I thought we were going to be friends.
How had I misjudged him so badly?
Maybe Dad was right.
Maybe I would always be a target.
Even for things I couldn’t help. Like being from America. Like having a foreskin.
Those things were normal back home, but not in Iran.
I would never fit in. Not anywhere.
I wiped my face to hide my sniffling while Sohrab andHossein and Ali-Reza laughed about my penis in Farsi. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t understand them.
I didn’t bother with my hair. I scrubbed the grass off my shins, rinsed off at warp 9, then grabbed my borrowed towel and slunk out of the shower. I would have run if I hadn’t been worried about slipping on the wet floor.
The guys’ laughter followed me, bouncing off the tiles, between my ears, rattling around in my head.
I wanted to die.
I wasn’t allowed to say that, not out loud. The one time I did—and it was only hyperbole—Dad freaked out and threatened to send me to a hospital.
“Don’t ever joke about that, Darius.”
I didn’t really want to die, anyway. I just wanted to slip into a black hole and never come out.
I pulled my pants back on. I didn’t have any extra underwear. I hadn’t thought about that.
Was it wrong to go commando in Iran?
I was certain there had to be a Social Cue against that, but my options were limited.
And what was the point and purpose of following Social Cues, anyway? I was never going to fit in.
I pulled my shirt back on, fighting to get it over my wet hair and down my back.
“Oh.” Sohrab had come around the corner. I wiped at my face to make sure he couldn’t see anything. “Are you leaving, Darioush?”
“Yeah.” I hated that my voice still squeaked.
Bare feet slapped on the tiles as Ali-Reza and Hossein followed. “Khodahafes,” Hossein said.
And then Ali-Reza said, “Nice to meet you, Ayatollah.”
It was a new record for me: Less than forty-eight hours in Iran, and I already had a new nickname, one more humiliating than anything Trent Bolger and his Soulless Minions of Orthodoxy had ever come up with.
I dropped my borrowed towel on the floor, wiped my nose with the back of my hand, and made my escape.
STANDARD PARENTAL MANEUVER ALPHA
Dr. Howell says that crying is normal.
He says that it’s a healthy reaction.
He says it helps the body excrete stress hormones.
Having Hossein and Ali-Reza and Sohrab—Sohrab—make fun of my penis had me excreting a lot of stress hormones.
