Visits

I hand my boarding pass to the attendant, take my ticket stub, and go to stand in my place in line. It's not a long line, for I always wait until the last possible moment to board a plane regardless of what time I arrive at the gate. Even after all these years, despite my having done pretty okay for myself with finances, I still fly economy class. It reminds me of my days as a college student.

It's only a one-hour flight from Brussels to Stuttgart, but as always, if the destination was Stuttgart, then it would be a long flight no matter where I departed. I come back to Europe every two years or so to make my round of visits to old friends. And someone who has always been something more than a friend.

I keep thinking about dinner last night at Le Chef Leon in downtown Brussels with a friend I had met in Shanghai many years ago when we were both international students there. We had mussels and white wine. It was probably Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc. I'm not sure. I prefer reds. As always when in Brussels, he picked up the bill. In LA, I treat.

"Your next stop is Stuttgart, right?" he asked. He stabbed a piece of mussel with his fork and slipped it into his mouth.

"Right," I answered after taking a sip of wine.

"How long has it been since you last saw her?"

"About two years."

"I don't understand why the two of you are still in limbo about all this."

We had all met in Shanghai, a diverse mix of friends: one from Brazil, one from Belgium, three from France, one from Germany, one from Japan. I was the only American. From the start, all our friends said we would make a good couple. The two of us only half-listened.

"I have my reasons," I responded. As I thought of them, however, they sounded like excuses. "Her life is in Europe, in Germany. Mine is in America."

"Have you ever thought of moving to Germany, get a job there? You travel so much anyway."

I smiled with a high degree of self-satisfaction as I sloshed the wine inside my mouth. "You say that to me every time."

He shrugged, a smug look on his face. "It's worth a try. Now it's time for me to ask why she hasn't considered moving to America to be with you."

"She would at least get better weather in California," I joked. Well, not really. Then in a more serious voice: "I wouldn't be the same person if I moved here, and she wouldn't be the same person if she moved there. Part of the reason we still feel the way we do is our unwillingness to give up ourselves for one another. In our case, distance-and time-do make the heart grow fonder."

In midsummer, it doesn't get dark in most of Europe until 9 or 10 pm. The rays of the sun were already dying. We were having a late dinner.

"You know," he said, his voice hesitant, "that all sounds like a load of bullshit to me."

I laughed out loud, throwing my head back, completely oblivious to everyone around us staring.

When he started feeling embarrassed, he told me to stop. I complied.

Dramatically wiping a tear from the edge of my left eye, I said in an incongruously formal tone: "Yes, that is all bullshit."

"So why haven't the two of you given it a shot?"

"Because we don't have the courage to fail."

"And..."

"You say it."

"And the two of you have tried to catch each other between relationships."

I nodded, the glass of wine in my hand, content that at least one of our friends understood us.

After dinner, he walked with me back to my hotel. We embraced like men and bid our farewells.

Now, I'm onboard the plane, stowing away my carry-on into the overhead compartment. I sit down in a middle seat, a conventional source of complaint for most travelers, but there's a beautiful woman in the window seat, staring out the window, most likely thinking of someone, just as I am.

* * *

Years ago, I sat in a small class at East China Normal University (ECNU) in Shanghai. I was a different person then, much younger, more naïve. It was during the early years of my college career. I was studying a summer abroad.

Ten minutes after the professor started lecturing, in rushed a slender girl with small eyes, long hair, and tanned skin. She gave her apologies and sat down with minimal commotion.

That was the first time I had ever met her. And I didn't pay her a second thought.

I was part of a group of seven Americans who had come to Shanghai from the same university system. All foreign students at East China Normal University live in the same dormitory complex. At least that's how it was back then. I'm not so sure now. In any case, our dorms were much nicer than the closets domestic students had to deal with. Circumstances have improved for domestic students in Asia but not by much.

Living in the same building, she and I saw each other on a regular basis outside of class. We would exchange polite greetings.

I remember making a conscious effort to spend more time with the other foreign students than with my fellow Americans. After all, we were there for cultural exchange, not cultural imperialism. Still, I got much closer to the other foreign students than I had expected.

Of course, that didn't happen until after the scheduled trip to Beijing that was planned for us American students by our program coordinators. Originally, we were supposed to have two excursions, one to Suzhou and one to Nanjing, both of which are wonderful places to visit, but since it was our first time in China, it would be a shame not to see the Great Wall and the Forbidden City.

Because my Mandarin was the most advanced in the group, I was the one who spoke with our local guide about canceling the itineraries to Suzhou and Nanjing and replacing them with Beijing. It was also the reason I was put in a separate class from the other Americans. It was the best thing that could've happened to me in Shanghai.

After the trip to Beijing, our relationship, whatever it was, really started. And quite unexpectedly too.

The Yu Garden is one of the most popular tourist spots in Shanghai. Massive and beautiful, it was built in the Ming Dynasty by a court official who dedicated it to his parents.

My American friends and I planned a day trip there. I invited her merely because she had expressed in class how bored she was in Shanghai and that she did nothing except eat, sleep, watch TV, and do homework. It was quite random when I called her. She was also four years than I was, and considering how young I was then, she was very young. I wanted to show her around a little, since I had arrived in Shanghai before she had.

That day at the Yu Garden was the most fun I had had since my arrival in Shanghai. And it was all because of her. Well, perhaps not all because of her. I encouraged everyone to mingle, but my American friends kept referring to her as "your friend" when they talked to me, so the two of us basically spent a few hours of exclusive time together. They were a few wonderful hours.

She didn't have a digital camera, so she played around with mine. We took random pictures of the garden, some with neither of us, some with just me, some with just her, some with both of us. I made fun of the pictures she took; she made fun of the pictures I took. We fought over the camera like small children. She demanded that I delete some of the pictures I had taken of her without her noticing.

I can't imagine having so much fun with a simple digital camera anymore.

We went shopping afterwards. Shanghai is the commercial capital of China, and with the Yu Garden being one of Shanghai's most frequented tourist destinations, there were loads of vendors outside the Garden.

She and I bought a tea set as a gift for a classmate's farewell party. It wasn't a farewell party for just that one classmate; that one classmate was throwing a house party because we were all leaving Shanghai soon and going back to our respective countries.

I was young then, but even then I knew the implications of purchasing a gift together with a girl.

My stomach was hurting because I had eaten too much during lunch (she gloated and reminded me she had advised me not to eat so much). She and I shared a cab home while the others continued shopping. She fell asleep on my shoulder on the way home.

That night, she made me dinner. It was just instant noodles, but that was the first time any girl or woman who wasn't my mother, sister, or aunt had made dinner specifically for me. After dinner, the two of us and a few of her friends watched the Japanese version of "The Grudge," which is much scarier than the American version, on my laptop.

I was the only guy present, and she held my arm with both hands at the scary scenes (like the part when you see one of the characters is missing a chin). Her friends, as frightened as they also were, didn't get closer to me, as if they already knew or assumed I belonged to her.

At the farewell party, we were playing a version of Truth or Dare. She chose Truth, and I found out she had a boyfriend back in Germany.

I remember feeling disappointed but not particularly angry. I would find out later that this so-called boyfriend didn't seem like much of a boyfriend when around her and that they broke up soon after her return to Germany.

On the night before she was to board a plane back to Stuttgart, we took a walk along the Liwa River that cuts the ECNU campus in half. "Liwa" translates to "Beautiful Frog."

Within universities in Shanghai, there's a saying: "Live at Fudan; Play at Tongji; and Love at ECNU." (I hope I still got that right.) Every night, there were couples sitting on the riverbank. The Bund, even as romantic as it was with its spectacular skyline, would've made me less uncomfortable.

"I won't forget you. You know that?" she said as we were walking.

"I know."

* * *

The pretty flight attendant hands me a packet of peanuts and a plastic cup of tomato juice without ice. As I sip my juice, I look past the passenger sitting next to me and through the window at the blue morning sky, filled with fluffy white clouds and sunlight shining from the distance.

After Shanghai, I went to Latinamerica to volunteer for a few weeks. I celebrated my birthday while abroad. Upon my return home, there was a phone message from her wishing me happy birthday. My parents had saved that message weeks ago. It was my first time receiving an international phone call, and it was from a girl wishing me happy birthday. I never heard the end of it from my parents.

Over the years, I have visited her several times. The first time I visited her, we hadn't seen each other for two years, but we missed each other, and we both knew it. Even as I was involved with other women-strange how they were girls then, yet I refer to them as woman now-I never stopped thinking about her.

I knew it was the same for her. But I didn't find out I knew until that first visit, two years after Shanghai.

* * *

I was nervous, sitting on the plane, looking out through the window. We had corresponded over the past two years via e-mail, Skype, and postcards whenever we traveled to foreign places, but this was completely different.

I had read words written by her, seen pictures taken by her and of her, heard her voice, and even chatted with her over a webcam. But this was completely different. I would finally her in person again.

After getting off the plane, as calmly as I could, with my carry-on in hand, I walked to the arrivals terminal. It was a summer afternoon on a weekday. There wasn't much traffic in the hallways. My hands were sweaty, and I took a deep breath every few steps.

She saw me before I saw her.

I heard her before I saw her.

Frantically knocking against the glass wall that separated us, she caught my attention and pointed to her right, where I needed to go to enter the main floor to see her. I smiled. I was heading that direction anyway.

I stepped onto the main floor and said her name.

She opened her arms with the most content smile I had ever seen. Unable to speak for a moment, she only made a soft noise. As if she was confused why she wanted to cry when she was so happy.

Dropping my carry-on without a second thought, I walked forward and enveloped her in my arms. I had never experienced an embrace like that before. She didn't want to let go.

Neither did I.

"I missed you," she whispered so softly I could barely hear her. My ears barely heard the words, but my soul felt every syllable.

"I missed you too." I pressed my lips against her hair as I drew her tighter in with my arms.

We looked like long-lost lovers who finally had a chance to reunite. And at an airport no less. It felt like a movie. And in that instant, I knew where writers must get their inspiration.

She and I finally let go and giggled like children.

"I waited for a long time," she said, almost looking a little embarrassed.

"How long?"

"45 minutes."

"That's not too long."

"It felt like an eternity."

As we walked to the subway, she asked me, "Have I changed?"

"No."

That night, we were to have dinner at one of her friends' place who was moving out of Stuttgart soon. We went to a nearby shopping mall, and I bought her a bouquet of flowers, but when we got to that friend's apartment, the friend's mom thought the flowers were for the dinner and put them in a vase. I told her I'd buy her another when she whispered in surprise to me.

On the subway ride back to her house, she told me about everything that had gone on in her life the past year. Studies were difficult. She had to prepare for upcoming piano competitions. And her mom didn't like the boyfriend she was with right now.

Just as I had felt two years ago, I was disappointed but not particularly angry.

The next morning, I took the train alone to downtown and bought her what I had said I would buy her. I didn't speak German, but I did have plenty of Euros on me. I muttered a "danke" and left the store.

When I got back, she was worried where I had been. I had gotten used to traveling since Shanghai. I didn't know why she thought I couldn't handle myself in a foreign city.

That night, I met her boyfriend.

That was the closest I ever got to being angry with her.

The boy treated her well. They looked good together. I even enjoyed his company and had a fine time talking to him and getting to know him better. I liked the boy. That fact made him infinitely more difficult to bear. I looked away every time they kissed.

I had a fun time hanging out at the bar and playing pool with her, her boyfriend, and some of their German friends. They were all younger than I was. In America, it would be illegal to see such a young crowd at a bar, but Europe was a different story.

Although I thoroughly sucked at pool, my uninhibited mannerisms were the entertainment highlight of the night. I didn't know until she told me later.

The next few nights, we had dinner at her house. Her mom cooked. During the day, we visited a centuries-old German castle and the zoo that Stuttgart is famous for.

We spent as much as time as we could during my few short days in Stuttgart. We didn't talk about us, though.

Until the night before my flight back.

We had talked about the past and the future, reminiscing about times in Shanghai and with everyone we knew together, looking forward to her entering university and my graduating university. We had yet to talk about the present.

Even that night, we didn't speak much about the present.

She was resting her head on my lap as I smoothed her hair with one hand and held hers with the other. We were in her room, where I had slept for the past few nights while she slept in her mom's study.

Raising her head to look at me, she said, "You know, we're never going to have this time again. So I'm enjoying it now."

"I know."

The next morning, we took the bus to the airport. During the ride, she made me promise we would meet again at the Beijing Olympics.

At the airport, we waited outside of the security checkpoint as long as we could. I think I went through 30 minutes before my flight was to depart.

We embraced, and it felt as if the world was at once beginning and ending. She whispered in my ear, "Take care." And those two words ripped me apart inside.

Our bodies separated, our arms unwound from each other, but our hands were still intertwined. Her grip was tight. As was mine. I took one step closer to the security checkpoint, and my arm extended, my hand exactly where it had been. She was still standing exactly where she had been, her arm also extended. We looked into each other's eyes, and I couldn't move my feet.

"When you let go, don't look back," she said. "Because I won't."

We let go.

I passed through the security checkpoint.

When she was out of sight in my peripheral vision, I broke and let the tears flow. There had been no warning. I hadn't been holding anything in. I hadn't felt the tears coming in my chest, throat, or eyes. They hit me like a sonic boom.

She later told me she had done the same.

* * *

The plane has just landed.

And again, I am nervous.

I get up, grab my carry-on, and head toward the arrivals terminal.

This time, I see her first.