I meet him the day Iran bombs Israel. Thousands of miles away at our idyllic Southern California campus, our engineering professor rambles about fluid dynamics. A soft chuckle draws my attention, and we lock eyes across the lecture hall. He's got glossy brown hair, hazel eyes, and a soft smile that's out of place in our summer course full of future military contractors. I give him a shy grin back, blush spreading across my cheeks. Purposefully avoiding his gaze, I busy myself for the rest of the lecture. It doesn't work: as class wraps up, I feel a gentle tap on my shoulder. It's him. All the air leaves my chest.

"I'm Fazel." 

I barely get out, "Judy." 

"Just Judy?" He asks, teasing. 

"Well, Judith," I reply, trying to act indignant. I fail miserably. 

"It's nice to meet you, Well Judith."

 

Our first date is the night Israel bombs Iran. We grab ice cream at a little shop off campus, both of us walking. I kvetch about climate change and he mentions being conscious about his carbon footprint but we both know it's because we're broke grad students trying to save gas. I order my usual, strawberry, and he gets a double-chocolate-chip with extra sprinkles and caramel sauce. I learn his dream is going to space and his greatest fear is the deep end of the swimming pool. He learns I love reading and I have a recurring nightmare that I've become a contestant on The Bachelor without knowing, only finding out when I wake up and there's cameras in my room. He asks if he can take me out again. I say yes.  

 

Our second date is the evening of a rocket barrage, Iran and Israel firing at each other across Jordan. My parents are glued to the news when Fazel picks me up in his vintage cherry-red Mustang. He waits at the door in a crooked tie with a single daisy obviously plucked from the neighbor's hedge. When I call him out on it his laugh is full of whimsy. I appreciate that he says nothing about me still living with my parents. I find myself giggling along with his stories of growing up in Los Angeles, where he took the Expo line after school to hang out with his no-good friends on the Venice Boardwalk. I tell him of my harrowing childhood in Irvine where danger lurked around every corner: vicious middle school girls, stray soccer balls, and a goldendoodle that chased me across the street. We discover we're both upper-class yuppie kids rebelling against doctor parents by becoming engineers. As if on cue, his mom calls and he sends it to voicemail (but with a quick text reassuring her he's alive). I hope for a kiss when he drops me back off, but like a true gentleman he gives me a hug and the leftovers from our fancy Italian dinner. 

On our third date, we go to the movies. Fazel picks the new theater by Disneyland with reclining seats and a full bar so you can sip martinis while watching Brad Pitt flex his abs. But tonight it's Coke Zeros and How to Train Your Dragon. As the music crescendos and our heroes soar across the screen we simultaneously reach for each other's hand. We hold tightly, swept into the moment of make-believe. And as we stumble out of the theater, dazed from the technicolor, we bask in the warmth of this new connection. We've experienced something wonderful together and now it's ours to keep.  

 

Our phones, now off silent mode, ping once, twice, twenty times. The fantasy is shattered. We're hurtled back to earth. Back to the stark reality of death, destruction, and despair. United States strikes Iran. World leaders briefed in emergency hearings. Middle East conflict escalates. Wider war feared. 

 

I stare at my phone as he stares at his. I know we haven't said what lingers like mustard gas in a World War I trench, waiting to be inhaled before asphyxiating us brutally. I kept thinking he'd say something, but perhaps he's been waiting for me. Standing with the flower at my doorstep he would've seen the mezuzah with its bright gold שׁ, shin, the Hebrew letter symbolizing God's name and protection over a Jewish household. On our second date, when his mom calls, I see her contact in his phone: مادر, modar,  Farsi for "mother." Even our names belay that right now we're supposed to be enemies. How would we introduce each other to our parents, friends, families? Judith and Fazel, Fazel and Judith. People of the book but different translations. People of the land with rockets aimed at each other. 

 

An explosion overhead, then another! We leap into each other's arms. Has war already arrived in California?! We cower until realizing it's just the Disneyland fireworks. Bursts of brilliant color soar against a velvet summer night. Around us, other departing theatergoers watch with joy. Children cheer and clap, their laughter mingling with the stench of gunpowder. As Fazel and I hold each other under the rumbling sky, doubt twinges in the pit of my stomach. If our leaders can't fix our broken world, who are we to try? I turn to Fazel, prepared to step away from the warmth of his arms. My body won't respond. So I wait for him to break the embrace instead, for it to all be over. It never comes. We lock eyes. And with fireworks exploding above us, we kiss.