“Fair enough,” he replied. “Though, to be honest, I thought you were on a family trip and had snuck out for the night. It’s what I would have done.”
I stumbled off the tram rails, and Jahan jumped on. “And what are you doing in Rome?” he asked.
“Writing,” I said, because it seemed as good a bullshit answer as any. Though in a way I was figuratively rewriting my life. I mean, who isn’t a writer in the figurative sense of the word?
Jahan chided me for being a writer who doesn’t know Joni Mitchell and therefore a disgrace to our entire species. I remembered that he was an actual writer, a poet. Neil had told me just earlier that day.
“Oh, you can’t trust anything that man says. He’s sick,” Jahan said. “Sick in love. His boyfriend, Francesco, is proposing to him in two weeks, on his thirtieth birthday.” He winked at me then, and I felt that in trusting me with that secret, he was inviting me deeper into this secret society of Americans in Rome. “If you insist on assigning labels, then yes, I’m a poet,” he said. “But I’m a procrastinator, too, so that should tell you how much poetry I actually write.”
He dropped me off at my door with a stern warning: “Listen to Joni Mitchell. There will be a quiz next time.”
I smiled, because all night, Jahan had been so incredulous about every “icon” I’d never heard of: Joni Mitchell, Nina Simone, Joan Crawford. It was like I had told him I’d never heard of oxygen. I was smiling all the way until I reached the chain staircase to my bed, when my phone in my pocket buzzed. And buzzed and buzzed, like the barrage of shots we took at the end of the night. It must have just connected to the apartment Wi-Fi.
I took out my phone and saw notifications on the screen: my parents had called literally dozens of times since I had left for the bar. Not through my number, because that was deactivated internationally, but on Skype. FaceTime. Facebook Messenger. I didn’t even know you could call people on Facebook Messenger.
Drunk as hell, I called them back like it was a reflex. “Mom and Dad?” I said, as if it was a normal phone call.
“Amir! Where are you?” My mom was having a heart attack through the phone. “We’ve been worried sick,” she said, her voice sharp as knives. “And whatever is going on, we need you to talk to us.”
I sobered up immediately. “I can’t,” I said. But I could only act so sober. “I can’t.” I choked. “I can’t. I can’t. I can’t . . .”
“You’re scaring us,” my dad said. I could picture him through the line, holding my mom. “First you skip your graduation ceremony, and now you’re scaring us. Is it college? You worked so hard in high school, and we didn’t mean to put pressure on you with those rejections.”
The knot in my stomach grew so tight. “It’s not that,” I said. That knot had stitched my mouth shut. Even though I had distance, even though I was safe, I still couldn’t say the words.
I bit my lip, hard. The points just didn’t add up.
My family was still on the phone. “Amir, is it the pressure?” my dad said. “We thought you’d come home, like the last time you . . . went off like this. But we don’t even know where you are. Please, you can talk to us.”
Could I, though?
Something shifted in me, right there, and I stayed quiet.
In a lot of ways, I’m lucky. I know that. I get to exist at a time when being different is okay. My generation embraces its differences. But sometimes, when I feel like my family doesn’t understand, can’t understand, who I am . . . I wish I were different in a different way.
“Amir . . . joonam, azizam . . .”
The tally system is only necessary when you’re different from your family. Being Iranian and Muslim is one thing—it comes with its own set of challenges—but at least my mom, dad, Soraya, and I fight those battles together. We deal with the same shitty remarks, the same stares, the same stereotypes. But when you’re gay—your family isn’t different like you anymore. They don’t understand. And worst of all, they might hate you for it. The family you were born into, the people who are supposed to love you no matter what, might hate you.
“Amir,” my mom snapped. She was growing frustrated. “Enough is enough. This is all very American of you. This whole running away thing is American. Come home.”
That’s what my parents said about gay people, the one time the topic came up at the dinner table: “It’s an American thing. It’s part of their culture. Not ours.” I remember sitting there quietly as Soraya argued with them, my heart sinking in my chest.
Sometimes I would tell myself that if I’d just been born into a nice, liberal, American family, none of this would be a problem. I wouldn’t be a double whammy. I would just be me.
The line got silent. “I have to go,” I said, ending the call.
Interrogation Room 38
Roya Azadi
I WAS TERRIFIED after that phone call. If I could have just known what was on Amir’s mind—if I could tell him he could trust me, that we could just talk about it . . . In any case, I remember I looked at my husband differently after Amir hung up. Before, he had assured me that Amir would come home, that it was just like the last time he had left home. Something had happened, and he needed to get away for a few days. But this wasn’t like the last time anymore. Or maybe it was. Because the last time Amir had run away, it had been over a comment. My husband had said—he had said something unkind about a trans . . . transgender woman on television, and he and Amir got into an argument. Amir called us backward, and he stormed out of the house and didn’t come home until the next day.
We did not call the police then. And we certainly couldn’t call them this time. Our son was eighteen. We knew well enough that they couldn’t make an eighteen-year-old come home. And we didn’t want it to look bad for Amir, that he had left home.
We told Soraya we were in touch with Amir. She asked to talk to him herself, but we said he needed space. That we were handling it.
I keep thinking back to the last time. The last time, Amir came home on his own. The last time, he didn’t pick up when we called him. The last time, he just walked back into the house the next day, saying salaam, as if he had just come home from the grocery store, and before my husband could raise his voice, I clenched his hand and said salaam back to our son. We never talked about it. It was as if Amir had never left.
Now I see the bigger picture.
Twenty-Eight Days Ago
I HAD TO check out of my Airbnb that day. Waking up was a struggle, not just because of the anvils pounding against my head, but because I had the fuzziest memory of that phone call with my parents. I knew this much: it did not go well, and they still didn’t know, and I would not be going home.