ONE OF THE pages Amir had edited on Wikipedia was for a singer named Laura Pedrotti. He had also edited some pages for a neighborhood called Trastevere. He had added a couple of locations to the page—a park, a bar—and I cross-checked those on Instagram to see if anyone had posted a picture of him or something.
That was when I found him. One of the locations, a bar called Garbo, had an active Instagram story. I tapped through the story, which showed a crowded room with people reading at the front, and there he was. Amir, wearing a white T-shirt and khaki pants, his hair long and black and curly, talking in front of a group of Italian people. He looked so confident up there. He was glowing under the bright lights.
Most of all, Amir looked happy—I could tell, even from that ten-second clip, that he was happier than I’d seen him in a long time.
Did I really want to ruin that?