Page 60 of Reasons We Break

Ignoring the way her back aches from her hunched-over posture, she inputs the characters into the table, one letter per cell.

It fits. That can’t be coincidence, right? She glances at her list of coordinates. Only one way to find out.

But, to her dismay, her translation makes no sense.

She must’ve filled out the table the wrong way. There’s some angle she’s missing.

She doesn’t know when she falls asleep, but it’s dark when she wakes. There’s a note on her bedside table, pinned down by a plate of digestible biscuits.

Gone to see your mom, reads her father’s elegant script.She’s in recovery. We can visit her together tomorrow. Sleep, sher putt.

He signs it off with love. Simran pops a biscuit in her mouth. If her mom were here, she’d admonish her for eating in bed, getting crumbs everywhere. She’d look at the state of Simran’s room and tell her to clean or she’ll never be able to find anything. Simran would sigh and wish her mother would stop coming into her room.

Well, she doesn’t anymore, a voice in her head says.You got your wish.

She doesn’t realize she’s crying until her tears hit the pillow. Instantly, she tries to wipe them away. This is ridiculous; the surgery wentfine.

But it’s the future she’s scared of.

Despair she suppressed earlier, accompanying her mom, crashes down on her. She wants to hit pause on time. She doesn’t want to witness her mother postsurgery, she doesn’t want to watch her beautiful hair fall out. She doesn’t want to watch her father’s beard turn more white than grey. She doesn’t want to endure the kind of inevitable suffering their family has yet to go through. If only she could be like Kiran, and fly so far away she wouldn’t have to partake at all.

Impulsively, Simran reaches for her phone.

Nick picks up first ring, sounding irritable. “What?”

“Can I come in tonight?”

A pause, filled with background noise of loud music. “You were in two days ago.”

“Yes, but...” She racks her brain. “I should get ahead of things. Aren’t there still some Ace ledgers to decode?”

“Well, I don’t know how important—”

“They might be useful.” He remains silent, and she breaks. She can’t take more of her own dark thoughts tonight. “Nick.Please.”

Another pause. “Did something happen between you and Rajan?”

Where did that come from? Simran frowns. “No. I haven’t seen him in days. Why?”

“Because you’re both testing my nerves tonight.” Nick sighs. “Fine, you can come. But I’m warning you, your boy’s here, too. And you’re not gonna like it.”

“He’s—with you?” Simran grips her phone harder. “But you said you’d leave him alone!”

“Yeah,” Nick replies darkly. “But I can’t help whathedoes.”

Those words give her a very bad feeling. “Nick,” she says slowly, “what exactly is Rajan doing?”

Simran’s never been to this neighbourhood before, packed with multi-million-dollar homes, but she doesn’t need Nick’s directions to know which house she’s looking for. The black gates have lion statues on them. When she stops at them, a man walks to her side of the truck and flashes his phone light at her. “Who’re you?”

“Friend of Nick.”

He snaps a photo of her without warning and wanders off to text someone. A minute later, the gate opens. There are plenty of luxury vehicles already parked in the lot, but she spots Nick’s ice-cream truck at the end of the line and parks beside it.

Someone with expensive taste is hosting this party. She feels out of place immediately in her old sweatshirt and jeans. No wonder Nick told her to avoid the main entrance; as she enters through the side door he specified, she keeps her head down, catching only flashes of scenes through doorways—chandeliers, glass tables, tiled floors, strappy shoes. The indistinct noise of chatter and music.

Nick’s waiting at the bottom of the stairwell, looking impatient. As soon as he sees her, he strides forward and grabs her arm. “Let’s go.”

He more or less drags her up the stairs, and she stumbles trying to keep pace. “Where are we going?”