“And lied about it!” I cry out. I leap to my feet, and the motion makes tea go sloshing over the edge of my cup. It puddles and starts a sad, brown waterfall off the lip of the table, but I don’t care. “I’ve spent fifteen years thinking my sister was f*****g dead, Jasmine! We had a funeral! Did you know that? Baba even insisted on a goddamn casket. I sat in the front pew in a dress I stole out of your closet and looked up at an empty f*****g wooden box covered in flowers. There’s a graveyard in Brighton Beach right now that has your name on a headstone. And yeah, sure, Sasha didn’t know me until this whole marriage deal became a thing. But once he did, he could’ve told me at any time. When I was falling for him—when he was twisting and manipulating me and playing me, because apparently, th
