Oh no. He busted out the Farsi. He basically called Wesley a son of a dog, but not in a nice way.
I scurried the rest of the way up the stairs, away from Dad’s wrath.
■ ■ ■ MY ROOM 10:15 P.M.
I staggered onto my bed and checked my phone. Wesley still hadn’t called or texted me, which meant this breakup was cemented now. No “just kidding!” could ever take us back to the way things were before.
Being with Wesley had made me feel so good, as if I were this fun, interesting girl because he wanted to be around me. Not only that, but we’d swapped saliva. Like, actual germs! How could you look at someone you traded lip gloss with and dump them only two days later? It had seemed pretty personal and special, but maybe he didn’t feel the same way anymore.
I had a lot of things going for me, but getting a boyfriend had seemed like the ultimate triumph. Now that he wasn’t mine, it was hard to think about anything else.
I opened my laptop and double-clicked the video chat, dialing my aunt. Ameh Sara’s face instantly filled my computer screen, her brown eyes looking a lot like mine, although she had a different nose that looked like her own mom’s. Ameh Sara was my dad’s half sister, from when Baba Bozorg (aka my grandpa) had decided to move back to Iran after my grandma died, while Dad stayed in the US for college. I hadn’t seen Ameh Sara in person since Baba Bozorg’s funeral in Iran, almost eight years ago. She’d tried to visit us for my tenth birthday, but she couldn’t get a visa. She was going to try to get a visa to see us again this fall.
“What is it, ameh? Is everything okay?” Sara asked.
In Farsi, the language of Iran, ameh means “father’s sister,” like an aunt. Sara was my only ameh, though. You repeated your title back to someone as a sign of affection.
“Ameh,” I wailed, “Wesley broke up with me!”
“WHAT?” Ameh Sara cried.
I’d told Ameh Sara everything about me and Wesley this summer, even more than I’d told Ruth and Fabián. She looked as shocked as I felt.
“I know!” I replied. It felt good to see her look as flabbergasted as I was, like I wasn’t crazy for being confused.
“I don’t understand,” Sara began. She spoke with a slight accent, the word understand sounding like “under-eh-stand.” “But he kissed you! He asked you to be his girlfriend!”
I hung my head. “I know. He dumped me during freshman orientation.”
“Did he say why?”
“Yeah,” I replied, my voice small. “He said it was because I was too loud.”
Ameh gasped. “He tried to silence you?”
Living in Iran meant that Ameh Sara couldn’t sing, dance, or be loud in public, or the modesty police would give her a ticket or—worse—drag her off to jail. I forgot she’d probably have a lot of thoughts on me being called too loud.
“I mean, he didn’t try to silence me,” I replied quickly, worried I’d make Sara go on a political rant against people trying to keep women quiet. Our Skype call was, after all, potentially being monitored by the Iranian government on Sara’s end, and I didn’t want her getting arrested.
“Cheh olaghi!” Sara fumed. What a donkey. I could practically see smoke coming through the computer screen. “How many girls in America are as cultured as you? Or wear such interesting makeup and clothing? Many people would die to have your confidence and be . . . what was it again?”
“Loud,” I finished for her.
“Yes, loud!” Sara flapped her arms passionately.
My thoughts stuck on what she said earlier. “You think I’m confident?” Nobody had ever called me that before. Obnoxious? Yes. Confident? Not so much.
“Yes, ameh! You’re so funny, and you always take initiative. And it was your idea to video chat me, remember? You were six when you set up Skype for us in Iran.”
“Yeah?” I swelled with pride. “I forgot about that . . .”
“See? Whatever is going on is Wesley’s problem, not yours. When I come visit you at the end of September, we can take your mind off this boy.”
I knew talking to Ameh Sara would help. “Thanks, Ameh,” I replied, feeling a bit better. “I’m sorry I called you so early.”
She waved me away. “It’s okay, Parvin joonam. But I need to get ready for class. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”
Ameh Sara was in her last year at the University of Tehran, where she was studying graphic design, just like Mom had. Job prospects in Iran weren’t great, though. She was going to visit us in the fall, and Mom was going to teach her how to make 3D designs to hopefully give her a leg up for the job hunt. I couldn’t wait until she was here.
“I love you, Ameh,” I said.
“Love you, too, ameh. It’ll be okay.” Sara blew me a kiss and hung up, the now-empty computer screen reflecting my puffy eyes.
I inhaled deeply. Yeah, whatever happened, I’d be all right. Who was Wesley to make me doubt myself? I was pretty great, after all. Not just anyone could cover themselves in seaweed and scare an entire section of the beach into running away. Or mentally calculate the seven-and-a-half-hour time difference to Iran every time I wanted to call my aunt.
Ameh Sara was right. Whatever had just happened, it was Wesley’s problem, not mine. I was going to be totally fine.
Saturday FABIÁN’S HOUSE/MANSION 10:00 A.M.-ISH
Who was I fooling? Everything was not fine. If I was so great, then why didn’t I have a boyfriend? Why weren’t there boys kicking down my door, demanding to be within five feet of me? I thought I felt okay last night, but today I just felt worse, with puffier eyes and the same number of boyfriends I had since Sara’s empowering Friday-night Skype call: zero.
We scheduled an emergency BFF meeting. Well, Ruth did. I spent all this morning scrolling through photos of me and Wesley from the beach, wondering
