I told him about Chip.
“I’m sorry, Darioush,” he said when I was finished. “Are you going to be okay?”
“I guess.”
He looked at me.
“Did you, though?”
“Did I what?”
“Did you love Landon?”
I leaned back in my chair. It was a used office chair Dad brought home from work when they switched to standing desks. But it was also slightly broken, and if I leaned back too far it would tip over.
I grabbed the edge of my desk and sat back up.
“I don’t think so,” I finally said.
And then I said, “He was the first guy that ever liked me.”
I swallowed away the lump in my throat.
“What if no one else ever likes me the way he did?”
“Darioush.”
“Yeah?”
“You’re a good guy. And lots of guys are going to like you. I know.”
I shook my head.
“What about Chip? He likes you.”
“Ugh.”
Sohrab laughed at that.
“Darioush.”
“What?”
“He is your friend. Are you going to stay mad at him forever?”
“Yes. Maybe. I don’t know.”
“You remember our first fight?”
I nodded.
It was because Sohrab had teased me after seeing me naked in the showers after we played soccer.
He said my penis looked like it was wearing a turban.
Was my entire life going to be one long string of penile humiliations?
Maybe it would.
