Yet part of me also thinks the whole idea makes perfect sense. The three of us, leaving our differences behind, stepping on the plane together, sitting side by side, lifting off, moving West to reach the East.

It was a distorted form of inverse logic: If hopes never come true, then hope for what you don't want.

But she never looked back with regret. There were so many ways for things to get better. -Jing-mei

That is the nature of endings, it seems. They never end. When all the missing pieces of your life are found, put together with glue of memory and reason, there are more pieces to be found.

After all, Bao Bomu says, what is the past but what we choose to remember?

Can you imagine how it is, to want to be neither inside nor outside, to want to be nowhere and disappear?

Among writers, if you don't have a therapist, it's like saying you don't keep a journal or use the thesaurus. It's a natural accompaniment.