Page 59 of Reasons We Break

There’s nothing Simran can say to that. She does not offer to get rid of hers in solidarity. It’s the last thing her mother would want. The image of her mother’s long hair, cultivated over a lifetime practicing Sikhism, falling out in chunks, in the drain, on the floor, is gutting. It would be a destruction of her spirit more than her body.

Her mother smiles wanly in the silence. “Your father would cry if I said such things to him. I knew you wouldn’t. You would just...understand.” She sighs. “Your father’s right. You are so brave.”

Simran blinks. But her mother’s gaze is steady, as if delivering compliments to Simran comes easy. And—she remembers Jassa’s words—maybe it does.

A cough comes from behind them. “We’re ready for you now, Mrs. Aujla.”

Simran finds she doesn’t have any words left. Their gazes connect, large brown eyes that Simran inherited. They hug. She manages to keep it together. At least until her mom is being led away by one of the nurses, and the other pats Simran’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, hon. We’ll take good care of your grandma.”

Simran flinches. The nurse doesn’t notice. No one seems to notice how fast Simran flees as soon as her mom is gone.

Simran’s father rises off the couch as soon as she returns home. “How’d it go?”

“Fine. She’s in surgery now.” Simran clears her throat. “I’m—I’m going upstairs. I’m tired.”

He doesn’t stop her, although she feels his worried eyes on her back.

She’s nearly at her bedroom door when her phone vibrates. She’s so numb, so keen on a distraction, that she picks up instantly. “Hel—?”

“Finally!” TJ says. Simran closes her eyes momentarily. Ofcourseit’s TJ. “If it weren’t for Chandani confirming you were alive, I’d be putting out Missing Person ads by now. What is going on with you?”

Simran clamps down on the hysterical laugh that wants to rise. “Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing. Now please stop siccing Chandani on me.”

“No,” TJ says pleasantly. “She gives me more deets than you ever will. For example, what’s this about some crush you have?” Simran’s heart leaps in panic, at least until TJ says, “Jesse, or something?”

Simran exhales. She’s not sure why she thought TJ was about to name someone else. “Jassa,” she corrects, and when TJ snickers, corrects her again. “And it’s not like that.”

“Okay.” TJ sounds amused. “What’s it like, then?”

Simran turns her eyes to the ceiling. For a second, she imagines trying to explain.Well, it’s like this, TJ: I didn’t think of him that way until I found out my mom has cancer, and she approves of me dating him. And now I can’t tell if my feelings are real or if I’m trying tomakemyself feel them. Want to unpack that for me?

After a long silence, TJ sighs. “You know you can’t avoid me forever, right? I’m coming home after my June exams.”

“I know. I’ll be at your dinner, like I said.” That gives her two more weeks to prepare some convincing lies. “Look, I have to go.”

“But—”

Simran hangs up and resumes biting her hangnail. Despite what she just told TJ, she’s spent a lot of time thinking about Jassa lately. Particularly since that afternoon in the gurdwara, working on the cipher with him. Things felt...real, during that.

She throws herself on her bed and flips open a notebook. Now’s as good a time as any to continue working on it. It felt like they were getting close that day.

She writes the numbers out as coordinates again; this time, she notes some of them are repeated. What if itislike frequency analysis? What if each coordinate represents aletter?

Excited now, she draws a table. The only numbers in the list are 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, and 9, so she makes the table six-by-six and uses those numbers as the headings for the rows and columns. Which leaves her with...thirty-six cells to fill. But the alphabet only has twenty-six letters. What would be in the other ten cells? Numbers? Punctuation?

She realizes she’s chewing on her lip and forces herself to stop. Jassa is really getting to her.

Her gaze drifts back to the message accompanying the code.

Pack my bag with five raisin strudels today.

Slowly, she counts the number of characters in it.

Excluding spaces, thirty-six.