I clutched my head and walked straight to my room and did what all melodramatic teenagers did when they wanted to make a point: refuse to eat dinner, hurting no one but themselves. But
afterward, I wanted to go to Dad’s room and knock on his door, tell him that I just wanted him to understand me. Why was it so hard? I wanted him to be on my side, to help me out a bit. I
wanted to flatten my brain and spread it on the floor and teach him that this is how it works: when you say A, I think B. Don’t do C, if you don’t want me to go D. I just wanted him to
reassure me that it was okay to fall on your face, and be afraid, and maybe even overreact; that there was nothing wrong with all these hybrid feelings birthing inside me.
The Michels took us to Dhaka Christian Community Church, which was
