Chapter 1: Thirty Days Left

Adrian

I had thirty days left in America before they put me on a plane back to a country that would throw me in prison for kissing a man.

The envelope sat on my kitchen counter, and I'd been staring at it for more than twenty minutes. My fingers hovering over a mug of coffee that had already gone cold. The coffee spilled so badly that it had sloshed over the rim and spread across the laminate, dark and slow, like blood creeping toward the edge.

The Department of Homeland Security logo glared up at me in unforgiving blue ink.

Notice to Appear.

Three words. That's all it took to end everything.

I read it again. Maybe this is the fifth time. My vision kept blurring, tears I refused to let fall, making the letters swim. 

Some desperate part of my brain kept thinking, maybe if I just read it one more time, the words would change. Maybe they'd rearrange themselves into something I could survive.

But they didn't.

Ninety-three days. That's how long my student visa had expired. And the tech startup…the one that promised they'd sponsor my H-1B, had sent me an email last week. citing unexpected budget constraints and shifting company priorities.

And now,I had thirty days to leave voluntarily, or face deportation proceedings and a permanent ban. 

Thirty days to dismantle six years of my life. Six years of freedom, of being myself, of not having to hide.

Thirty days before I will be shipped back to Manila. Back to a country where men like me disappeared into police stations and came out broken, if they came out at all.

My phone buzzed against the counter, the vibration making me flinch.

Mom's text lit up the screen: Sofia's engagement party is next month. Your father wants to know when you're finally bringing a nice girl home.

The nausea hit fast and brutal. I ran for the bathroom, barely making it before I vomited up the coffee.

I collapsed onto the tile floor, pressing my cheek against the cool surface, but it did nothing to stop the spinning, the panic clawing up my throat.

This couldn't be happening.

I'd done everything right. Everything I'm supposed to do.. Studied until my eyes bled. Won the scholarship to UC Berkeley, landed the job. And stayed out of trouble.

And for what?

To be thrown away the second I became inconvenient?

The bathroom door slammed open a few seconds later.

"Adrian? Jesus Christ…" 

Maya hit her knees beside me, her hands immediately on my shoulders. I felt her fingers grip tight, grounding. Her voice stayed calm but her eyes were wide, scared. 

"What happened? Are you sick? Should I call someone? She asked."

"They're deporting me." The words came out flat. Dead. Like they belonged to someone else. "I have thirty days left. Maya."

She went completely still. I watched her process it, and saw the moment it clicked.

"Your visa? She asked."

I nodded. I didn't trust my voice anymore.

"Fuck."

She sat back on her heels, staring at the wall like she could see through it to some solution only she knew existed. I knew that look…that was Maya's problem-solving face. The gears are turning. Then her expression sharpened, focused. 

Determined.

"Okay. There are options. You can apply for…."

"There are no options. I snapped" and pushed myself up to sitting, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. My hands were still shaking. It refused to stop. "I already called three immigration lawyers, Maya. 

Three. Without company sponsorship, I have nothing. No family here to petition for me. No extraordinary ability claim. No asylum case that would hold up. I'm just another expired visa. Just another number."

"So find another company to sponsor you," she insisted. "Tech jobs are everywhere in the Bay…"

"The H-1B lottery was months ago." I could hear my voice rising, cracking at the edges. "The next round isn't until April. And I don't have until April. I have thirty days left."

A laugh tore out of me, bitter, broken, the sound of something shattering. "Thirty days before I go back to a country where being gay is illegal. Where my cousin Mateo got arrested last year just for being at the wrong bar at the wrong time. Where they…"

My voice broke completely.

I pressed my palms against my eyes, trying to hold it together. Trying not to see Mateo's face the last time I video-called him. The way he couldn't hear me properly anymore, the haunted look in his eyes, the careful way he moved like his ribs still hurt.

"Where they beat him so badly he lost hearing in one ear," I managed. "And the police called it resisting arrest."

Maya's face drained white. "Adrian..."

"I can't go back there." Everything was spilling out now, six years of carefully maintained composure collapsing like a dam breaking. "I can't spend the rest of my life pretending. Marrying some woman my parents pick out. 

Having kids I don't want. Lying every single day about who I am until I can't remember what the truth even feels like anymore. I can't. I can't do it, Maya."

She grabbed my hands. Hers were warm, steady, solid. Mine were ice-cold and trembling.

"Then we find another way," she said, and there was steel in her voice. That was the Maya I knew, the one who never backed down, who fought when everyone else gave up.

"There is no other way."

"There's always another way." Her eyes were bright with unshed tears, but her jaw was set, stubborn. 

"Listen to me. I know someone. Someone who helps people in situations exactly like yours."

I let out a laugh that tasted like ash. "Unless your someone works for USCIS and can magic me up a visa…"

"He arranges marriages. She said."

The words dropped between us like stones into still water.

I stared at her. My brain felt slow, struggling to catch up. 

"What?"

"Green card marriages." She was talking fast now, urgent, the words tumbling over each other. "Specifically for LGBTQ+ people trying to escape countries where they'll be killed or imprisoned. He's currently drowning in law school debt and runs a side business arranging these marriages. 

I have a friend…well, a friend of a friend who went through this two years ago. She was from Saudi Arabia, about to be deported back to a forced marriage. Probably an honor killing. 

This guy matched her with someone willing to marry her for immigration purposes. She got her green card, they divorced after two years, and now she's got permanent residency and a girlfriend in Oakland."

I couldn't process it. Couldn't make the words make sense.

"That's immigration fraud," I finally said.

"That's survival," Maya corrected, and her voice was fierce.

My mind kicked into gear, panic replacing shock. "Maya, if we get caught…federal prison. Deportation. Permanent ban. Fines up to a quarter million dollars." 

I'd read the penalties so many times during the last three months they were burned into my brain. Had nightmares about them. "We're talking about lying to the federal government."

"We're talking about saving your life." Her grip on my hands tightened until it almost hurt. "What do you think happens when you go back to Manila? You really think you can just go back in the closet? Pretend for the next fifty years?"

She swallowed hard. When she spoke again, her voice was softer, but somehow that made it cut deeper.

"I've known you since sophomore year, Adrian. You barely made it through college hiding who you were. The panic attacks. The depression. The anxiety so bad some weeks you couldn't leave your room. And that was here. Where being gay is legal. Where you had friends who supported you."

She paused, letting that sink in.

"How do you think you'll survive going back?"

I had no answer. My mind went blank when I tried to picture that future…tried to see myself at thirty-five, forty, fifty, living a lie so complete it would hollow me out from the inside. 

I couldn't see it. Couldn't imagine surviving it.

"Just meet him," she said. "Just hear what he has to say. You need options. And right now, you have none.”