He could tell everyone.
You pace yourself faster, like you can outrun all the voices if you just get your speed up. Your feet pound the sidewalk. You’re in your boxing shoes, heavy and flat and solid on the bottom, good for doing squats or hitting the heavy bag but not for running, and you feel every single jolt as your feet hit the sidewalk.
Your eyes are burning, starting to blur. You tell yourself it’s the sun, not the dread scooping out your chest like your dad scoops out the sweet and sour pulp of a passionfruit.
You tell yourself that, but it doesn’t work.
You can lie to everyone else, but you can’t keep lying to yourself. It doesn’t work anymore. The truth is inside, growing and growing, no matter how you try to ignore it, stuff it down, put it in the corner tucked away where no one will ever find it.
Everyone already thinks you’re different for being Iranian. For being an immigrant. For being Bahá’í. What would they say if they knew you were…
You still can’t say the word, not even in the safety of your own mind. All you can do is feel out the space around it, the jagged edges poised to rip your world apart if you aren’t careful.
You don’t want this.
So you keep running. You fly down the big hill, sprint back up the next, savoring the burn in your legs, your lungs, because anything is better than the burning in your heart, your soul, because no matter how fast you run you can never outrun that word.
That one word.
The house is quiet when you get home, sweat-slicked, breathing hard. Your pulse pounds in your ears. Your hair sticks to your forehead and neck. The wind has picked up, and clouds are rolling in, maybe the spring rain Baba has been hoping for, since his garden needs it. But Baba’s gone, probably still practicing driving with Jina, who hasn’t had to drive in the rain yet. You hope she freaks out less about the rain than she did about the highway at nighttime. You weren’t with her, but you feel like you were, you’ve heard Baba tell the story so many times.
You kick your shoes off. Peel your hair off your forehead. Pull your sweat-drenched shirt off to try and dry your face, your chest, that spot on your lower back that always leaves a gross oval at the bottom of your shirts. You catch a glance at yourself in the hallway mirror, and you’re still scrawnier than you want to be, you stillhaven’t gotten the gains you need, you still have that sunken spot in your chest, you’re still soft and weak and scared.
You squeeze your eyes shut. You don’t know what’s going to happen at school on Monday. What Dayton will do, who he’ll tell, what misery he’s planning to make your life even worse.
You think you’re going to be sick, but you swallow and swallow until it stops feeling like your protein shake is on its way back up. Your tongue feels too big for your mouth.
You stretch against the kitchen counter, chug a glass of water, take the stairs slowly, one at a time, because your legs are feeling a little wobbly since you didn’t warm up before you sprinted out of Dayton’s house, and you didn’t account for the extra cardio in your meal planning for today.
You pull your phone out to add in the extra run, to figure out how many calories you need to add to maintain your progress, your head down and distracted when you step into your room, which is why you don’t realize you’re not alone until your mom says, “Farshid?”
You don’t scream. Screaming is for little kids.
But youdolet out a cry of alarm, because you didn’t expect her to be there, pulling a pair of boxers out from beneath your bed and adding them to the laundry basket.
“Maman!” you shout.
“Farshid-jan, don’t startle me like that!” she says in Farsi, but you stick to English.
“What are you doing? I told you to stay out of my room!”
“You said you needed to do laundry today,” she says. “Why are you home so soon?”
“I told you I’d do it myself!” What is wrong with her? Why doesn’t she ever listen to you? You told her you’d do your laundry.You don’t want her going through your sweaty gym clothes, much less your sleep clothes, because sometimes you’ve woken up and felt weird and you know what that means, and to be honest, most times you’ve been awake when you made the mess, and God, please don’t let her have noticed that, and—
“I was just trying to help.” Your mother sets down the laundry basket and crosses her arms. “You don’t need to have such an attitude.”
“Andyoudon’t need to be going into my room when I’ve told you not to!” You don’t realize you’re flailing until the wet shirt is already flying across the room, smacking against the wall beneath the poster you got at the last Magic prerelease tournament when you came in second. “I deserve privacy!”
“It’s just some laundry,” she says. “And you said you’d be out late. What are you doing home, anyway? What about your project?”
“It’s fine,” you say, crossing your arms over your chest, because you’re cooling off now, and you don’t want your mother looking at your chest anyway, your pecs aren’t nearly as developed as you want them to be, and your core is still lacking definition.
“But you said it was thirty percent of your grade.”
She’s talking to you like you’re a child.
“God, Maman, it’s fine, okay? I’ll finish it later.”
