I met her at the train station and saw her with her new haircut. Immediately it reminded me of the first couple of days when I met her. It's too thin, she said. But I thought it looked nice regardless.

We went to the dragon boat festival. I haven't gone in 2 years. We rode the train silently. I was used to putting my arm around her or holding her hand that it seemed unnatural just sitting next to her. Like something was missing. Like Flushing without hearing airplane engines from above, or a pencil without an eraser.

I told her I was going on a mini vacation soon when we were on the shuttle.

"I'm gonna party and drink," she said.

She seemed like she totally refreshed her mind. Just based on how I saw it. Not that it was a bad thing. It wasn't a bad thing at all. I just noticed she recently changed her profile picture and started looking into makeup more often. She didn't care about applying sunblock anymore, and now she wanted to drink. Even hinting about cigarettes.

I sat there silent, staring at the front view of the bus, thinking about her. It kind of struck me that I didn't own her anymore. She had that I-can-do-what-I-want vibe now and I couldn't do anything about it. Even if I wasn't comfortable seeing her drink and party with douchebag perverts at Webster, I couldn't stop her anymore. That... That's what made it sad for me. I just wish I was there with her whatever she did.

"But I'm not really feeling it," she added.



We arrived and walked to the festival. A pack of asians everywhere having picnics and barbeques. Tents everywhere selling fried rice to corn on the cob. At a distance dragonboaters were practicing on the lake. She had a corn on the cob, and I had some dumplings. Usually it seemed like she would be the one getting dumplings, and me getting the corn, but it was the opposite. I was craving dumplings and she was craving corn at the time.


"I don't like your sunglasses," she said, changing the conversation.

I sighed. Well I liked them. And they fit me well. And they were stylish.

We listened to a band from Nigeria and watched some kung fu performers. Before I knew it the festival was ending.

She had some asap business she needed to take care of so I was left alone. I was expecting dinner but she urgently needed to handle some stuff. I sighed, bought a new pair of sneakers, and went home, thinking about the time at governor's island.