That was the last time I saw Neil. Yesterday. I saw Jahan three days ago. I saw Giovanni seven days ago.
Here’s the thing: I could have told them the truth. I could have told them the real reason I was in Rome when they were huddled around me, just like I’ve been telling it to you. But to tell them the truth would have been to admit to myself that I had abandoned my family. That I wasn’t brave, but a coward. No matter how many times I told myself that it wasn’t my fault, that Jake had hijacked my coming out, that the numbers just didn’t add up for my parents—I still felt like a terrible son.
And that’s why I’m ashamed, sir. More than you could know. But right now, I’m mostly ashamed about how everything blew up in the end.
Interrogation Room 38
Soraya
SOMETHING FROM THE vending machine? That’s very nice of you, ma’am—I mean, Officer. I was getting a little hungry. What are my options? I’ll definitely have the ice cream, yes. A chocolate éclair or ice cream sandwich, if you have either of those. Please don’t listen to my mother; I definitely want ice cream. Thank you. This is very yummy.
Actually, this reminds me of last summer—our last summer in Bethesda—of a time when Amir really pissed me off. There was an ice cream truck, one of those big white vans with pictures of all the different ice creams on the side, that would come into our neighborhood every morning in the summer. We knew it was coming because you could hear its loud jingle from inside the house, and the entire neighborhood would come running out. Amir and I had been going since we were kids. I was always surprised he never found it silly or juvenile as he got older, but I wasn’t going to complain.
So this one time, near the end of the summer, the ice cream truck drove off without giving me my change. I had paid five dollars and needed three twenty-five back. I told Amir to go chasing after it—he was a much faster runner than I was, and I had hurt my ankle in the pool that summer—but he didn’t. He said, “Don’t worry. It’s not worth it. I’ll just give you the money.” But then one of the neighborhood kids, Junior, went after it instead. He sprinted and banged on the white van, and the driver stopped and gave him my change. I was so angry at Amir. I didn’t get it. Usually I liked that he wasn’t like Junior; Junior was always beating people up or talking about beating people up. Boys can be really dumb about proving their manhood. But in this moment, I just wanted my brother to stand up for me and fight. And he just wasn’t willing to fight.
Amir doesn’t like conflict. I’ve always been the fighter in the family; I think that’s why my parents always liked Amir better. Don’t make that face, Mom, he has always been your favorite. He was the polite, well-behaved child. I was the stubborn one. But that’s also why I was so determined to find him.
You probably know a thing or two about investigations. Your job is to take clues and find answers, isn’t it? That was the job I assigned to myself after Amir went missing, and so before I could go off and interview the people who knew him, I had to hunt for clues in our own home. That meant looking around his room.
Amir had cleaned his room before he left. Made his bed. There wasn’t a single dirty sock in his hamper. It was like the whole time he lived with us, he had been a houseguest and not my annoying older brother who kept his boxers in four different piles, one for each corner of his bed. My parents and I messed it up a little bit that first day when we went searching through his room . . . but no one had touched it since.
I went back in one afternoon when my dad was at work and my mom had run to Costco. Yes, Mom, you still went to Costco while Amir was missing. Come on, that doesn’t make you look like a bad mother. Life still had to go on. You still had to buy basmati rice in bulk.
Anyway, I was pretty much a detective that whole afternoon. I slipped into Amir’s room, careful not to leave a trace, and poked around.
I checked around his desk, under his bed. I went through his drawers full of college junk mail and chargers. I saved everything that might have been a clue. I found a movie stub for Jumanji, which was weird because Amir and I saw that the weekend it came out, and this ticket was for a different date. Plus, it was for a movie theater in another town.
I went and got a step stool so I could look around the shelf inside his closet. There were a ton of textbooks and notebooks up there. I went through each one of them. On the inside cover of one of his notebooks, Amir had written all these to-do list items, stuff like “haircut” and “wiki citations” that didn’t seem helpful, but also stuff like “cap and gown,” which meant he wasn’t planning to skip graduation, right? Then I noticed a phone number scribbled in the bottom-left corner of the page.
I called the number. It rang a few times before an automated voice answered.
“We’re glad you called Trevor Lifeline. If this is an emergency—”
Then it rang again, and someone picked up.
“Trevor Lifeline, this is Clark. How are you doing?” I was confused, so I didn’t say anything. “Hello, are you still there?” This Clark person sounded worried now. “I understand it can be scary to make this call, and I think you’re very brave—”
I hung up the phone. I’d never heard of Trevor Lifeline, but I already knew it was for people who were thinking about taking their lives.
I tried to imagine a world where my brother was gone—really gone—and my brother’s room started to feel very small and tight around me. I even had trouble breathing. Eventually, I googled Trevor Lifeline on my phone and learned that it was a suicide hotline for LGBTQ youth. When I read those words, I had to sit down on Amir’s bed.
Was my brother gay?
You’ll see that my mom’s head is turned away right now. And for once, I’d like to defend her. Because it’s not the kind of shame you’re thinking of. I sort of turned my head away like that, too. It was because I was sad . . . almost disappointed. I wasn’t ashamed by the possibility of my brother being gay, but by the possibility that he was hurting and I didn’t even notice.
Twenty-Eight Days Ago
AFTER I FINISHED my lie, Neil placed a hand on my shoulder. He delivered a big speech about how he and his friends were my “found family” now, and as Jahan and Giovanni nodded on, my mind shifted dramatically, and all I could think was, The hot bookseller’s hand is on my shoulder. This is not a drill. There is a literal Hemsworth brother right in front of me, and his strong hand is clenching my shoulder in a gesture of sympathy.
The actual content of Neil’s kind words noodled through my brain like soggy spaghetti. I do remember I was supremely uncomfortable. It wasn’t just his hand; it was the unquestionable Italian energy in the room, the fact that I had just lied to my new friends, the guilt simmering beneath the lie, the guilt for how quickly my hormones had one-upped the other guilt . . . it was all so overwhelming. An alarm was going off inside of me, and I needed to get away. I needed to catch my breath. So I stepped out of the circle. I was going to get a glass of water. Or wine. Who knows, maybe I was going to get out. But with my clammy hands balled up and my eyes glued to the floor, I collided right into one of Giovanni’s friends, who was transporting meatballs. A massive. Plate. Of meatballs.