“So have I.” He closed the space between us. “I missed you.”
I sidestepped him and reached for a loquat. “You never came to the house.”
“I did.” His eyes were dark, his jaw tense. “I was told you didn’t want to see me.”
The loquat snapped off and fell into my hands. I shut my fist, nearly crushing it. “You believed that?”
“No, I assumed your family was too ashamed to have company. That’s why I wrote you letters—”
My ear started to thud. “Letters?”
“Every month. I asked you to meet me here. You never replied.”
Because I never got them.I rocked back on my heels, certain I had Sai Ma to thank for that.
“It doesn’t matter, I’m glad we found each other again.”
He leaned to touch my cheek, but I twisted away. “Shouldn’t you be with Priscilla-Mae?”
“Silly girl. I only take her out to make my parents happy. You makemehappy.”
“So you’ll take her out again.”
“No. I’m selfish.” He held me by the shoulders. “You remember your promise all those years ago, to share the first fruit with me?”
I reached into my pocket for the loquat he’d given me. It’d shriveled into a dry and pimply thing, but I still liked holding its weight on my palm. “I remember.”
Tommy plucked the plumpest, most orange fruit on the tree. He peeled the skin, letting me have the first taste. It was the sweetest loquat I’d ever eaten. I offered the rest to him, but instead of taking it, he kissed me.
It was a real kiss. Not a peck on the cheek or a clumsy fumble of mouth to mouth like the ones the bolder boys in Tunglam would try on me when we were children. It was a kiss that unlocked a heat inside me that I’d never known. The loquat fell from my hand with a soft thump, and I closed my eyes.
“Again,” I whispered.
The rest of spring, we met every chance we could. As soon as my chores were finished, I sneaked out of the house and Tommy picked me up in his car. We’d drive to the loquat tree and lie on the grass, kissing until we ran out of breath. My favorite waswhen it rained, for we didn’t leave the car and simply parked by the roadside, exploring each other.
“Do you like this?” Tommy would ask when he touched his tongue to mine.
I’d hum a yes.
“What about this?” he asked, nibbling on my ear.
I liked that too.
Then Tommy’s kisses began roaming down to my neck and to my throat, and lower. I found I liked that, too. His touch would light a fire in my blood, and I couldn’t breathe. Yet instead of going invisible I cried out, feeling like I’d become light itself, so bright and dazzling and free.
When the weather was nice, he took me to Kowloon since it was far enough that neither of our families would see us. We held hands and window-shopped and fed each other egg tarts like other amorous young couples, and Tommy would grin whenever someone pointed and said I looked like the girl on the Peaksoy bottle.
In this way spring became summer, one blissful day after the next. But for all my happiness, I knew the end was coming.
It was a cloudy August day, and we were sailing on a sampan to escape the heat. I’d always wanted to take one, and Tommy paid the fisherman extra so we could operate it ourselves. We drifted along Aberdeen Harbour, keeping to the shoreline, and picnicked on noodles, dried squid, and sugarcane, snacks we’d picked up from the green hawker huts along the wharves. I could tell something was on Tommy’s mind. He’d been quiet all day. Finally, as it started to rain, he broke the news:
“I’m leaving Hong Kong,” he said. “I’ve been accepted into university in London.”
There came a hitch in my throat. “Congratulations.”
Tommy drew me under the sampan’s pitched roof. The space was clean but cramped, the smell of fish concealed by a pot ofburning incense. He slipped his hand around my waist. “Come with me.”
The muscles in my back went stiff. For months we’d been seeing each other secretly, stealing kisses and pretending to be a couple, but not once had Tommy mentioned a future together.
