# Chapter Nineteen: The Yellow Rose, Again

## The Week Before

I booked it on a Tuesday, and spent the rest of the week being strange.

That's what she called it. Strange. She sent it on Wednesday afternoon from three rows away, and I read it, and I put my phone face down, and I did not reply, which made it worse, which was the point.

Sneha: ur being strange
Sneha: vickey
Sneha: u've read my message and now ur pretending to look at ur monitor
Vickey: I'm working.
Sneha: ur not working. ur being strange. are u okay
Vickey: I'm fine.
Sneha: ok now im worried

So I had to invent something. A deadline. My mother on my case. By Thursday I'd told her three different lies and she'd stopped believing any of them.

She cornered me at the coffee machine in the mustard yellow kurta, the long one, the one from my third day at HRJ, worn on purpose, because everything she wears is on purpose.

"What's going on with you?"

"Nothing."

"You've been weird all week." She took her cup and didn't move away. "Vickey. Are you going to tell me or am I going to have to get it out of you?"

"Nothing's going on."

"Nothing," she repeated, flatly, and looked at me for a long second with her eyes narrowed. "Fine."

She went back to her desk. I stood at the machine with my heart going like a fist and a small square box in my jacket pocket that I kept taking out, in the stairwell, alone, like a criminal.

Friday night I had to tell her something.

Vickey: You're free tomorrow. 7:30. I'll pick you up.
Sneha: oh so now ur talking
Sneha: for WHAT
Vickey: Dinner.
Sneha: where
Vickey: You'll see.
Sneha: absolutely not. where.
Vickey: Wear something nice.
Sneha: something nice? vickey. that is not a dress code. is it a restaurant or a wedding or a funeral
Sneha: vickey
Sneha: VIckey
Sneha: we've been together four months and u have never made a reservation in ur life. what is happening.
Vickey: Wear something nice.

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She sent me three dresses flat on her grey bedsheet on Saturday morning.

Sneha: pick one. and dont say "they're all nice" i will end u
Vickey: The blue.
Sneha: haha no
Vickey: You asked me to pick.
Sneha: and i've decided to ignore …