Dead to them
I have to die I told myself as I lied in my bed. and as soon as it can be.
That thought had been growing inside me like a sickness. Quiet at first, just a whisper between the prayers and the footsteps and the family meals served with too much silence. But it grew louder each time my father mentioned Abdallah’s name, each time my mother looked away when I spoke, each time I was told that obedience was purity and resistance was shame.
They were preparing for a wedding.
I was preparing for a funeral.
Mine.
I didn’t want to die. Not truly.
But what is life when every breath belongs to someone else?
My name was Joana Karim.
I was eighteen. Iranian. Muslim. Daughter of a man who loved his honor more than his children. Property of a family who used God’s name to carve me into something silent and soft.
And I was promised to a man I had never touched.
A man I had not chosen.
A man who didn’t see me, only the shape of a wife.
Abdallah Rezaei.
Thirty-three. Wealthy. Respected. Empty.
His eyes never smiled. Not at me. Not at anyone. When he came for tea, he didn’t look at me, he looked through me. Like I was a purchase to be evaluated. Like I was being measured for a cage made of satin and concrete.
They told me I should be grateful.
That not every girl was this lucky.
But I knew better.
The first night I started planning my death, it rained. I sat on the floor of my bedroom while my father shouted in the next room and my mother cried into her scarf like her tears could wash me clean of my rebellion. I tore pages from my school notebooks and wrote everything I could think of — escape routes, fake identities, names I found on black-market forums, the cost of a burner phone, the name of a woman I’d heard whispered in secret: Fariha.
She helped girls like me disappear.
I studied how to vanish.
I memorized maps and street names.
I practiced signing a different name with my left hand.
I hid my notes in the lining of my prayer rug.
No one in this house would ever dare look there. They saw my faith, not my fear.
The plan was simple. Simple enough to be believed.
I would burn my scarf at the riverbank. Leave my sandals by the edge. Tuck a note between the pages of my Qur’an.
“I’m sorry. I was not strong enough. I was not worthy enough. I was born a girl.”
It sounded tragic. It sounded real.
But more than anything — it sounded convenient.
They would grieve in front of others, wail loudly behind closed doors, and then carry on with their lives as if I’d never existed. Because that was easier than confronting the truth: that I had run.
That I had chosen to live without them.
The night before I “died,” I stood in front of the mirror for a long time.
Not to check my face. Not to cry.
But to say goodbye to the girl who had survived everything — and who had chosen to leave it all behind.
I pressed a kiss to my little sister’s forehead while she slept. I lingered for a second longer than I should have. But I didn’t cry.
I didn’t have the right to take my tears with me.
They belonged to the girl they buried.
At the riverbank, the world was silent.
I lit the scarf and watched it burn. The flames curled around the fabric like it had been waiting its whole life for fire. The air smelled of smoke and jasmine.
I slipped off my sandals and placed them at the edge, toes facing the water.
I took one last breath as Joana Karim…
And I walked away.
Becoming Kelly
Fariha met me in a warehouse outside Tehran. She was older than I expected — not what the stories made her sound like. She wore no hijab. She called me “sister” once and never again.
She didn’t smile. But she didn’t need to. She had saved more girls than she could count.
She burned my passport. Cut my hair. Gave me a new name. kelly amir it was almost over I was smelling my freedom.
“From nowon,” she said, “you answer to Kelly Amir. You refugee camp in Iraq. You lost your family in a bombing. You are nWe crossed the border hidden in a grain truck. Traveled through Turkey. Into Greece. From there to Italy, then Spain. I was smuggled like cargo, slept in train stations, learned to keep my head down and mouth shut.
I cried once. In an airport bathroom in Lisbon. I was holding my new passport. My fake name.
But I didn’t cry because I missed them.
I cried because I realized: I wasn’t dead.
I had survived.
And surviving… that’s the hardest part.
Freedom in Pieces
I made it to the United States on a student visa.
Kelly Amir, age 19, refugee, film major.
I lived in a shared apartment in Chicago with a girl from South Korea who barely spoke English and a boy from South Africa who played guitar until 3 a.m. I didn’t tell them anything. Not about Iran. Not about Abdallah. Not about Joana.
I worked two jobs — cleaning classrooms at night, serving coffee by day. I learned how to laugh again. I bought my first coat. I saw snow for the first time and cried because it looked like forgiveness.
But I didn’t let anyone close.
Because closeness leads to questions.
Questions lead to trust.
And I don’t trust anyone with the pieces of me that still tremble when men speak too loudly.
Now I’m sitting in the back of a small independent theater, watching my own short film play on the screen. It’s a story about a girl who fakes her death to escape a life she never chose. It’s fiction, of course.
Except it isn’t.
The credits roll. The audience claps. People turn to look at me. I smile.
But inside, I’m watching the exits.
I’m feeling for the blade in my purse.
I’m still dreaming of riverbanks and burning fabric.
I’m still flinching when someone says my name too softly.
I’m still avoiding anything that feels like love.
Still saying no to marriage proposals — even sweet ones from boys with kind eyes.
Because freedom is not peace.
Freedom is just breath.
And now, every day…
I am breathing.
I am hiding.
I am healing.
I am becoming.
I am still running.
I am still not dead.
Woow that’s a good story 😍
ReplyDelete