Saman just called.

On the cellphone he canceled so I couldn’t talk to “that guy”. The same cellphone that he now un-canceled, apparently.

I wasn’t expecting the phone to ring. Didn’t think it could anymore. The aural explosion frightened me into a scream. Now I’m holding a palm against one of the futile bumps beneath my t-shirt. I can still feel heartbeats tremoring against the skin.

“Your family and my family agree — this nonsense must end right now!” he snarled in Farsi. “You are my wife!”

An empty act of claiming. Just words that unspool across a calendar, that fit around my finger. Words I don’t want to hear.

“You come home on the first flight tomorrow! Or do you spit on God and both our families? Do you?!?”

The argument happened far away. I’m the echo of a voice of a girl who used to be me, maybe. And the echo isn’t even real, not unless I want it to be.

“Don’t make me come out there to get you! I’m already humiliated enough!”

The malice in his tone, the wedding ring, the tears, none of this is real.

“Nooshin! Obey me!”

None of it.