Mirror in the Sky by Aditi Khorana Read Free Book Online Page A

I looked around. I was standing next to the garbage can. I turned away, trying to disappear, but it was too late; she was already right next to me.
    â€œOh hey, Tara,” she said, eyeing me coolly as she tossed her container away. “How was your summer?”
    I shrugged. “Uneventful. Yours?”
    â€œI was in London. It was fabulous; stayed around Brick Lane. Great Indian food. Does your dad still run that restaurant, by the way?”
    I looked away, embarrassed that my father’s restaurant, the only Indian restaurant in town, was considered a defining characteristic of my identity. Then again, I had become used to this. Teachers were generally the worst, asking me questions about Gandhi and Diwali and where to buy Indian bangles and scarves.
    I looked at Veronica now, and I could hear a hint of resignation in my voice as I answered. “Yeah, he still runs the place.”
    â€œI’ve been craving that stuff. Maybe I’ll ask my parents if we can eat there tonight.” She smiled, but it was an uncomfortable smile, as though she wasn’t sure whether she had said the wrong thing.
    I smiled my own counterfeit smile back. She had never been
un
friendly to me, which was strange because Veronica snubbed her peers like some people reached for salt.
    â€œI was just about to . . . take off,” I told her, realizing the stupidity of my comment the moment it came out of my mouth. Where was there to go? We were all clustered across the grounds till it was okay to go back inside again.
    â€œOkay, see you later,” she replied, and I turned and pushed through the crowds, my whole face red. I felt like such a nobody around them, I thought as I squeezed through a tunnelof backpacks and bodies till I emerged on Hillside Road, the tree-lined street that led to our school. If you followed Hillside all the way up north, it led to backcountry Greenwich, where Halle and Alexa lived. But if you took the road south, it spouted out into the busy intersection of the Post Road, the road I traveled every day to get to school.
    I started walking toward the Post Road. I wasn’t sure where I was going, I was too busy berating myself for my stupidity around Veronica.
Just . . . forget it
, I told myself.
She probably already has
.
    It was a pretty day, and the only good thing about Connecticut was how blue the sky was those last few days of summer. Oak trees bowed and swayed in the wind like sea hydra, and every surface was covered in a carpet of rich green—moss climbing up rocks and stone walls, ivy running rampant over people’s homes, tripping unwelcome feet on the sidewalk. It was such a contrast to the deadened cement of the new campus.
    At the end of the road, a black Labrador puppy dashed past me and then came back, sniffing at my ankles. A puppy without its owner was definitely an unusual sight in Greenwich, where all dogs were kept tightly on leash. He leapt up to my waist, wanting to play.
    â€œHey, buddy.” I smiled, petting him. “Where’d you come from?” The dog ran a circle around my ankles. He had a tag on his collar, and he looked groomed, but when I asked him to “sit,” he just pawed at my knees. He was adorable.
    â€œLooks like you’re lost, huh? Who do you belong to?” Hesniffed at my hands and put a paw on my knee as I reached for his collar, but just as my fingers grazed the tiny metal tag, he pulled away and ran off, down the sidewalk and toward the busy intersection.
    â€œNo, no, no!” I yelled, running after him. It was as if I had lost the memory of all other words in my vocabulary. I ran as fast as I could, a tree root tripping me on the pavement. I fell hard, scraping my knee, but scrambled to get up and make it to the intersection before the dog did.
    I could see him just ahead of me, his graceful, brisk run, the way he stopped for a moment to look around, almost as though he half-expected someone to call