Page 2 of The Bad Boyfriend Curse
Mom should know this wasn’t avoidable. With a sigh she sits next to me. She looks a little tan. I wonder if I should ask how Italy was. “Who’s this Gabriel Bautista, anyway? Someone from school?”
“Yes. We were on a… date. He told me his uncle worked at the carnival and he was allowed to hang out there after closing.”
She sighs again but doesn’t say anything.
“I know I’m not allowed to date until I’m seventeen,” I say, “but my birthday was last week, so I thought I was fine. Plus, I took a salt bath and—”
“You didn’taskme if you could go out with a boy.”
“How could I? You were in Italy.” I try my best to stay neutral as I mention her honeymoon. “The rule was that I could date after I turned seventeen. And I asked Nani, and she said it was okay.” I don’t mention that it kind of stung that she was on her two-week dream vacation with her new husband on my birthday. Even if she did call me from Rome, it’s not the same.
“What’s going to happen to me?” I ask quietly. “Will I be sent to juvenile jail?” Ugh. I’m not equipped for that. I swallow hard.
She shakes her head. “Not likely. Jason already talked to the family lawyer. He may need to call in some favors, but it’s your first offense. You’ll probably be sentenced to community service—after you plead guilty.”
I nod. What if this had happenedbeforeMom had married Jason, who comes from a wealthy and connected family? Would I have had to finish high school from jail?
“That boy will probably never speak to you again,” Mom adds. “He’s already trying to blame you for all of it.”
“The viral video washisidea. I didn’t even know he was planning it.”
Mom shrugs. “The damage has still been done. Now you’ll have to pay for it.”
I blow out a long breath, realizing that this means I am more like my mother than I ever realized. We’ve both been hit with the family curse. And both our lives have been ruined because of it.
My mother, of course, was pretty much right about everything she said in the police station. I have not been sentenced to a juvenile detention center but instead have been ordered to complete one hundred hours of community service. Gabe hasn’t contacted me or spoken to me again. I still don’t know if this will affect my mentorship or scholarship opportunities, but I don’t need to apply for those for a while, so hopefully not.
But the absolute worst repercussion of my short life of crime is that Mom’s brand-new husband (it feels weird to call Jason my stepfather) pulled some strings and arranged for me to complete my community service in the town where he (and now Mom) lives, Cherrybridge. Away from Nani, away from my friends, and away from Toronto—where I’ve lived my whole life.
“I don’t understand why she’s forcing me to go to Cherrybridge,” I say, flopping onto the floral bedspread in the spare bedroom of my grandparents’ house, where I’ve been living since Mom’s wedding. Nani is helping me pack up my stuff because Mom’s driving down from Cherrybridge to get me in the morning. “ShepromisedI could stay here in Toronto with you when she moved in with Jason.”
Nani lets out a soft sigh. “I know, Meera, but she’s yourmother. She wants to keep you close so you won’t get intotrouble again.” Nani folds a T-shirt and places it into my suitcase. “Don’t forget your sweaters and blouses.”
I get up and head to the closet. “I’m not going to get into trouble again! I’ve learned my lesson now. The curse wins… I’ll die single.” I take all my sweaters down from the shelf and start refolding them. “You said if I dated before I turned seventeen, the curse would ruin my life. And I waited! Plus, I did all that research, and bought the necklace, and even learned mantras!” I sigh. I didn’t break any rules. I took extra precautions.
Nani knew about my avoid-curse spreadsheet. She even gave me some suggestions to add to it. “I don’t know why it happened, sweetie. I thought you’d be fine too. The curse always hits girlsbeforethey turn seventeen. Your mother was sixteen when she got pregnant, I was sixteen when I tried to run away, your aunt—”
“I know the stories, Nani.” I’ve been hearing them my whole life.
The curse started when my great-great-grandmother, then a teenager, pulled a gun on her fiancé to try to escape her wedding. The dude’s uncle was a witch doctor, and he cursed her and all of her female descendants with “lifelong problems” if they were with a boy before they turned seventeen.
And the curse has been consistent. Nani apparently almost ran away with a clown when she was in high school (that’s not hyperbole—the guy wasliterallya clown with the circus), but Nani’s parents interjected and sent her to Nairobi, where she met Nanabapa. And my mother’s disgrace was getting pregnant with me when she was sixteen and then being abandoned when the “sperm donor” booked a one-way ticketto India the day after she told him. The only women in my extended family who’ve escaped the curse did so by waiting until they were seventeen before they went on a date—or evenspoketo anyone they were romantically into.
“Maybe it was because you were born premature?” Nani wonders aloud. “Technically your seventeenth birthday should have been six weeks later.”
I groan, dropping the pink cardigan I was folding. “So my entire life is ruined because of a cosmictechnicality? I’m an honor student—I’m supposed to graduate valedictorian and get scholarships. I’m not a juvenile delinquent.” I pause, worrying my lip. “How am I going to get into the BEAD program now?”
I’ve known pretty much since I was thirteen that I want to be an architect one day, and have been planning to apply in grade twelve to an architecture mentorship program through the University of Toronto called BEAD, for “BIPOC Emerging Architects and Designers.” I’ll get paired with a real architecture student, go to lectures on campus, and do a real architecture project assessed by a professor before I even finish high school. It’s pretty competitive, but to help my application stand out, this summer I was supposed to work for a local interior designer that my friend Adanna knows.
But now I’ll be in Cherrybridge.
Is there any point in applying to BEAD anymore, without relevant work experience? Or with a trespassing-and-mischief charge on my record?
“Your life isn’t ruined, sweetie,” Nani says, sitting on the bed and patting the space next to her. I sit and put my head on her shoulder, and immediately feel a little better. I’m goingto miss seeing Nani every day. Why would Mom separate me from the only family member that really gets me?
“It’s one summer,” Nani says. “Yes, you will have more problems now because of the curse, but it’s nothing that hard work and guidance from your family can’t manage. Look at me. My life wasn’t completely ruined because of my mistakes as a teenager. And even your mother—she’s been so blessed! She’s married to a successful man now and lives in a huge house. We struggled because of the curse, but we’re not ruined.”
I sit up straight. There’s a way to manage the curse? “What kind of guidance?”
