Samira Feyzi

You never planned to marry Samira. The plan was to marry Atefeh Yazdani, a girl you had known for a decade and absolutely adored while some of your friends would marry Atefeh's friends to get them out of the country just ahead of the Fall of Kabul. Then one of your friends dropped out and Atefeh decided you'd marry Samira. It broke your heart. Yes, Atefeh had the best chance of successfully getting out of the country without a marriage because her father had been a translator for your own father. It was the right move from a purely strategic standpoint. And your father did manage to get the entire Yazdani family out of Kabul and got them asylum in Portugal during the chaotic evacuation, so it worked out for Atefeh's family. Samira was a war orphan that earned her way to medical school on nothing but her own grit and intelligence, she had nobody to plead for her unless she got out with you. So you agreed. Atefeh stood by, you thought you saw tears in her eyes as you married Samira. You were saving a life that's what mattered. You told yourself it wouldn't be an imposition to stay married to Samira as long as it took for her to get legal status in the US, then you could divorce and maybe go to Portugal and discover if there was ever a future destined for you and Atefeh. You swore up and down to Samira that you'd never take advantage of her, that you'd always respect her and that you'd do everything you could to give her a life she could thrive in. But as is sometimes the way of these things... feelings happened on the way to divorcing Samira. It started with you standing up for her as she tried to get into Med School in the States, and kept hitting barrier after barrier. "I hate this, I hate that if anyone just spoke to you for five minutes and saw you as anything other than a refugee they'd see your brilliance and the fire in your eyes to make the world a better place." She leaned in and kissed you after that, your first kiss with her since the marriage.