I spent the whole morning answering one question after another.
When I got to the lunch table, I dropped my messenger bag on the seat with a crash and rested my forehead on my hands.
“Hey,” Javaneh said.
“Hey,” I muttered into my hands. “Hey! I have some stuff for you.”
I dug into my messenger bag for the plastic sack Mom had sent for Javaneh’s mom. Dried shallots and pashmak and haji badum, which are these little baked almond candies, and a new tablecloth.
“Thanks. How was it?”
“It was...”
I didn’t know what to say.
How could I explain Mamou and Babou and Sohrab and football and the rooftop to someone who had never experienced them?
How could I talk about them when I still felt the ache?
“It was?”
“It was,” I said. “I don’t know. It’s hard to talk about.”
Javaneh nodded.
“Maybe I’ll get to go one day. We still have family there too.”
“I hope you get to,” I said. “I really do.”
“We’re on the South Field today,” Coach Fortes said as we emerged from the locker room. “Let’s go, gentlemen.”
The South Field was a huge stretch of grass behind the Chapel Hill High School Library. It was not technically a field—it was more of a lawn, really, and there was a slight grade to it—but that was where Coach Fortes took us to play football/American soccer.
It felt very strange, wearing my red Chapel Hill Chargers T-shirt and black swishy shorts, instead of my Team Melli jersey.
It felt very strange wearing my own tennis shoes, instead of Sohrab’s well-loved cleats, or even the new ones Mamou and Babou had gotten me for my birthday. (We weren’t allowed to wear cleats in physical education. Supposedly it was for “safety reasons.”)
It felt very strange playing on a full team, with my classmates calling out “Darius” or “Kellner” instead of “Darioush” or “Ayatollah.”
I kind of missed that.
It was nice to discover I was actually one of the better players in our class. Better than Trent Bolger, at any rate, who was on the opposing team.
I kept blocking him, stealing the ball and passing it forwardagain, until he looked ready to burst into flame like an angry Balrog.
When we rotated positions, and I took a turn at goalie, I knew he would try to get even. He wove around our defenders, and tried to sneak a shot to my right, but I knew what he was going to do.
I dove for the ball, brushed the grass off my shins, and tossed it back out.
After dealing with the Iranian Soulless Minions of Orthodoxy, Trent Bolger and his American ones didn’t seem so tough.
“Nice save, D-Breath,” he said. “But you’re used to balls flying at your face.”
“Asshole,” Chip said. He ran over to give me a fist bump. He had trimmed his hair over break, and pulled it back into a little topknot.
I kind of hated how cool it looked.
“Nice save, Darius.”
