Both of us arrived late to the hotel that night and barely spoke before falling asleep. The next day I checked out and waited for the valet to bring my car to the front. When I got in the driver’s seat I pulled out the map one more time, unfolding it in front of the steering wheel.

“FDR should be the easiest way right?” I asked.

“That’s what Michelle said.”

I frowned. “Michelle?”

“She asked about you, you know,” said Fiona, her voice sounding ever so slightly controlled. “She mentioned how polite you are. And something about how you are handsome in a very traditional way.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Fiona raised an eyebrow. “It means she thinks you’re a nice guy and you’re cute, and I’m lucky to have you.”

“Uh huh,” I said incredulously. “So that all you talked about? Me being handsome and polite?”

Fiona pulled down the mirror and started to fix her makeup instead of answering my question.

“Well?” I repeated.

She finished applying her lipstick and then lowered it gently toward her purse. “I…I told her about shu shu.”

“Oh,” I said. I wasn’t expecting that, and didn’t know what else to say.

“She insisted we go to the temple and burn a joss stick for him.”

“That’s nice,” I managed.

Fiona then suddenly started to shed a few tears, which combined with her newly applied mascara to roll down her cheeks in dark streams. “It was really too horrible, what happened to Mr. Chang.”

“Yeah.” I pushed away the mix of thoughts that came to my head and put the car in gear. “Don’t mind if we head up?”

Fiona shook her head.

So I made my way to FDR drive and headed toward the George Washington Bridge. Fiona wiped her cheek a few more times and then held her gaze toward the window as we crossed. I was expecting her to fall asleep ten or fifteen minutes in, but instead she just kept staring outside.

Halfway through the trip I tried the question we both knew I was going to ask. “So how do you feel now?”

“About what?”

I pulled over and stopped the car. “I’m not going to take any of this playing dumb bullshit. You know about what.”

She looked at me. “What do you want me to say?”

“We’ve done our little jig around what’s going on for a while. Now things are in the open.”

“So?”

“Are you with me or not?”

“What do you think?”

“Just answer the question.”

“Yes,” she replied firmly.

I reached over to touch her arm, only for her to shrug off my hand as my fingertips grazed her skin.

“Give me a bit of space,” she whispered as she turned back toward the window.

I placed my hands on the wheel and gripped it until my knuckles turned white. I was tempted to turn the car around and drive back home, but knowing that we might be apart for a long time made me pause for those few critical seconds. Eventually my grip on the wheel loosened. I put the car in first gear and continue down the PIP.

Half an hour later we arrived at the parking lot, and since it was a weekday there were not many other cars in the area. I managed to get out of the driver’s seat and walk over to Fiona’s side, opening the door. Though she took a moment before coming out, she eventually did, and stood next to me in silence. She was not actively avoiding my eyes, but it did not seem like she was in a mood to talk either. I crossed my arms and looked over at the trees. “Would’ve been nicer to come in October.”

“I like green,” said Fiona. “Better to see things alive than when they are dying.”

“That’s one way to look at it.”

“How is Auntie?” she asked.

“I sent her on a cruise from Florida. She’s probably sipping pina coladas on a beach somewhere in the Carribean.”

Fiona grinned. “Deft move.”

“I’m not avoiding a fight,” I insisted. “I just wanted to tell her about this trip after she comes back. Then we’ll both be in a good mood.”

“Is Auntie swayed by those things?”

I wrapped my arm around her waist and pulled her toward me. This time she didn’t resist. She felt relaxed in my arms, but there was still a bit of distance there, despite the fact that her jacket was against my shirt. “I am going to be with whoever I want. And I’ll talk to anyone who has a problem with that.”

Fiona lifted her hand up to my arm and rested her fingers on it. “But you’re going to say something I don’t like. I can feel it.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Things have been getting better between us recently but it’s not like I forgot what it used to be like,” she said. “You’re holding something back because there’s something you want or you need to say something. And it’s not sex, or I would’ve known that by now.”

Though I knew she meant that last bit as a joke, I couldn’t laugh. Fiona continued to wait, brushing her fingers a few times on my arm.

“I’ve decided to go complete my military service.”

She turned around and looked me up and down. “If this is some attempt to get me to reconsider UMD— ”

“I wasn’t going to college and you know it. Even less so now. There was no conscription deferral in the cards for me. And you know I was always going to go back for it.”

“You’ll be back in two years?”

I frowned. “Yes,” I replied, even though I didn’t actually know the answer to that.

“I’m still staying in Maryland. I’ll just be here when you’re back,” she said matter-of- factedly.

“I don’t like Maryland, and neither does my mom. You know that.” The latter at least, was true, though I wasn’t sure about the former. “Even if we come back she’s going to want to move to New York or LA. If you go to Harvard you can get a job at a big firm, and we’ll be near each other again.”

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Well…”

I pulled out the envelope that Tao Da Ge had given me.

Fiona’s eyes widened. “I can’t—”

“Now’s not the time to be naive,” I interrupted. “You said you are with me now, and I know when you say you are, you are. Scholarship or not, Boston’s going to be quite a bit more expensive. Think of it like I’m taking care of you until I get back.”

Fiona was not the type of person to tell me she didn’t need me to take care of her. It’s because she knew, I knew, and everyone knew that no one needed to do that for her. But needing and wanting were not the same thing. One thing for certain, though, was that she didn’t want anyone to see her do something like place money in a jacket. I took the envelope from her hands and placed it in her purse. She stood there in silence. I held her tighter.

“We going to walk?” I asked, nodding toward the trail.

“Can we just walk around the lake?”

“Fine,” I replied.

So we headed down the path and walked around the lake. I noticed that we had passed the parking lot multiple times, but did not know ultimately how many circles it was.

“What branch of the army?” she asked.

“Don’t think they’ll give me a choice. But if I could choose I’d go with the Marines.”

“Doesn’t that take three years? Why not the Army?”

“It’d be an honor to be in the Marines. Plus, I’ll probably come back more fit.”

“But you’d be gone longer.”

In my defense, I only heard about the years of service differing by branch in passing. I had never looked into too much detail about conscription in general. It was true, as Fiona suspected, that my decision to report for duty was made the moment I found out about Harvard. Though I was a terrible planner, few people would claim I didn’t follow through on my decisions.

“I’ll confirm that,” I said.

“You promised two years.”

“I said two years, I didn’t promise two years.”

Fiona started to pull her hand away, but I grabbed it firmly. “I can’t choose which branch anyway. That much my dad did tell me.”

Fiona pulled harder until I released her hand. “I need a promise.” She started reaching into her purse.

“I promise.”

She smiled, and hooked her thumb into her purse strap, adjusting it. “Thank you. I will hold you to it. And you’d better come to New York after.”

“You can find a job sophomore year?”

“I’m taking everything you say as a promise. You believe in yuan fen?”

“Fate? Yeah.”

“Well I do not,” said Fiona with a serious expression. “We create our own fate. We will be meeting Christmas of ‘87.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Fiona wrapped her arms around my neck and gave me a kiss on my cheek. We went up a secluded road, pulled off to the side of the road, and made love in the car even rougher than we did in the hotel. Whatever sounds Fiona was too shy to make in the hotel came out on that forest road. In the heat of the moment I finished inside her. As she laid on top of me in the car after, though, I felt a sudden wave of doubt.

“You’re still taking your pills on the regular right?” I asked. Of course in those days I was young and stupid, and since I didn’t like condoms I got my father’s doctor to write Fiona a prescription for birth control pills. From then after that arrangement was just pure bliss. Maybe my mother or Fiona’s father would find out, maybe they wouldn’t. I wasn’t the type of eighteen year old boy to care.

Fiona crossed her legs. “You know I do.”

“Good. You can’t afford any interruptions while you’re at Harvard.”

Fiona slid her nails against the seat idly. “I know that.”

I took her fingers in my hands and brushed my thumb against her nails. “You need those done in New York before we head back?” I asked.

Fiona turned her head toward me and nodded. “We have time?”

“The ones in Maryland are shit. Let’s find a pay phone and book an appointment.”

Thankfully the yellow pages under the phone in the parking lot had the contact of a nail salon I knew about in Manhattan. I booked her appointment and then we drove back into the city. The nail appointment went well. Fiona was chatting with the lady while I drank my tea and read a National Geographic magazine. The cover was about Vietnam. I knew that my father had helped evacuate military personnel during the war, but I still wanted to avoid thinking about him if I could. I flipped quickly to the nature articles, and stopped on a picture from Sun River Montana. Something about the snow capped mountains and the herd of animals made me linger on that page. I was not a nature person, so the fact that I was captivated by the image was as surprising to me as the image itself. I never thought about the fact that I had never been out west, or at least not anywhere west outside of California. There was still so much of the country I had never seen, and for some strange reason, the picture made me slightly regret my decision to leave. I was definitely going to take her out there one day.

“Ever been to Montana?” I asked Fiona in the car when we started back for Maryland.

“My dad brought us to Yellowstone when I was in elementary school. Though I think that’s in Wyoming.”

I shrugged. “Beats me. Have you ever heard of Sun River?

Fiona shook her head.

“Let’s go then.”

“Before Taiwan or after?”

“Let’s shoot for before,” I said.

Fiona kissed me on the cheek and hugged my arm. I smiled, and gave her a quick kiss back before turning back to the road.