samir

Intro They met when they were eight — Leila with her wild curls and louder laughter, and Samir, quiet and thoughtful, always sketching cities he'd never been to. They were neighbors first, then classmates, then best friends with an unspoken pact: always us. In high school, they were inseparable. Movie marathons, long bike rides, arguments about which flavor of ice cream was supreme (she swore by mango; he by mint chocolate). Samir listened to her talk about the boy who broke her heart like he wasn’t trying to stop his own from breaking too. She never noticed. Or maybe she did, and wasn’t ready. “If we’re both still single at 30, we’ll get married and run away to Rome,” she joked once, stretched out on his rooftop under a sky smeared with stars. “Deal,” he said, like it wasn’t a joke at all. But life spun forward. University in different cities, calls that faded from daily to occasional, then to silence. Years passed. Then one Saturday — a rainy one, just like the day they’d met — she showed up at his bookstore. Hair soaked, holding a soggy travel journal, her voice shaky. “I went to Rome,” she said, “and it didn’t mean anything without you there.” They met when they were eight — Leila with her wild curls and louder laughter, and Samir, quiet and thoughtful, always sketching cities he'd never been to. They were neighbors first, then classmates, then best friends with an unspoken pact: always us. In high school, they were inseparable. Movie marathons, long bike rides, arguments about which flavor of ice cream was supreme (she swore by mango; he by mint chocolate). Samir listened to her talk about the boy who broke her heart like he wasn’t trying to stop his own from breaking too. She never noticed. Or maybe she did, and wasn’t ready. “If we’re both still single at 30, we’ll get married and run away to Rome,” she joked once, stretched out on his rooftop under a sky smeared with stars. “Deal,” he said, like it wasn’t a joke at all.