Page 57 of The Love Match

“I would love that!” Amma replies, her earlier reassurances to me forgotten.

Of course.

Gnashing my teeth, I take my sweet time removing my heels to give myself a few extra seconds alone. That hot coal of anger has rekindled in my chest, pulsing like a fever through my veins, but if I stop to let it run its course, it will consume me—turn everything I’ve worked so hard for, everythingHarun and Ihave done, into ash.

Instead I run through the plan again and again like a mantra, not even noticing that I’m huddled in a crouch next tomy shoes, until Harun’s light touch and quiet, “Hey,” snap me out of my trance.

I look up at him.

His dark eyes are luminous in the golden light of the room, as steady on my face as his hand is on my shoulder. The solid presence of him anchors the tempest in my heart enough that I accept his help to stand, clinging to his hand for a moment too long.

“You still want this, don’t you, Zar?” he asks, in that same gentle way.

I swallow the lump in my throat and jerk a nod. “More than anything.”

Even if I didn’t need this to work out so I could finally have a shot at being with Nayim, this has never been about me alone. I pressured Harun into my attempt to turn the tables on my mother, forced him time and again into situations where he wasn’t comfortable, troubled him with my confidence. But rather than resent me for it, he’s chosen to stay by my side.

Dalia was right. Somehow, without my ever realizing it, this boy has become one of my closest friends. I owe it to him as much as myself or Nayim to end things tonight. It’s fitting that our third official date will be the last.

“Right,” Harun whispers, a sound so soft, it’s no more than an exhale. My eyes dart to his lips when he quirks a tiny, half-dimpled smile. “Then put your game face on, general. You can’t get cold feet on me now.”

A brilliant grin overtakes me as I give in to the temptationto poke the dimple at long last. His skin heats up at my touch. “Don’t you chicken out either, robot boy.”

He bats my finger away, huffing a laugh, but the expression smooths into his usual mask of disgruntled apathy the instant we enter the dining room to find everyone gawking in our direction, waiting for us. Harun stomps past me without so much as a second glance, taking one of the two empty seats between his mother’s and mine.

Not for the first time, I marvel at how easy this facade is for him, and how different it is from the Harun I now see beneath it.

What might have been, if the two of us simply… met somewhere, before all this? If he decided to go to Chai Ho for his coffee before a morning run by pure coincidence, or if someday, we bumped into each other on the Columbia University campus?

Would we still become friends?

In all likelihood, Harun and I would be nothing but strangers exchanging brief pleasantries, two planets spinning in opposite orbits around the same sun, never converging long enough to realize how similar we were at our cores.

I scowl at his back and try to imitate his heavy footsteps. If the Emons want a princess-in-law so badly, I’ll show themexactlywhat kind I am.

As I march past Arif, my brother whispers, “Oh, good, I worried you strangled each other.”

“The night is still young,” I snipe back, throwing myselfinto my seat so dramatically that my skirt balloons around my legs and makes the table tremble.

“Zahra,” Amma grits out through a smile, a warning for my ears only.

Ignoring her, I take stock of my surroundings. The Emons’ dining room resembles something out of the home-and-garden magazines I sometimes flip through while standing in line at the supermarket. Bone china plates trimmed in painted gold flowers, cloth napkins in rings shinier than the ones I wear on my fingers, freshly prepared dishes covered by gilded lids on matching trays, a tiered tower of somosas and other fitas comprising the centerpiece. More settings than there are people.

Amma’s Tupperware containers seem woefully tacky in comparison.

“Who else is coming tonight?” I demand.

My rudeness renders Pushpita Khala momentarily speechless, while the young man sitting across from Harun next to Mansif Khalu clears his throat. I turn, half-surprised, to find Hanif Bhai, looking as severe and reproachful as ever.

“Oh, hi,” I continue, before tacking on, as if an afterthought, “Assalamualaikum.”

“Walaikum as-salaam,” he responds tersely, clearly so irked by my behavior that he can only muster up the will to be somewhat formal, not go all-out.

It’s too bad. I like Harun’s cousins and have felt no small amount of envy at how close they all are, since most of my extended family lives far away. In Bengali, there’s not even aword for cousins. They’re simply an extension of your siblings, and though I don’t have many of my own nearby, it’s been nice to feel included with Harun’s recently.

Making them hate me is a casualty of this war that I can’t avoid, though.

Pushpita Khala regains her composure enough to chirp, “I invited Hanif and Sharmin to thank them for their help these past few weeks. Her husband can’t leave the hospital tonight, but Sharmin is bringing her brother, too. Shaad couldn’t wait to meet you! Did Harun tell you the two of them have been inseparable since they were in Pampers? Why, his mother and I would coordinate their clothes—”

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