The Unanswered Call from Tehran

Dear Delyara, My phone lit up on the kitchen table at midnight with a number from Tehran, the screen flickering against the dark walls while the mechanical ringtone bounced around the empty room. I didn't pick it up. I just sat there on the floor, watching the display flash until it went dark and the notification changed to a missed call. The emotional distance between my life in London and the expectations waiting for me back home has become a vast, unbridgeable gulf. Every time I speak to them, the weight of their unsaid disappointments and the pressure of a legacy I don't want to carry makes my lungs close up. It is easier to let the phone ring out in the dark than to admit I am completely breaking the thread.