I shoved my hands in my pockets. “So am I,” I said. The cigarette glowed in the darkness, lighting up Giovanni’s face like a Halloween jack-o’-lantern. I had always liked Giovanni, ever since he gave me that shirt at the first dinner party.

We talked about his novel, which Giovanni had been working on for years, and he droned on about fifteenth- and sixteenth-century queer Italian history for so long I lost track of time. I told him I wanted to read his book. Giovanni smiled, eyeing me with the precision of a hawk, and he said I could read it as soon as it was finished.

“I have not even shared it with Jahan yet,” Giovanni said, taking another drag of his cigarette. “It is a shame we are losing him.”

“You’re telling me. He’s pretty much the only person I have here,” I said.

Giovanni frowned. “Stick with me and we will suffer through this loss together,” he said. “In fact, a few of us are going up to my house in Umbria next week, right after Jahan’s last day. It is a beautiful part of Italy, lush and hilly. My family has a villa there. You should come with us.”

“Really? Would that be okay?”

“Of course.”

Someone from the bar came out and asked us to come back inside. Apparently, the neighbors upstairs were complaining about the noise.

“Maybe my life won’t be over after Jahan leaves,” I said to Giovanni on our way in.

“Of course it will not. You will start a new life. A new new life. I am an expert in new lives. I have had a couple of them myself,” he said with a wink, “and I am intrigued by yours.”

Interrogation Room 38

Soraya

ONE OF THE pages Amir had edited on Wikipedia was for a singer named Laura Pedrotti. He had also edited some pages for a neighborhood called Trastevere. He had added a couple of locations to the page—a park, a bar—and I cross-checked those on Instagram to see if anyone had posted a picture of him or something.

That was when I found him. One of the locations, a bar called Garbo, had an active Instagram story. I tapped through the story, which showed a crowded room with people reading at the front, and there he was. Amir, wearing a white T-shirt and khaki pants, his hair long and black and curly, talking in front of a group of Italian people. He looked so confident up there. He was glowing under the bright lights.

Most of all, Amir looked happy—I could tell, even from that ten-second clip, that he was happier than I’d seen him in a long time.

Did I really want to ruin that?

Interrogation Room 38

Roya Azadi

GROWING UP, THERE was a boy who lived on my block in Tehran. His name was Payman. He fluttered around our little street like a butterfly, always smiling, singing—like there was a world of happiness in every step he took. The other girls and I liked him. He wasn’t threatening. But the boys constantly mocked him. Whenever we played with Payman, the boys would find us, and they would come over, cocky and stupid, just like most boys at that age, and they would tease Payman for no reason. Che mikoni, parvaneh? What are you doing, butterfly? They were so cruel to him.