“I said no cursing.”
“Sorry.” Again, the apology. Those words out of Ishita’s—Ishu’s—mouth sound blasphemous. I stifle my surprise for it as fast as I can. If I say anything, she’ll probably take it back. So I just change the subject.
“If you want to be Head Girl, you’ll have to do stuff you probably won’t want to do, you know. School events, parties, talking to people, being … a pleasant human being.”
She frowns but nods. “Yeah. I can do it. I was pleasant to your mom downstairs.”
“You looked like you were constipated,” I say. “I don’t think anybody wants a constipated Head Girl.”
“My constipation wouldn’t stop me from doing a good job so that’s just fucking—shit—fuck.” She clamps her hand over her mouth, her eyes widening as she looks at me. She looks so adorably terrified—in the most un-Ishita way I’ve ever seen in my whole life—that I can’t help but burst into a fit of laughter.
A moment later, Ishita joins me until our laughter melds together into one large guffaw.
If someone had told me Ishita Dey and I would be laughing our asses off in my bedroom today, I would have never believed them in a billion years.
chapter nine
hani
AFTER OUR LAUGHTER DIES DOWN, ISHITA—ISHU—and I settle down into a strange silence. It’s not exactly awkward, but it’s not comfortable either.
I grab hold of the laptop on the top shelf of my desk and open it up. If we’re going to do this, we need to do it properly.
I sign into my Google Docs and create a brand new document. Untitled Document glares up at me brightly from the screen.
I turn to find Ishu looking at me with a question mark on her face.
“If we write down our lies, then we won’t get caught,” I explain. I’ve never really lied to Amma or Abba, and I don’t really want to start lying to them now, but I guess I don’t really have a choice. So if I’m going to lie, I might as well make sure I’m doing it well.
I type Hani and Ishu’s Guide to Fake Dating into the title space, stifling a grin of satisfaction at having come up with that all by myself.
“So … how did it start?” I ask.
“What?”
“You know …” I turn to her slowly. “How did we start … dating?”
Ishu shrugs. “Is it anyone’s business?”
I heave a sigh. I should have known Ishu would be like this. “You can answer people like that,” I say. “I can’t. That’ll just come off as defensive.” Not everyone is as abrasive as you, Ishu, I want to say, but I keep that little thought to myself.
“Make something up. I’ll go along with it.”
A prickle of annoyance crawls up my skin at her nonchalance. I narrow my eyes. “You said we both need to make this work, Is hi—Ishu.”
I can almost see her stifle a sigh of her own. She shifts, the bed creaking under her weight. “Maybe … we started hanging out during one of the Bengali dawats? They’ll be so confused at the concept of a dawat that they probably won’t even ask any more questions.”
I smile, thinking back to Aisling and Dee’s confusion about Bengali parties just the other day. If I had mentioned the word dawat to them, I’m not sure how they would have reacted—with even more confusion, I’m pretty sure.
I turn back to my laptop and the blank white page in front of me.
Started dating: after hanging out together at Bengali dawats.
I frown at the sentence for a moment, before turning back to Ishu. “How long have we been together?”
Ishu scrunches up her face a little, like this is the last question she wants to answer. I have to bite back a smile. At school, Ishu always seems so controlled. Completely put together. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her … let go. Ever seen her at ease. I’ve definitely never seen her scrunch up her face like this before.
“It can’t be for very long …” she finally says slowly. “Because … I mean, that would be suspicious, right?”
“Right …”
Started dating 2 weeks ago: after hanging out together at Bengali dawats.
“We should have some rules,” I say. I type RULES in big bold letters.
“What kind of rules, exactly?”
“Like … we can’t tell anyone the truth,” I say, meeting her gaze with my own. “Not our parents, not our best friends. Nobody.”
Ishu shrugs. “It’s not like I have anyone to tell anyway.”