I kept going. The back of my neck was heating up. I didn’t want to start crying again. And if I did, I didn’t want Sohrab to see me.
He brushed my shoulder but I shrugged him off.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “About before.”
He followed me into my bedroom at the end of the hall and closed the door behind him.
“It’s fine.” I kept my back to him and took as long as I could to put my shoes away. I tucked the laces inside and lined them up perfectly parallel at the foot of my bed.
“No. It was not nice. I should not have said it. I should have stopped them.”
I sighed.
I wanted Sohrab to leave.
“It’s okay. I get it.”
Sometimes you’re just wrong about people.
“Thank you for bringing these back. They’re the only shoes I brought.”
“Darioush. Please.” Sohrab rested his palm on my shoulder. It was warm and tentative, like he thought I would pull away.
I thought I would too.
“I was...” He paused, and I looked over to see him swallow, his sharp Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “It was nice. You know? Not being the one that Ali-Reza was making fun of.”
I mean, I could understand where Sohrab was coming from.
It sucked being a target all the time.
“But he is not my friend, Darioush. Or Hossein. I’m not like them.”
“Okay.”
“I’m sorry. Really.”
Sohrab smiled—not a squinty one, but almost like a question—and I knew he really meant it.
“It’s okay. I just took it wrong is all.”
“No.” Sohrab squeezed my shoulder. “I was very rude. And I am sorry. Will you give me another chance?”
I thought I had been wrong about Sohrab.
But maybe I had been right.
Maybe Sohrab and I really were destined to be friends.
Maybe we were.
“Okay.”
Sohrab’s smile brightened into a squint. “Friends?”
I smiled too.
It was impossible not to.
