I collapsed onto the chair Jahan had been sitting on moments ago. Now I was the one rubbing my eyes, cupping my face in my hands. My heart was going haywire. I felt everything crumbling.

“Amir, are you okay?” Jahan placed a hand on the side of my arm. Then I felt something shift in him, like a twitch. “You know, I never asked you what your parents said when you came out to them, but if it was bad . . .”

I shook my head, once.

“It was that bad? Fucking assholes.”

I kept shaking my head. My whole body was quivering. “It’s not that. It’s not that,” I said. The weight of the lie was crushing my heart. “They’re not bad people,” I said, hoping that would relieve some of the pain.

“Not bad people?” Jahan spat. “They kicked you out. That’s the definition of ‘bad people.’”

“It’s not like that.”

“Then what was it like? Did they give two weeks’ notice? A nice severance package? Was it a light tap out the door?”

“Jahan. I’m just saying it was like they kicked me out.”

“Either they kicked you out or they didn’t!” Jahan’s voice was an angry mob, a million street signs pointing in different directions. But then it turned kind. That really killed me. “Shit. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. You know, when you first told us about your family, Neil and I both agreed we didn’t want to trigger you, we didn’t want to push you to talk about any of this before you were ready. Here, we’ll talk about it later. Lord knows we’re both tired, and there’s enough—”

“I never came out to my parents,” I blurted. “I’m sorry. I just never came out to them. I never got to.”

Interrogation Room 37

Amir

I STILL CAN’T stop picturing Jahan’s face when I told him the truth, that I hadn’t been kicked out. The way he looked at me, with total disappointment written all over his face.

I still can’t stop looping through our conversation.

Six Days Ago

“SORRY, I’M JUST trying to understand what’s going on,” Jahan finally said. “You never came out to them? So when you told us they kicked you out . . .”

“It was a lie.” I had to practically pry the words from my mouth. “It’s hard to explain. I—I never really had the chance to come out to my parents. A kid at my school saw me kissing another boy, and he took a picture of it, and he was going to show it to my parents unless I paid him a bunch of money, so I left.”

“What the fuck? Amir.” Jahan moved closer to me on the armchair, pulled me in for a side-hug. “Buddy. I’m sorry. That sucks to an extreme degree. Why didn’t you report him to the police?”

“That never really crossed my mind,” I said.

“That kid should be locked up. There have to be laws about blackmail; you could have scared the shit out of him.”