Or he'd sneeze, stretch, and wipe his nose with my shirt sleeve. Mike just stood to the side while whatever white girl talked her way into my space, then he'd reach up over my shoulder to slip a finger into my beer. We haven't been to a party in months, and when we did go to parties, at first, no one knew we were fucking.

Our relationship is, what, four years old? But that depends on how you count. I'm already reaching to toss my charger before he says it, tomorrow. I ask him when he's leaving, and I know that's my mistake. After the black eye, we stopped putting our hands on each other - we'd both figured, silently, it was the least we could do. I don't key his car or ram it straight through the living room.

But if you get a running start, it's never entirely gone. Some of the kids I work with, that's how their families make it into this country. The thing about a moving train is that, sometimes, you can catch it. I don't ask where his mother will sleep here, in our one bedroom apartment, or exactly what that arrangement will look like. Mike used to have this thing about sriracha, he'd pull a hernia whenever I reached for it, but now he squeezes a faded bottle over my omelette, rubbing it in with the spatula. After they've settled, he salts them, drizzling mayonnaise with a few sprigs of oregano. He's cracking eggs by the stove, slipping yolks into a pair of pans. But I already bought the ticket.Īnd Ma will be here when I'm back, says Mike. I say, You don't even fucking like your dad. You haven't seen your mom in years, I say. And I'm on the sofa, half-listening, half charging my phone. Now, he's saying that he wants to find his father. It's something I'd always taken for granted about him. But Mike's always been good about finances, always cool about separating his checks.

Then, it occurs to me that we don't have any savings at all. The second's that we don't have the money for this. Mike's taking off for Osaka, but his mother's flying into Houston.

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