“Soraya,” my mom snapped.

“You don’t have a dressing room,” I said, giving her a look.

“Exactly,” she said with a smirk. “How did you even afford this place?”

“Soraya! Eh!” my mom snapped again.

I resisted a smile. You’d be surprised how many people are desperate for a Wikipedia page, I wanted to tell my sister. Maybe another time. We had a lot of catching up to do.

My dad plopped down on the small futon next to the bed. “This is a nice apartment,” he said, resting his arms behind his neck. “Much nicer than many of the apartments I lived in before I met your mom. She really whipped me into shape.”

I glared at him. My mom cleared her throat awkwardly. “Let’s pack up Amir’s things,” she announced.

I went and stuffed the rest of my clothes in my duffel and backpack. My parents started to pack up the pots and pans, but I told them they weren’t mine, that the apartment had come furnished. My mom went to clean the bathroom, since she wanted to make herself useful, and since my landlady—an elderly artist who lived on the ground floor—had texted me on WhatsApp to leave the apartment immacolato. Spotless.

A minute later, my mom emerged from the bathroom holding a dull purple glow stick. “Amir, do you want this?”

I stared for a second, transported briefly back to Rigatteria, to Valerio. “Yeah, I’ll take it.” I stuffed the glow stick in my pocket.

I wasn’t ready to pack up my things, much less leave Rome.

Our flight back wasn’t until the next morning, and so my family wanted to go out for dinner. “Let’s get pizza. We are in Italy! Take us to the most amazing pizza, Amir,” my dad said in an overly cheerful tone.

We made our way over to a pizza restaurant that I knew had outdoor seating, just off of Piazza Testaccio. As we crossed through the park, the white marble fountain alive as ever, I imagined Jahan and his friends sprawled out on the benches, opening a bottle of prosecco, pouring it in plastic cups. My heart was thumping hard—at the possibility of running into one of Jahan’s friends here, but also at the already distant memory of those afternoons.

What was the point of Rome without Jahan? It felt empty now.

My family and I were seated at a table on the sidewalk. The menu was long, and my parents asked the waiter a million questions—even after he had brought us English menus. Soraya and I rolled our eyes at each other like we always did when our parents embarrassed us like this. My sister looked really pretty with the wind blowing her hair, brown and shiny.

After we ordered, I went inside the restaurant to go to the bathroom. My mom gave my dad a look, her eyes wide and worried. “Seriously? Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m not going to run away again.”

I weaved around the tightly packed tables inside and managed to ask one of the waiters in Italian where the bathroom was—dov’è il bagno. Thing is, I recognized that waiter right as the question came out of my mouth.