Forgetting Billions | ?

19 | Forgetting Fights

"Doesn't she then?" Jasmine pleaded, her eyes filling with tears, "Doesn't Aunt Bia deserve the same respect from you?"

Bianca pressed her lips to Jasmine's forehead. "It's okay, Jas. Go upstairs. You shouldn't be involved in our family problems."

"But—"

"Listen to me, please. I can fight my own battles." Bianca wiped her tears off her cheeks and plastered a small smile on her face. "See?"

Jasmine didn't speak another word and hauled herself up the stairs to check on her cousins, mumbling swears under her breath. She expected them to be asleep at this hour, but was not surprised to see them huddled together in the corner of the room. Aditya held his sister while she sobbed into his shoulder and Jasmine's heart broke at the sight.

"Karina? Aditya?" she asked, wiping her own tears away and turning on the soft desk lamp on the table beside them. The two looked up at her with red eyes and silent stares.

"Why are you even here?" Aditya whispered. "Your family hates us. We're not like you. We're not real Indians."

"That's not true." Jasmine sat down beside them, allowing Karina to lay her head in her lap.

"We heard everything," Karina said, sniffling between words. "I always knew your parents didn't like us very much, but I never knew why. Now I do. Your parents hate us because we look like Mom. Because we're white."

"But you have your father's dimples and his laugh," Jasmine pointed out. "You don't even need to have any of that, though. You could mirror your mother in every way and still be Indian because you are always a Karesh."

"Really?" Karina asked with wide eyes. She offered Jasmine a stiff smile when she nodded, satisfied with the answer.

Aditya cleared his throat. "It's great that you think that, but your parents don't. We shouldn't stay here anymore. We don't want to get you in more trouble."

"It's not safe for you to be anywhere but here, Adi," Jasmine replied. "And anyway, you two are worth getting in trouble for. You're worth anything and everything."

"Promise?" Aditya asked with a raised brow, like he did when was much younger.

Jasmine held out her pinky finger to them both. "Promise."

Aditya wrapped his finger around hers with a stern grimace. After a few minutes, they leaned into her, their hug becoming a sleeping position for the rest of the night. Jasmine didn't have the heart to make them move, so she let her head fall against the cool wall as she drifted off to sleep with two thirteen-year-olds crushing her body the entire time.

She wouldn't have had it any other way.

⇣⇣⇣

JASMINE WAS the first to wake in her family and one look at the clock beside her made her understand why. It was barely three in the morning.

She slid out of her cousins' arms, resting their heads on a few pillows. She pressed a kiss to each of their cheeks, not knowing the next time she'll see them, and pulled on a woolen cardigan as she snuck out of her house through her balcony. Shayan had taught her how to shimmy up and down her house to get her room when they were teenagers and she never forgot it. The trick came in handy for moments like these.

Once she landed on the grass, she sent a text that would seal her fate.

Jasmine Karesh: I give up.

The unknown number replied immediately, as Jasmine had expected them to, and their answer was just as predictable.

Unknown Number: The game is not over yet.