by Arvin Ahmadi
“Well, you did the impossible,” Jahan said. He slammed the door shut. “You got me up in the morning.”
His apartment was significantly messier than it was just a few days ago. There were sheets of graph paper everywhere, a TI-83 calculator atop a stack of books, a textbook on the armchair. Jahan pushed the textbook off the chair and sat down.
“You won’t believe what Rocco did,” I said.
“What Rocco did? Honey, I already talked to Rocco and Giovanni. Why didn’t you tell me what happened last night?”
“Oh. I don’t know,” I said, pacing in front of him. “I guess I just didn’t think it was a big deal. We didn’t actually … God. How did Rocco find out anyway? Was it the wink at the end of the night? Did he find a hair on the couch or something?”
“Really? That’s what you’re worried about?”
“And I can’t believe he would comment on my Instagram! I asked you all not to follow or tag me there, because I didn’t want …” I cut myself off. “I guess I never asked Rocco specifically, but Jesus.”
Jahan looked at me like I was going mad.
“I thought they were open,” I mumbled.
“Amir. They broke up.”
My jaw fell. “What?”
“Giovanni called me,” Jahan said, rubbing his eyes. “He was frantic. He told me Rocco found out about the two of you, and then something else came up, and they both started yelling at each other and throwing things, and Rocco just broke up with him.”
I stared at a poster of the ruins of Pompeii, right above where Jahan was sitting. “This is all my fault,” I said.
Jahan looked at me and sighed. “You need to be more careful, Amir. You’ve gotten yourself in the middle of something you don’t understand.”
My head was processing the words Jahan was saying, but my heart seemed to have short-circuited.
I felt absolutely terrible. Like I had let Jahan down. He was tired, and serious, in a way I had never seen in him before—there wasn’t an ounce of his usual lightness.
Jahan picked up the algebra book and held it on his lap. “Cazzo.I really didn’t need this right now,” he said under his breath.
We were quiet for a second, until the sound of my phone buzzing broke the silence. Jahan raised his eyebrows.
“Who’s calling?” he asked.
“God, I hope it isn’t Rocco,” I said, reaching into my pocket. I looked at the caller ID on the screen—Roya Azadi; she was calling on Facebook Messenger—and shoved it back in.
“Anyway, I’m really sorry,” I said quickly, “for causing drama with your friends, right before your algebra exam, but I’m sure you’ll—” My phone buzzed again.
“Who keeps calling you?” Jahan said, getting up from his chair.
“No one, don’t worry.”
“Is it Rocco? Giovanni?”
I took my phone out to silence it. “No, it’s—”
Jahan grabbed my hand, twisted it, and looked at my screen. “Who is Roya Azadi?” he asked.
My heart started racing.
“It’s my mom.”
Jahan gasped. “Amir! You should answer it!”
“No, I shouldn’t.” I felt dizzy.
“I understand it’s an awkward time, but maybe your family is sorry,” Jahan said. “Maybe they want to apologize.”
“Jahan, trust me,” I insisted. “It’s not important right now.”
“Oh, forget this other stuff,” Jahan said, swatting his hand. “This is family. It’s important. How can they just reject you like that? We’re Iranian. Family comes first. Sure, our parents immigrated over with certain values, but they immigrated over for you to be happy, first and foremost. You need to talk to them. It could be …”
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.”
“Maybe.”
“Anyway, that’s insane,” Jahan said. “Absolutely insane. But seriously, why didn’t you just tell us that?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I didn’t want you guys to assume anything. I didn’t want to have to explain. I thought you would have all these questions, or think I just left my family and didn’t give them a chance. But I knew. I knew they wouldn’t … Anyway, that’s why Rome has been so amazing. When I got here, I was sad because I felt like my real family had already rejected me, but then you guys swooped in and became my family. It was so surreal. All those times we were drinking prosecco in the park together, I wanted to pinch myself. Or when you and your friends would be belting those old singers you love, it was like American fucking Idol. I didn’t want to ruin that. I didn’t want it all to go away.”
Jahan said nothing. His lips were pressed into a tight half smile.
“My whole life, I’ve felt like I was fighting this losing battle at home, with who I was.” I fumbled for the right words. “I was keeping a scoreboard—it’s hard to explain, but the points were never in my favor. They just weren’t. Then I came to Rome, and the points started adding up, you know? They were finally in my favor, and I felt like I was winning.”
“That’s sweet, Amir. It really is,” Jahan finally said. “But maybe now you can give your family a chance? At the very least, it seems like they want to talk to you.”
/> “Maybe,” I said with a sigh.
But Jahan wasn’t done. “I just wish you hadn’t lied to us,” he continued. “That’s all. You can’t be doing this shit, buddy. We all believed this really bad thing had happened to you, and—”
“A really bad thing did happen to me.”
“Well, yeah, of course. But you know what I mean. It sucks what happened, but it also sucks that you didn’t feel you could be honest about it with us.”
I didn’t want to be angry at Jahan. I really didn’t. But something in me needed more than just “it sucks” from him.
“Well. I’m sorry I lied,” I muttered.
Jahan gave me a look. “Hey, no need to roll your eyes. I’m just saying, I wish you had trusted us. I’m not angry at you. It’s just, on top of this Giovanni thing, well … none of this is ideal, let me tell you that. None of this.”
“Yeah, well, what happened to me back home wasn’t ideal, either.”
“Oh, come on, Amir. Don’t make me out to be the asshole here.”
“I’m not calling you an asshole!” I realized, too late, that I was shouting now.
Jahan opened his mouth to say something but stopped. “Amir, you’re giving me a real headache right now. This is the last thing I need. First you hook up with Giovanni and his relationship blows up, and then you lie to us—”
“So it’s about Giovanni, then,” I said, cutting him off. “The real reason you’re angry is that I broke up Giovanni and Rocco.”
“I’m not happy about that, that’s true.”
I fought down the giant lump in my throat.
“I’m sorry I’ve become such a burden to you and your friends,” I said softly.
“A burden? Jesus! Where is this coming from?” Jahan massaged his forehead with one hand. “I’m just saying you fucked up a bit, that’s all. You hooked up with a guy you would have been wise not to hook up with—and if you’d asked me, I could have told you that. On top of that, you lied to us about what’s going on with your family—which, again, if you had told me—”
“I’m telling you now!”
“Yeah, great timing, Amir,” Jahan said, massaging his forehead with both hands now. “Look, can we talk about this later? My head is pounding, and I need to get back to studying.”
I could feel my lips quivering. I wanted to tell Jahan the whole story—the specifics of Jackson and Jake, the phone calls with my parents that had played out exactly how I’d expected—but then I saw him glance nervously at his algebra textbook on the coffee table. I realized that I didn’t want to do any more damage than I had already done.
So I left.
Four Days Ago
ONE OF MY favorite things about Jackson was that he made amazing playlists. He had one called “sad bops” that I especially loved. He called them sad bops because they were moody, but not necessarily depressing.
“That’s the difference between sad songs and sad bops,” Jackson had told me once, while we were listening to the playlist in his car. His seat was leaned back, and I was resting my head in the dimple of his chest. “Sad songs are for when your heart is broken.”
“So when do you listen to sad bops?” I asked.
He shrugged. “When your heart is confused, I guess.”
Now, several months later, when my own heart didn’t know how it should feel, I must have looped through that playlist about eight hundred times since my fight with Jahan. I could tell you exactly which song came next. After “Dancing On My Own” by Robyn, it was “Supercut” by Lorde. “Wrecking Ball” by Miley Cyrus. “Light On” by Maggie Rogers.
I spent all that time holed up in my apartment, eating fried risotto balls from the pizza shop downstairs for every meal. The greasy paper bags were starting to pile up on my kitchen counter.
My brain was looping through its own confused playlist: Was Jahan mad at me? Why hadn’t Giovanni responded to my text asking if he was okay? And what about Rocco? He had made it very clear that he hated me now. Would he hurt me? Should I call my family? And then back to Jahan—should I call him?
It felt like the ground beneath my feet was crumbling away and there was nothing I could do about it.
It was the loneliest I had felt in a long time. It reminded me of all those weekends I’d spent holed up inside my room back home, when I couldn’t tell Jackson about what Ben and Jake had threatened me with, when I couldn’t talk to my parents or Soraya.
Rome wasn’t supposed to feel like this.
I went to Tiberino, the restaurant on the island, to try and get some work done. I was supposed to be writing a Wikipedia page for another start-up the cryptocurrency guys had referred me to, some social networking start-up—because that was just what the world needed: another website for making friends. I couldn’t focus though. There were too many people around, too many tourists and happy families.
Plus, my table was wobbly. That was annoying as hell. I got a stack of napkins and crouched underneath the table to stuff them under one of the legs.
“What are you doing?”
I looked up and saw Laura’s ring-studded fingers.
“Dude, why don’t you just move to a different table?” she said.
“This whole outdoor area is on a slope,” I muttered, coming up. “You guys should fix that.”
“Never seemed to bother you before.”
We kissed one another on each cheek.
“It’s good to see you,” I said. “I’ve had a shitty couple of days.”
Laura looked at me funny. “Actually, I’ve been trying to find you,” she said, pulling up a chair. “I don’t know if this is going to help, but I wanted to tell you … your sister slid into my DMs.”
“How do you even know that expression—wait, what?”
“I did not respond,” Laura said quickly. She showed me the message on Instagram: hey, sorry if this is random, but I saw my brother Amir created your Wikipedia page and edited some other Italian pages. Do you know where he is? Is he in Italy?
“Oh, fuck,” I said, rubbing my eyes. “Shit. Shit, shit, shit. I really don’t need this right now.”
“Don’t need what?” Laura asked. There were other people around, so she leaned in and lowered her voice. “What’s going on?”
“I’d rather not talk about it,” I said.
“You’re going to have to,” Laura said firmly. “This is suspicious as hell. I thought maybe you had murdered someone or done something sketchy! I checked your Instagram, and I noticed you haven’t posted anything from Rome. I need you to explain what’s going on.”
Laura was waiting for me to say something. I sat there with my hands on the table, balled up in fists. I flattened them.
“Listen, Laura. I’m gay. And my family, they’re not particularly cool with that. So I’m sort of just … here, hiding out. That’s the truth.”
“Oh.” And then, after a pause: “Your sister is not cool with it?”
“No, she’s fine. But it’s my parents,” I said.
“Are they religious?” Laura asked. Jackson had asked the same question when we talked about coming out to our families.
I sighed. “Yes and no. It’s more a culture thing. Our culture is pretty conservative, even if you’re not religious. Like, my parents and I have never even talked about sex. I always knew that when and if I came out to them, it would be like two coming-outs: ‘Mom and Dad, first of all, I’m a sexual being, and then oh yeah, and I like dudes.’ ”
“Wow. I’m sorry.” Laura laughed, but her eyes were sympathetic. “I had no idea.”
“It’s okay,” I said quietly.
Laura looked back at the restaurant. “I haven’t told my parents, either. About me. They’re not religious or anything, I just … I don’t know. They’re traditional in some ways. They think I’m like this”—she gestured at her cropped hair, her studded tank top, her Doc Martens—“because I’m an artist.”
We stared at each other for a second.
“Besides,” Laura continued, “I
’m bi. I could still end up with a man. That sounds awful, doesn’t it? Like, ‘There’s a chance I might not be a fucking weirdo in the eyes of my parents.’ ”
“No, it’s not awful! I think that’s a totally reasonable thing to think,” I said. “It would make your life a lot easier.”
“But life’s not supposed to be easy, you know?”
“Sometimes I wish it were.”
“It wasn’t easy for old Bartholomew over there,” Laura said, gesturing to the church. She made a skin-peeling gesture over her face and I just about died laughing. An old man reading a newspaper a few tables over muttered something at us in Italian, and Laura snapped right back at him.
“Damn,” I said. “You’re kind of a badass. You know that?”
“Of course I do.”
I leaned back into my chair a little and exhaled. “So, what’s Rome like for people our age? I’ve been hanging out with these older gay guys here, and I feel like maybe I should … start branching out.”
“Honestly? It’s kind of shit,” Laura said. “I like college in America better. My girlfriend and I met at a frat party, just like in the movies. Still, Rome can be all right. You’ll have to come have a drink with my friends and me sometime.”
I nodded. “Yeah. I’d like that.”
That evening, I met Neil at Rigatteria for our Italian lesson. It had honestly been a relief to finally hear from him; it had been a few days, and I was starting to believe maybe he was pissed off at me, too.
“We missed you this weekend,” Neil said. We were sitting at the small table in the corner where we had our first lesson.
“Come on. You know there was no way I could come,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
I gave him a look. I realized Neil legitimately had no idea what had happened. I explained all the drama to him: the hookup, the breakup, Jahan finding out.
“Hey,” Neil said, rubbing my shoulder. “None of that is your fault.”
“I shouldn’t have hooked up with Giovanni.”
He shrugged. “Okay, yeah. Maybe you shouldn’t have done that.”
