Chaewon steps up and takes my other arm. “Three people are better than one.”
I have to admit that having them by my side does make me feel a little safer. Their presence beside me makes everything feel normal, like yesterday didn’t happen at all—even if for just a minute.
But yesterday did happen. It couldn’t be any more obvious as the three of us step into the school building, and the whispers start. The stares follow us. We’re a spectacle. I’m a spectacle.
And it doesn’t stop. All day—at my locker, in classes, at lunch—it feels like there’s a spotlight over me. In the classes that I share with Chaewon and Jess at least I can sit with them. But in the ones where they’re not there, the other girls avoid me like they’re afraid of me.
My despair turns into a boiling hot anger the longer the day progresses. It simmers and sifts inside me until I feel like I’m about to explode. In English class, I poke a hole through my notebook from pressing down on the paper too hard as I scribble. Mr. Jensen looks at me with a mixture of pity and annoyance. All I can think is, of course he knows too. Everybody knows. And if they’re not being blatantly homophobic, they’re looking at me with this pity, like I’m a kicked puppy. Like they can’t do something to help me.
By the end of the day, I am a mixture of emotions: relief that the day is finally over, and anger at having experienced it at all. When I get to my locker, I’m in a rush to leave this oppressive place behind. Sure, home isn’t exactly a safe haven, but at least Priti is there and she has my back.
As I’m stuffing books into my locker, I see Chyna and Flávia out of the corner of my eye. Chyna is waving her hands around in wild gestures as she speaks to the rest of her posse. Flávia has her back against a bunch of lockers, her eyes cast down low. Her expression is unreadable. But the sight of her, instead of filling me with the jittery excitement of a crush, reignites my simmering anger.
I guess Flávia can sense me too, because after a moment she looks up and catches my eye. All I can think of is the last time we were together—at the party on her couch. How she smelled. How she leaned forward. How I almost let her kiss me.
I turn away and slam my locker door shut, trying to bottle up the anger and despair battling inside me. Trying to ignore Flávia’s gaze boring through me.
“Nishat Ahsan?” It’s Ms. Grenham—the school guidance counselor and health teacher. She ushers me over from the end of the hallway with a frown on her lips.
“Um, yes. That’s me.” There’s a waver in my voice that I try to bite down.
“Can I talk to you for a minute?”
“Um, sure,” I say, even though the last thing I want to do is talk to Ms. Grenham about anything. And of course I have a feeling that I already know what it’s about.
“Please, follow me.”
She leads me into her office around the corner, where we take seats opposite each other with her cluttered desk between us.
I try to give her my best smile, hoping that will deter whatever conversation is about to come, but she just considers me with a frown on her face, like I’m a problem she can’t quite solve.
Ms. Grenham is not exactly everyone’s favorite teacher. For a guidance counselor, she often seems very unapproachable. She walks around with her eyebrows knit together, like she’s having the worst time of her life. I’ve never really dealt with her before though.
“So, Nishat,” she begins slowly, taking me in. I shift in my seat, and the chair creaks under my weight. I stare at the poster behind Ms. Grenham’s head—it says “The World is Your Oyster” and has a picture of an oyster smack bang in the middle. It’s only one of several motivational posters hung all over her office. They look especially odd against the bright orange walls, like the office is trying a little too hard to be happy. It just makes me feel out of place.
“Principal Murphy said you were having some trouble. Your parents brought it to her attention.” She leans forward. “I hope you know that the school has a zero tolerance policy. If someone is bothering you, they’ll be dealt with seriously.”
I already know what their zero tolerance policy is actually like. Everyone who’s spent the last few years being harassed by Chyna knows.
“I’m fine.”
“There was a message sent around about you. Do you know who sent it?” Ms. Grenham slips a phone out of her pocket and shows me the bright screen with a screenshot of a text on it. It’s exactly as Priti described it—the words dripping with a kind of hatred I never imagined someone could feel for me. For a moment, all I can wonder is, could the Flávia at the party really have sent this message?
“It’s not important,” I mumble, ducking my head and not meeting Ms. Grenham’s eyes. “It was probably just a joke or something.”
“In ill taste,” she insists. “I can’t help you, Nishat, if you don’t help me.”
I can’t stand the way she says my name: Neesh-hat, like I’m a niche hat.
“I just think it’s better if we forget about it,” I say. “It’ll be yesterday’s news soon.” There will be somebody else to taunt soon enough. I know how the food chain here works. Plus, I already know that the most Ms. Grenham will do is give Chyna and Flávia a slap on the wrist. I’m pretty sure I can do better than that.
Ms. Grenham doesn’t seem particularly impressed by my decision, but she nods anyway. “If that’s how you feel.”
I take that as my cue to leave. I mutter a quick “thank you” and slip out of her office quickly. I’m turning the corner toward the main hallway when Priti almost runs into me. She shoots me a glare and I notice that she’s huffing like she’s been running.
“Where have you been?” Her voice has that high-pitched quality it always gets when she’s angry. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”
“Sorry … Ms. Grenham wanted to talk to me.” I link my hand through hers and begin to lead us out of the school. The hallways are almost empty now—only the students participating in today’s after-school activity are left behind. “It was useless.”
“They didn’t find the person who did it?” Priti asks, her voice suddenly sounding grave.
“We know who did it,” I say. “And … I think I know how to get back at them.”
“Get back at them …?” she asks slowly. The plan is clicking together in my head slowly. I just need Priti to be on board.
“They outed me to the whole school because of this … henna competition. We can’t just let them get away with it.” The anger I’ve tried to suppress is still throbbing somewhere deep inside of me, growing bigger and bigger with the more weight I give it.
I’m the one who has to go into school every day and face rooms full of people who know something about me that I never told them. Something they had no right to know. Just because I had a crush on the wrong girl. Because I entered into a competition with someone who decided they could appropriate my culture and win.
I can’t let them win.
“Are you sure that it was Flávia?”
“If it wasn’t Flávia, it was Chyna because Flávia told her,” I say. “You can’t give Chyna that kind of information without her spilling it to the whole world. You know the kind of things Chyna does.”