Page 73 of Reasons We Break

“Anaccident?” TJ scoffs. “Simran, I know you’re a softy, but puh-lease. You don’t get that involved in a gang without doing horrible things.”

Simran says nothing. As usual, she can’t deny the facts. Rajan isnotinnocent. Even if he didn’t kill Jai, she knows what he used to do for the Lions. Her stance is objectively naive. And yet.

Surprisingly, it’s Charlie who speaks up. “Why can’t it have been an accident?”

TJ rounds on him, thankfully taking her intensity off Simran. “What’sthatsupposed to mean?”

“Just that no matter their background, people deserve to be innocent until proven guilty.”

“Hewasproven guilty,” TJ scoffs. “In court. That’s literally why he went to juvie.”

Simran suppresses the urge to correct TJ about the plea deal. Know-ing that level of detail would only make her look more pathetic. Luckily, Charlie again comes to her aid.

“Wereyouin that courtroom?” He tilts his head at TJ. “We don’t know what discussions were had there. What if it was full of people as quick as you to judge based on heuristics?”

“Are you seriously building a case off of Simran thinking it was an accident?” TJ’s nostrils flare. “You literally found out about this thirty seconds ago and you’re already playing devil’s advocate, this has to be a record. You don’t even know what happened. There. Are.Facts.”

“And you’re choosing to read the facts a certain way,” Charlie retorts. “A familiar way—”

As their voices rise, TJ’s dad shoots Simran an alarmed look. Simran shakes her head. She knows TJ and Charlie well enough to recognize the difference between their serious disputes and flirting. And they’re both definitely hot under the collar right now.

But Charlie...she hadn’t expected that. She’s never heardanyonedefend Rajan. Ever. Her respect for him grows. Even if it was a theoretical exercise for him, he made a good point.

Her eyes fall back to the cipher she’s mentally drawn on the tablecloth. The letters continue to rearrange themselves as Charlie’s words from a second ago echo.You’re choosing to read the facts a certain way. A familiar way.

She pauses. Wait.

She runs her eyes over her letters—the way she always automatically does. Left to right. But with the letters stacked on top of each other, in grid format, she realizes something very important: There’s more than one direction to read them.

Meanwhile, TJ is saying, “Simran canhandlehim? Do you hear yourself? He ran somebody over! On purpose!”

Simran stands abruptly. “I’m going to the washroom.”

No one seems to hear; TJ’s parents are clearly engrossed in the argument before them. So Simran excuses herself down the hall to the bathroom.

Once she locks the door behind her, she takes a long strip of toilet paper and lays it on the edge of the bathtub, then digs through the drawers. In her haste, a few items clatter to the ground. She ignores them, pausing to select a dusty eyeliner pencil. Then she kneels next to her makeshift paper to write.

There are forty-eight letters. She needs a grid with forty-eight cells. But what dimensions for the grid? Forty-eight has so many divisors.

One and forty-eight are automatically disqualified. She decides to skip two-by-twelve, and starts at a three-by-sixteen grid.

No sensical message when she looks top to bottom, vice versa, or diagonally. Undeterred, she next draws a sixteen-by-three grid. Then four-by-twelve.

Someone knocks on the door.

“Just a minute!” Her feet are starting to cramp from her squatting position.

“Simran, are you all right?” It’s TJ’s mom.

“Yes.”

“Okay.” A pause. “There’s pads under the sink if you need them.”

“Thanks.”

“Also a plunger behind the toilet.”

Now this is getting humiliating. “I’m just washing a stain off my shirt.”