“I embrace that,” Cora says, and sticks out her tongue.
I hold out my phone, presenting the picture of Holly and a few other members of the club. “See?”
“Should I ask her then?” Cora says, looking between Nandini and me. “I won’t mention you-know-who, but I’m assuming you two are still going together...?”
“Bold of you to assume I’m going at all,” I say under my breath before nudging Nandini. “If my parents miraculously give me permission, you can be my date instead.”
Nandini bites her lip. “Someone might have already asked me.”
“What?” Cora and I say at once. Cora nearly knocks her head into my jaw in a rush to sit up and stare at Nandini.
“Since when?” I ask.
“And who?” Cora adds.
Nandini shrugs, looking self-conscious for once. “Timothy Chen. He came to the movies last week and we got to talking and...yeah.”
“What? He’s so cute!” Cora pinches Nandini’s leg. I have the urge to repeat the motion, because Cora’s right. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“Because I didn’t know if we were still going as a trio!” Nandini glances at me. “Karina’s you-know-who kind of threw a wrench in the mix. Since I wasn’t sure, I told Timothy no.”
“Oh my God, if you don’t message him right now...” Cora lets the threat hang in the air, her finger pointed at Nandini. “Say yes!”
I nod eagerly. “Say yes.”
“But if I say yes and Cora asks out Holly, then what will you do?” Nandini asks in protest. “You refuse to even mention his name.”
Before any of us can contemplate that, the doorbell rings.
I have a feeling I know exactly who it is, and just the thought makes me feel like I’m about to break into hives. I got two more texts from Ace this morning, checking in on me, and I didn’t reply to either of them. Maybe that wasn’t the best decision.
“You summoned him,” Cora jokes before she catches the look on my face. “That’s not actually him, is it?”
“Uh.” I’m at a loss. “It could be.”
Nandini makes a shooing gesture at me. “Answer it!”
Before I can, Samir comes down the stairs, heading for the door.
Not Ace, then.
“It’s for you, Myra Apu,” Samir says seconds later, and I immediately clamber to my feet. Did I speak too soon?
When I come into the foyer, it’s clear the world is colluding against me. Ace is standing there, hands tucked into his pockets. My heart swoops toward my stomach and erupts into a fresh scatter of butterflies that seem hell-bent on destroying me from the inside out.
“Karina,” he says, eyes darting across my figure. “Are you okay?”
I rub my arms, a chill passing through me. “I’m fine.”
“You weren’t answering my texts, so I—”
“Oh my God, it is Ace!” Cora shouts from inside, making me wince.
Ace’s expression shifts to surprise. “Do you have guests over?”
“Yeah, Nandini and Cora are here.” I scratch my head, unsure how to proceed. “I’m sorry, but now isn’t a good time.”
“Oh. Okay,” Ace says, his face falling. When his shoulders slump, I notice the bag strapped to his back and feel even worse. I honestly think about inviting him inside before I remember my parents’ words and push that urge away.
“Okay.” An awkward silence follows. “I’ll see you at school next week.”
“Next week?” Ace repeats, his voice quiet. “Karina, did I do something wrong?”
Samir is still standing there, looking between us with a forlorn expression on his face. My blood feels like it’s boiling, blistering my skin.
I clench my hands into fists. “Samir, can you leave? This conversation doesn’t concern you.”
“Myra Apu, I—” Samir says, but I give him a sharp look, and he closes his mouth. “Yeah. Sorry. I’m going.”
I look back at Ace, but I don’t have an answer to his question. I don’t know how to explain my parents. I don’t think I have it in me. “I’m sorry. I can’t talk about this now. You shouldn’t have shown up at my house.”
Ace falters. “I just thought...”
I press my lips together and some of my lingering bitterness sprouts to the surface. “I don’t think you did think, Ace. You can’t just show up at my house because I’m not answering your texts. And honestly, you probably shouldn’t come here at all in the future, especially without a warning. My family isn’t like yours. I could get in serious trouble if you keep doing this.” I take a deep breath and lower my voice, my shoulders hunching. “I should have told you sooner, but I didn’t think you’d keep showing up. I’m telling you now, though, and I need you to respect my boundaries. Can you do that? Please?”
He blinks at me in shock, but I don’t take back the words. He can’t keep doing this. I can’t let him. I’m lucky Dadu is willing to look past Ace’s behavior, but if he ever tries this when my parents are back...it’s better I tell him now than face the consequences later. I know what being caught hanging around Ace entails. I only agreed to three weeks for a reason.
“My lines are not your lines,” I say, when he keeps staring at me silently. “Please be careful about crossing them.”
“Okay,” he says again, looking down. “Of course. I’m sorry. I crossed a line. I won’t cross it again.”
I nod slowly. “Thank you.”
Ace bites his lip. “This last weekend, when you weren’t replying to my texts... I don’t know what I did but I’m sorry for that, too. I didn’t mean to do it.”
It’s not your fault, I want to say but I can’t force the words past my lips. If I do, I’ll have to explain everything. I can’t do that on my doorstep, with Cora and Nandini one room over, and my grandma and Samir upstairs. There’s too much to unpack.
It turns out I don’t have to say anything because Ace swings his bag around front and pulls out a small gift bag. “I, uh, bought you some candles. I Googled anxiety a few days ago and saw that aromatherapy can help. When I was here the other day, I noticed you were using some, so I thought maybe... I got lavender-scented ones, because they’re supposed to relax the body and mind.”
My lips part but nothing comes out. He looked up anxiety? He bought me candles?
Ace doesn’t seem to mind my lack of response, focused on pulling out an envelope from the gift bag. “It’s a CD mixtape,” he says at my incredulous expression. “I wrote down the Spotify link, too, in case you wanted to listen on your phone. It’s songs that remind me of you. I just thought you should have it. Maybe it’ll help relax you, too.”
“Thank you,” I say, looking down at it, utterly mystified. No one has ever bought me candles before, much less made me a playlist.
He stares at me, expression wistful, before he looks away. “Okay. I’ll see you next week. Bye, Karina.”
“Bye,” I whisper, holding on to the gift bag with tight fingers as he walks away.
I close the door behind him and stare down at the bag, my breath caught in my throat.
Ace Clyde is an anomaly, and I have no idea what to do with him.
A Karina Ahmed Mixtape
“Light”—Sleeping At Last
“Bones”—Lewis Watson
“Almost (Sweet Music)”—Hozier
“Call Me Out”—Sarah Close
“Come Into The Water”—Mitski
“Hypnotised”—Years and Years
“Fuck Em Only We Know”—Banks
“Trust”—Alina Baraz
“Get You The Moon (feat. Snøw)”—Kina
“Your Hand In Mine”—Explosions In The Sky
**Bonus: because I know how much you love pop music.
“Adore You”—Harry Styles
“Levitating”—Dua Lipa
“Treacherous”—Taylor Swift
“Euphoria”—BTS
“We Made It”—Louis Tomlinson
“Oh my God,” Cora says in disbelief, looking at the handwritten letter Ace put inside the CD case, with each song title accompanied by underlined lyrics. “Karina, oh my God, he’s literally in love with you.”
“He’s not in love with me,” I say, but my voice is weak. “It’s been like half a month.”
“So?” Cora says, waving the letter in my face before gesturing to the expensive candles laid out in front of us. “Do you see this shit? Do you need glasses?”
Nandini finishes pulling the Spotify playlist up on my smart TV and we all silently stare at the title. Lionheart.
“What does that mean?” Nandini asks, poking me sharply.
I gape, unsure how to provide a proper definition right now. Ace made me a playlist titled Lionheart filled with love songs?
Cora starts typing rapidly into her phone before she looks at Nandini with wide eyes. “A person of exceptional courage and bravery.”
“Karina.”
“I don’t know what to tell you!”
“Maybe tell me why this dumbass made you a mixtape.”
“I don’t have the answer!”
We all stare at each other, at an impasse.
Cora looks away from me to grab the remote. “Let me hear this. I can’t even grasp what’s happening right now.”
Listening to the playlist makes everything so much worse. The thought of Ace listening to songs this gentle and writing down lyrics in correlation to me...
“I think I’m dying,” I say, knees weakening as I collapse against the couch. “This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but with a whimper.”
“This is not the time to quote some dead old white man,” Cora grumbles.
“There’s never a time for quoting dead old white men,” Nandini adds, but her gaze is more tempered. “Karina, you heard those songs. You must’ve had some sort of realization.”
I throw myself face-first into the cushions and groan. I can’t handle the thought of Ace liking me back, not when I know nothing can come of it.
“Karina,” Cora whines, poking my rib cage. “This is Ace Clyde. He probably hates dogs, but he still likes you.”
“He does not hate dogs.” I look at her, disbelief momentarily staying my misery. “His dog is named Spade, and he’s very sweet.”
“I thought you were afraid of dogs,” Nandini says with a raised eyebrow. “How did you come to learn Spade is ‘very sweet’?”
“That is not the point!” I say, turning back toward the cushion. A barrage of memories burst like painful fireworks in my chest. The bakery, the bookstore, his honesty, my vulnerability, our secrets...
“I think that’s exactly the point, Karina.” Nandini joins Cora in her incessant poking. “You’re different with him. Bolder. Braver. Stronger.”
“You’re just saying random words right now,” I say. But I know they’re not wrong. The fire inside me that Ace loves to write soliloquies about is burning brighter than ever.
“You look so much happier,” Nandini says, reaching for my shoulder and forcibly turning me around. “You like him, don’t you?”
“I can’t.”
“But you do,” Cora says. “Admit it, Karina. You have a crush on Alistair Clyde. Maybe even more than that.”
I press my lips together, refusing to say anything. I haven’t said it out loud. Even with Samir, I denied it to the very end until everything blew up in my face.
If I say it to someone else, this becomes too real. The weight of my parents’ disappointment becomes soul crushing.
“He likes you,” Nandini says softly in response to whatever she sees on my face. “He likes you so much. Look at these candles. Look at this playlist. You couldn’t pay my ex-boyfriend to do that.”
“He could’ve bought the candles at any Duane Reade he passed by. And Ace likes music.” I swallow painfully. “He probably didn’t have to put that much effort into it.”
Cora gives me an incredulous look. “He burned songs on a CD for you. Do you know what year it is? No one casually does that. He definitely put a lot of effort into this.”
I’ve been thinking about that, too. I keep picturing Ace walking past a convenience store, catching sight of an assortment of candles and deciding to buy them for me. Or worse, in his room, waiting for me to text back only to receive radio silence, and then deciding to make a playlist for me to pass the time. They’re such painfully sweet gestures that it seems like I must have made them up.
“We’re just fake dating,” I say. I’ll live in denial about this for the rest of my life if I have to. “He has an image to keep up.”
“In front of who?” Cora asks. “The only people here are me, you, and Nandini. He didn’t even know we were going to be here. He came by specifically to give you this playlist and these candles and apologize to you for something he didn’t even do. What part of that seems fake?”
“Don’t do this,” I bemoan, covering my face with my hands. Being reminded of how miserable Ace looked on my doorstep makes me want to die. I force myself to remember that he was in the wrong to show up at my house just because I didn’t text back. I have to hold on to that, or else I’m going to give in to their pestering. “I’m not in an emotional state to argue with you.”
“Because you know I’m right,” Cora says. “Nandini, tell her.”
Nandini sighs, patting my head. “Karina, sweetie, I love you, but this is too much. We’re your best friends. If you can’t admit to us you like him, who can you admit it to?”
“Oh, come on, don’t play the best friend card.”
“She has a point,” Cora says. “I thought we were your best friends, Karina?”
“You both suck,” I say fervently. They know I’m not going to dismiss our friendship. “Fine. Fine. I like him. Are you happy now?”
“I told you so!” Cora jumps up in excitement, nearly sending me toppling off the couch. “I fucking told you so.”
Nandini snorts and helps me keep from falling with one hand stretched out. “We did tell you so. Now what are you going to do about it?”
“Absolutely nothing.”
“My parents never found out about my ex-boyfriend,” Nandini points out, nudging me. “You could keep it secret. We only have one more year until college and then we’ll be in dorms, and none of this will matter. Your parents don’t have to know.”
She’s right. I know she’s right, but after my last conversation with my parents, I don’t know if I have the strength to see this through, even in secret.
And I don’t know if I can ask that of Ace, either.
“I’m doing nothing,” I say again, staring up at the ceiling.
Cora does some kind of weird full body wiggle, poking my nose. “We’ll see about that. I don’t know a lot about Ace, but I think it’s pretty clear—he’s used to getting what he wants.”
I huff. “Well, not this time.”
“Famous last words,” Cora croons, not for the first time. I have a disturbing feeling she’s right.
35
T-MINUS 12 DAYS
The next day, my relatives unexpectedly stop by. I’m in the shower when Samir knocks on the door and says, “Fatima and Labani are here with their parents.”
Hearing Samir’s voice is jarring in and of itself. We haven’t spoken since yesterday afternoon, when he opened the door for Ace. But then the words register, and I’m even more confused. “Huh?” Since Fatima’s family lives in New Jersey, they rarely visit us. Parties are one thing, but Long Island is a lengthy venture for a casual visit. “Why?”
“To see Dadu, so hurry up!”
I groan and start rinsing my hair.
After slipping into my room undetected, I change into a salwar
kameez and dry my hair as fast as possible. By the time I come out, my relatives have settled in and are eating samosas and fuchkas.
“As-salaam alaikum,” I say, bowing my head.
“Wa-alaikum salaam,” they say back. My aunt and uncle are busy fussing over Dadu. They treat her like she’s a fragile old lady ready to break her hip, and it’s all too reminiscent of the conversation I had with Dadu about her brothers treating her like a precious jewel. I have difficulty hiding my grimace.
I wish I could help her, but I doubt anything I say will convince my aunt and uncle to stop hovering.
I sit down beside Fatima with a half smile. Labani is only ten years old, so we don’t really talk to each other much. Samir is keeping her occupied, showing her his collection of robotic toys. I barely hold back a snide comment about him showing off in front of our uncle and aunt.
What would I ever show them? My poetry? Yeah, right.
“Are you feeling better?” I ask Fatima, trying to veer off that bitter road. It doesn’t lead anywhere good.
“I’m okay.” Fatima offers me a thin smile. That’s hardly a good sign.
Now that I’m paying attention, there’s a clear tension in the air.
“I like your salwar kameez,” I say instead of prying. Whatever’s bothering her is probably better discussed out of earshot of her parents.
“Thanks,” she says, glancing down at the material. It’s a pretty orange color, a fading sunset, with exquisite purple designs woven in. I wonder if I can find something similar in Ma’s closet. “I like yours, too.”
Ya Allah, this is awkward. She keeps eyeing her parents in a way that’s making me increasingly uncomfortable.
“Do you want to watch something?” I ask. I’d suggest abandoning the room altogether, but I probably shouldn’t leave before I have a chance to properly talk to her parents.
“Sure,” Fatima says, and I click on the newest Netflix original movie.
Ten minutes into watching it, I understand Fatima’s uneasiness.
“Fatima decided to double major in biology and psychology,” Pooja Auntie says to Dadu, mouth curled in an unattractive sneer.
Oh jeez. Psychology isn’t scientific enough for a lot of brown parents. I know this because I’ve asked my parents about it halfheartedly in the past, and they looked at me like I’d asked for a million dollars.
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