“Thank you. For taking care of them.”
Sohrab’s brown eyes crinkled up into a squint as he smiled at me.
Sohrab Rezaei always smiled with his whole face.
“Always, Darioush. Ghorbanat beram. Always.”
Ghorbanat beram is one of those perfect Farsi phrases you can’t quite translate into English.
The closest thing is: I would give my life for yours.
Sometimes it was just hyperbole.
But for Sohrab, it was literal.
And it was literal for me too.
That is what it means to have a best friend.
THE GOOD TABLE
I was a little nervous about going to school Wednesday morning.
First, because we had our opening game that evening. And second, because Trent Bolger had been fiddling suspiciously with his phone when he saw me with Landon, and Trent loved spreading misinformation.
But when I got to school, no one said anything at all.
Either Trent hadn’t made his move yet, or he had and no one cared.
By the time I got to Conditioning class, which I shared with Trent and a couple guys from the soccer team, it seemed like it was the latter: He’d been disappointed by the results of his rumormongering. Trent kept glaring at me, especially when I greeted Jaden and Gabe, two seniors on the team.
“All good, Darius?” Gabe asked. Our starting forward was brown-skinned and the shortest guy on the team, but he was also the fastest runner I had ever seen.
“A little nervous.”
“Don’t be. You’ll be fine,” Jaden said. He was a Fractional Korean—he laughed when I called him that the first time, but then he adopted it himself—and tall, but not as tall as me or Chip. He played midfield.
“Thanks.”
Gabe glanced over at Trent, then lowered his voice.
“You know Trent’s going around telling people he saw you with a guy last night?”
“I kind of figured he would.”
Gabe grinned. “You got a boyfriend?”
“Maybe. I dunno. We’re just hanging out.”
“Anyone we know?”
“I don’t think so. He goes to private school in Vancouver.”
“Cool. You don’t mind people knowing?”
“Not really.”
“All right. We got your back, though. Just say the word.”
