Chapter 9

DARYA

It was one of those quiet evenings where everything felt a little too still. I sat cross-legged on my bed, my laptop open but forgotten, a half-drunk cup of tea cooling on the windowsill. My mind, of course, was on Leila.

She hadn’t said the words yet, not exactly. But I could see it—clearer than either of them probably could. Leila had fallen for Elias, and Elias ... well, I’d seen the way he looked at her, how he lit up when she entered a room, how he always found a way to steer the conversation gently back to her. There was no mistaking it. It was real, and it was happening.

And it scared me.

Not because I didn’t believe in it. I did. I believed in it so much it made my chest ache a little. Elias was one of the good ones—thoughtful, intelligent, and far more respectful of our world than most foreigners I’d ever met. He was careful, not just in what he said, but in how he said it. He tried. I saw it every time he was around. And Leila ... God, she deserved someone like him. After everything, she deserved to feel like she mattered.

But we didn’t live in a world where that kind of love went unpunished.

Her family, despite all their modern clothes and dinner-table talk about science and progress, would lose their minds if they knew. Not just because he wasn’t Muslim. Not just because he was foreign. But because he was American. That single word—Amrikā’i—was like a fuse in some families. And hers? I had no doubt. It would explode.

And even if, by some miracle, they managed to keep things quiet, there would still be the others—co-workers, neighbors, the kinds of people who never say anything to your face but will have ten different stories about you passed around by sunset. Leila would be the one they talked about in the quiet corners of gatherings, the one people whispered about with pursed lips and furrowed brows.

I ran a hand through my hair, restless. I didn’t want to think about what would happen if it all blew up. I wanted to think about how to keep it from blowing up.

Which brought me, inevitably, to the problem of Dr. Moradi.

He was the family’s perfect candidate—clean-cut, polite, good job, good name, good everything. And Leila couldn’t stand the sight of him. The way she tensed when his name came up ... I knew she felt cornered. That meeting for tea was coming soon, and I hated that she couldn’t get out of it—not yet.

But maybe there was a way.

I already knew where the good doctor had gone to dental school—Shahid Beheshti, not a bad program, not exactly elite either. I also knew where he was working now, some private clinic in the west end. And I happened to know someone who worked reception there—Mehri, a friend from university, always up for a little gossip if it was served the right way.

And then there was my aunt. She knew everyone. Or rather, she knew people who knew everyone. Especially in the matchmaking world. The khastegari aunties. If Dr. Moradi had any past proposals—especially ones that had gone sour—they’d know about it. They always did.

I could start there. Ask Mehri how things were at the clinic, mention that a friend’s family was considering Dr. Moradi, casually drop his name, see what came back. Same with my aunt—ask if she’d heard anything about him, maybe say I was just trying to help a friend do her homework.

I was good at this. I could frame it just right.

I glanced at my phone but didn’t pick it up. Not yet. I needed to think it through, plan the timing. If I got too eager, too obvious, people might start asking me questions. That couldn’t happen.

But I had a path. A strategy.

And if there was something buried in Dr. Moradi’s past—some scandal, some woman he’d wronged—I’d find it. I’d bring it into the light. And Leila? She’d walk away with her head high and no one able to stop her.

Not yet. But soon.

Very soon.

ELIAS

The break room upstairs at the institute wasn’t much—just a narrow space with an electric kettle that always smelled faintly of burnt limescale, two old chairs, and a chipped table that had seen better decades. I was leaning against the counter, sipping lukewarm tea, when Reza walked in and nodded at me.

He poured himself a cup, gave it a few lazy stirs, and settled into the chair by the window. There was a moment of quiet between us, the kind that always settled easily with Reza. We’d gotten to the point where we were able to appreciate the silence. Sometimes, he’d ramble about the state of his car, or the latest developments with his year-old daughter. Today, though, he glanced up at me over his tea and said, quietly, “I’ve seen you in the lounge after hours.”