And my mom went, “Of course we’ll love him.” She said, “We love him, and we love you, more than anything. No matter what.” My dad didn’t say anything.

So I told them. I showed them the Instagram post of Amir reading that poem at that bar. That’s when we got in touch with Neil.

Interrogation Room 39

Afshin Azadi

I’D RATHER NOT get into the specifics of our argument on the plane.

Three Days Ago

I DIDN’T THINK it was good etiquette to show up at a goodbye party for someone who might hate me, but I showed up anyway. It felt wrong not to be there for Jahan’s last night in Rome—even if it meant facing Giovanni and Rocco, too.

It was a surprise party. People started to trickle in, and we were waiting to hear from Jahan after his exam. I didn’t even know half the people there, on the rooftop of Rigatteria. Some of them were familiar faces from Garbo, like the woman with the FEMME RAGE tattoo.

What would my life in Rome look like after Jahan left? It was a selfish thing to wonder as we took our positions hiding behind all the furniture and antique doors and mirrors for Jahan’s last big night in Rome, but I wondered it anyway. I was pretty sure I had gotten a taste of it these past couple days. I pictured my life in Rome like the nipple ring in Jahan’s story, dangling off a thread.

“He passed!” someone screamed. “He passed his exam! But now he’s saying he’s tired and doesn’t want to meet us for a drink.”

“Cazzo.”

“Tell him to get his ass over here,” Neil said.

We all got quiet while someone got on the phone with Jahan and demanded he meet them for “a drink.” “Stronza, vieni qui,” they told Jahan over the phone. “Bitch, get over here.” At least my Italian was getting better.

Eventually, Jahan agreed to come, and we all got back in our hiding positions and waited. Finally, someone whispered that he was coming up the stairs.

“Sorpresa!”

“Surprise!”

Jahan was genuinely floored; as in, he fell to the floor, laughing and crying. He was in such good spirits after passing his exam. He floated around the crowd. He hugged everyone. But when he got to me, he just smiled and gave me a quick hug. It even seemed shorter than the others, like he was barely acknowledging me.

There was a projector screen in the front of the room, rolling through old photos and videos of Jahan and his friends. Every time I looked over at this screen, it was a younger Jahan with green hair, or Jahan dancing through a museum lobby I didn’t recognize, or Jahan and Rocco dressed up as Sonny and Cher for Halloween. It made me think maybe I didn’t know Jahan as well as I thought I did.

My parents loved to go through old photos and videos of Soraya and me at home. I remembered just a couple of months ago, right after Ben and Jake had begun blackmailing me, we were gathered in our living room, celebrating the Persian New Year, which always falls on the first day of spring. My dad put on a video from when I was six. Soraya was a baby, and in it, I was inspecting her face, her cheeks. Then suddenly she hiccupped and cried. My parents laughed. “Aww, jigari,” a weird term of endearment that means “liver.”