My best friend fell in love, but her parents were pissed, so they locked her in the house for months. I helped her escape to get married in a very small ceremony. She used to be close to her brother, so she invited him. On the wedding day, he wore a tux that didn’t fit and carried a backpack that he refused to open.
Her name’s Parisa. We’ve been best friends since we were ten, back when she showed up to our small-town school with an accent and a lunchbox full of food nobody could pronounce. Everyone whispered. I sat next to her. We’ve been tight ever since.
She met Omar at the library where she worked. He’d come in with his nieces, help them pick out books, then linger at the checkout desk, cracking terrible jokes. He wasn’t rich or flashy, but he was kind. Smart, respectful. He adored her. That was obvious.
But her parents didn’t see it that way.
They had someone else in mind for her. A family friend’s son from Toronto, already well-off, with plans to move to Dubai. They said Omar wasn’t “ambitious enough,” and worse, “not from our background.” When Parisa said she wouldn’t even meet the guy, things exploded.
First they took her phone. Then her keys. Then her job—her mom called the library pretending to be Parisa and quit for her. She basically vanished. If I hadn’t known where her family lived, I would’ve thought she moved away.
I tried to visit. Her mom answered the door with a fake smile and said Parisa was “out.” I saw her shadow at the upstairs window, though. She wasn’t out. She was trapped.
We got sneaky. I started slipping notes under the side gate. She’d leave replies under the loose rock near the mailbox. Old school spy tactics. That’s how she told me she wanted to marry Omar—quietly, before her parents could ship her off to Iran or force some engagement.
So we made a plan.
Omar borrowed his cousin’s car. I showed up at dawn with a bag of clothes and makeup. Parisa snuck out through the side window using a knotted bedsheet like we were in a bad rom-com. She tore her leggings and scraped her arm, but she was smiling so wide, she didn’t even feel it.
We drove to the registry office in Scarborough. Just the three of us. No flowers, no aisle. She wore a pale blue dress we bought secondhand, and I pinned her hair up with bobby pins from the gas station.
She looked beautiful.
The only other person she invited was her brother, Mehran. She didn’t want to hurt her parents, even though they were hurting her, but she still hoped Mehran would understand. He was only a year older, and they’d been inseparable growing up. He was the one who used to sneak her candy during Ramadan, who’d once told off their dad for yelling at her in front of guests.
He said he’d come. He said he had her back.
But when he showed up, things felt… off.
He wore a tux that clearly wasn’t his—sleeves too short, pant cuffs dragging. He gave her a one-armed hug, stiff. And he brought this ratty gray backpack, which he wouldn’t put down. Not even when we went inside.
Omar kept glancing at it. I did too. But it wasn’t our day to interrogate.
They exchanged vows. Simple, soft-spoken. Parisa teared up. Omar’s hands shook so badly he almost dropped the ring. The officiant smiled kindly, probably used to nervous couples. It was over in fifteen minutes. Married.
When we stepped outside, just as we were walking to the car, Mehran suddenly turned to Omar and said, “We need to talk.”
Parisa froze. “Now?”
“It’s important.”
I started to say something, but Omar nodded. “It’s okay.”
They walked off toward the end of the parking lot. Parisa kept pacing while they talked. Her hands were clutched together so tight her knuckles turned white. I asked her what was going on, but she just whispered, “He’s going to try to talk him out of it.”
Turns out, that wasn’t it.
After a few minutes, they both came back, but the tension was thick. Omar’s face was pale. Mehran still clutched that backpack like it was a life raft.
We got in the car. Drove to a quiet restaurant. No cake, no decorations, just three plates of food and awkward conversation. Mehran didn’t say much, only picked at his rice and looked like he was holding something in.
Then, when Parisa went to the bathroom, he leaned across the table and said:
“They’re going to disown her. I hope you know what that means.”
Omar didn’t flinch. “She knows.”
Mehran nodded slowly. “Just… don’t screw it up. If you hurt her, there’s no coming back from this.”
Then he pulled the backpack onto his lap and unzipped it.
Inside was a bundle of cash. Thick. Rubber-banded. Easily ten grand.
Omar blinked. “What’s this?”
“My parents offered me double to sabotage today. I took half of it and told them I’d take care of it.” He looked Omar dead in the eyes. “Now I’m giving it to you. So she has something. In case things get hard.”
Omar didn’t take it at first. He kept saying, “I don’t want your money,” and “This isn’t right.”
But Mehran shoved it into his hands. “It’s not from me. It’s from the guilt I’ll carry for the rest of my life.”
Parisa came back just then, and neither of them said a word. She sat down, grinning, completely unaware. I caught Mehran’s eyes. He shook his head slightly.
I didn’t tell her that part for a long time.
The weeks that followed weren’t easy. Her parents cut her off completely. Deleted her from the family WhatsApp group. Told the relatives she’d “gone wild” and refused to answer her calls. She cried more in those first few weeks than I’d ever seen her cry in our fifteen years of friendship.
But Omar held steady. That man took extra shifts at the pharmacy, cooked every night, and even learned a few Farsi phrases from YouTube just to make her smile. I visited them every Friday. We’d watch old Bollywood movies and eat homemade daal until midnight.
And that money? It didn’t go toward anything flashy. They used it to pay the rent while she looked for a new job. It was a cushion, not a crutch.
A year later, they threw a small party in their backyard. Nothing fancy—just a BBQ and music, a few friends from work, me, and, surprisingly, Mehran.
He showed up with a woman none of us knew. She wore jeans and a hijab and laughed easily. Parisa looked at her, then at him, and her eyes widened. She didn’t say anything, just hugged him.
Later, when we were alone, Parisa whispered, “He’s seeing someone they don’t approve of either.”
I said, “Is this karma?”
She said, “It’s just life catching up.”
Two more years passed. Parisa found a job she liked—teaching ESL at a community center. Omar got promoted. They moved into a slightly bigger apartment with better light. Nothing extravagant. But full of peace.
Then, one afternoon, she called me crying. Not sad tears. Shaky, overwhelmed, breathless joy.
Her mom had shown up at her work.
No warning. No text. Just walked in, stood at the edge of her classroom, and waited.
Parisa excused herself and stepped outside. Her mother, in her floral scarf and long coat, looked smaller than Parisa remembered.
She didn’t apologize. Not directly. But she said, “Your father’s sick. And we miss you.”
Parisa didn’t jump into her arms. She didn’t melt or rage. She just said, “You know Omar is my husband. He’s not going anywhere.”
Her mother nodded. “I know.”
That was the start.
It took months. Her dad refused to see her for a while. Then finally asked to meet at a Tim Hortons of all places. He didn’t say much. Just shook Omar’s hand and looked tired.
They’re not best friends. It’s not some perfect ending. But they’re talking again. There are phone calls. Slow steps.
And Mehran? He married the woman he brought that day. Her name’s Layla. She’s amazing. They just had a baby girl—Parisa’s niece. Parisa cried holding her. She told me it felt like closing a circle.
Looking back, what sticks with me isn’t the drama or the escape or the money. It’s that moment in the restaurant, when someone expected to betray her chose to protect her instead.
Love doesn’t always come in big declarations. Sometimes it’s in backpacks. In hard conversations. In refusing the easy path.
So yeah, life’s messy. But people surprise you. And when they do—it changes everything.
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