Nadia Veisi had promise and a bright future as a second generation Arabic-Persian American in the heart of Chicago. Along with her parents and four other siblings, the American Dream was ingrained in their DNA. While being the youngest of the Veisi children, she watched her siblings stay local or only hours away from home, Nadia knew she had been destined for experience elsewhere. As eventual small business owners who comfortably provided for five children, out of state tuition would be out of the question; but for Nadia she was determined. To free herself from the chaos of the large family and for new experiences, she was granted a full ride to Boston University on scholarships and grants.

The move and adjustment without her family was deemed difficult; but somehow she managed to acclimate over time. Eventually, she met a boy in her year, and as much as Nadia wanted to say "the rest was history" it wasn't. On the eve of returning home for Winter break their sophomore year, Nadia gave him a parting gift to tide him over through the new year when they'd meet again, both 19, Nadia knew that the following summer she'd bring him home to Chicago and was hopeful that one day, he was going to be the man she was going to marry.

Mixed with morning sickness and irritability in February, she realized she was pregnant; in sheer panic and crisis mode, the fighting began, and she was the instigator. keeping the secret from everyone including her family, she broke things off, and moved home with everything that she could carry home. The disappoimtent of dropping out of college was apparent with both her mother and father, and the icing on the cake would be in June at six months pregnant when she could no longer hide her pregnancy. Nadia moved in with a distant relative for sometime in another part of the city; there wasn't a shower honoring the mother to be and in September there was certainly no celebration when Nadia gave birth to two healthy baby girls.

Tera Ailani Veisi was born just three minutes after the sister she had never known. Nadia had intended to keep just one of her two children, and picked out a lovely family for her second. The reasoning behind Nadia's decision to keep Tera remains unknown. Moving on with her life after being released from the hospital, she found a small studio apartment in a rough neighborhood that was a short bus ride away from her parents middle class home, she had one thing to prove, she was going to make it for her and Tera without the help of anyone.

Growing up in "the box" as Tera had named it wasn't always too bad, she had happy memories for every bad memory of the time in that apartment building. It wasn't until she was seven that her mother had married a wealthy French Canadian business man who made Chicago his home. Henri Giroux was both Nadia and Tera's saving grace, he plucked them straight out of that neighborhood and placed Tera in a private school. With the upgrade in her environment, Tera flourished more than ever and shortly after the nupitals, she gained a new name.

Now Tera Giroux left her past behind her and settled in the lavish two story home that her new father provided. Behind closed doors, Nadia battled depression and alcoholism, Tera knew that her mother had drank, but never really understood the extent of it, and as far as she knew, her family was just like every classmate of hers: picture perfect. Until months before her thirteenth birthday; Tera had been at her riding lesson, only to be picked up by her father's driver and taken to his office. Nadia took her own life just minutes after Tera had left that morning. Shattered and confused by the loss of her mother, Henri was now left with a daughter he never truly felt a deep connection with.

Within weeks following Nadia's death; Tera was shipped off to boarding school in Switzerland, in the most cliche way possible. With enough money that Henri had, he bought Tera's way in and left her there. Still confused as a whole, Tera almost became withdrawn if it wasn't for her dormmate. Henri hardly called, but the money still flowed, classmates and close friends took pity, and over the course of school breaks she would travel all over Europe and essentially the world. During a short trip home during her third year at Lyceum, Tera found herself rummaging through her mother's things. The distraction of Switzerland and the life she had built at Lyceum overpowered her closure with her mother's death. Being separated from Chicago helped, but visiting the old street she grew up on and seeing boxes in storage while she looked for some of her own belongings, she found a couple of journals. Not to mention, after fifteen years, she saw her birth certificate for the first time in her life.

On the flight back to Europe, she immersed herself in her mother's words as she vividly described stories that she never told Tera, including the story of her biological father. Tera never questioned her mother while she was alive, she was too young and with Henri in the picture, it was something that was never discussed between them. In fact, before she ever read the familiar handwriting, she never even thought of the idea. Reading the journals cover to cover, she was immediately intrigued and wanted to make it her mission to eventually find him. Not for him to become the father that she's always wanted; but because she knew that he deserved to know. The next journal through her for a loop, with the nickname of "Azizam" in Farsi, Nadia documented her pregnancy and at first Tera assumed she was Azizam until she realized there were two.

The discovery hit her like a ton a bricks, but with adoption and with her being too young to understand the gist of adoption; she dismissed it in favor of trying to locating her biological father. Over the course of the remainder of being a student at Lyceum, the dreams of attending Georgetown had been axed with the dream of Boston University. However, with little to no obligation for Tera after she reached the age of eighteen and graduated from Lyceum, he knew she would be lost in the world. Little did he know, she was her own person and very intelligent at that (she just played the part during their forced weekly brief phone calls) He agreed to pay for her college tuition, but she would have to gain "real world" experience in order to learn how to provide for herself.

A lavish graduation trip was out of the question when Tera graduated from high school, her best friend's family invited her to their summer home in Ibiza and then she found herself in Boston, alone and trying to rub two pennies together. Another friend's parents were nice enough to pull some strings with a family member in Boston and allowed her to stay in their guest room until school started. Tera got a dose of the "real world" Henri described and found a job to support herself. With her dorm and tuition paid for, Tera did whatever she had to do to get money. Declaring her major in Business and never giving up on the real reason for Boston, she did locate her father.

Though in her last semester at BU, she has kept her distance, always closesly watching him and what she assumes are her half siblings from a distance. While she has the drive and the guts to so, she has yet to find the perfect time to waltz in his life and turn it upside down. Instead, she remains in the shadow focusing on her life she has built for herself, but sometimes she find herself wondering about Azizam, hoping that she had a more fulfilling life.