firefighters, clutching her necklace.
He had died later that night from smoke inhalation.
That necklace was all she had left of him.
A few weeks after the fire, Riya left Dhillon a note in his backpack to meet her at the tree house. They still weren’t living at home. Her parents were walking zombies, and she missed her brother like she was missing a limb. She needed to feel alive, if only for an hour.
Dhillon never showed.
When she did see him, he was busy, distracted. She knew he was taking care of his family, that he had given up on soccer so he could work more hours at the clinic after school. She helped out by babysitting Hetal, helping her mom cook for the Voras, but as time wore on, she and Dhillon drifted further from each other, not closer. All she wanted was to be close to him, but he had put up a wall between them. If it hadn’t been for Lucky popping over regularly, she would have collapsed from loneliness.
She had started taking her nighttime adventures on her own. She made other friends, but she quickly realized that the only person she could count on was herself. Before she knew it, she and Dhillon had drifted so far from each other that they basically only saw each other at the yearly remembrance their families held, and even then they barely spoke. She put up her own walls and reinforced them with behavior she knew would terrify Dhillon.
Those walls had crumbled a bit tonight. But not enough.
Flames had taken part of her house, her brother and her heart. All things she would never get back.
sixteen
DHILLON
There simply wasn’t enough coffee to wake him up or improve his mood today. He was groggy from sleep deprivation, and even though his schedule was packed, it did little to distract him from thoughts of Riya or Lucky.
“The layout of this clinic doesn’t make sense,” he complained. “We need two separate entrances and maybe a back door. The surgical unit needs to be in the back, away from regular patients. And each exam room needs two doors.” He was gesturing and talking, but no one was really listening.
“It worked for Dr. Halstead,” Shelly piped up.
