A Quitter's Paradise by Elysha Chang

Author:Elysha Chang
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Zando

18

Samir and I spend a few chagrined hours looking for Sig. We search under cars, shine a flashlight’s wavering beam into the airy crown of every sycamore tree in a five-block radius of my house. We call his name. Then I call the names of some of the marmoset researchers in case they’re familiar to him and might evoke some fond memories or special attachments.

“Tingwei, Dayo!” I shout.

“Do you know what kind of research they’re doing with him?”

I don’t.

“Those might be people he’d avoid,” Samir says.

We continue our sweep of the neighborhood, but Sig never appears. All we see are a stray cat and two squirrels chattering as they high-wire a wood-post fence.

At around midnight, we return to my house. I wash my hands of the marshmallow sugar that has melted in my damp palms and then offer Samir a beer in the hopes that he might stay over. I add that Ellis is in San Diego until the end of the week.

Samir stands by the door with his sneakers on. I try to read his face, but it’s impossible.

“I’m going to pretend I was never here,” he says after a while. “I never saw any of this. I don’t know anything.”

Still, he stands at the threshold of the door, not moving. I pour the beer into a glass anyway. Isn’t this our little ritual? This ebb and flow, will we or won’t we, should we or shouldn’t we? I regret my outburst earlier. My display of needing clarity from him. Clarity has never been the point. Clarity will result in our decisive separation. Uncertainty is our lifeblood.

Samir stares at the glass. I can tell that he’s weighing things now, evaluating. His hair is greasy, blade-like. He’s quiet for a moment. His eyes are sunken but calculating.

“I’m sorry I got you involved,” I say finally. “I’ll figure it out myself.” I put my palms up in a little faux surrender.

“Right,” Samir says.

Casually, I open the fridge, survey its contents, and close it again. I repeat that he can stay a little longer if he’d like, but he declines.

“Back to Sora’s house,” I say. Samir makes no movement. He mentions Sora so rarely that I used to sometimes think, with hope, that he had broken up with her and not told me. That he was making grand, if hidden, plans for us to be together.

Samir opens the door, which gets caught on the area rug, and fits himself through the small gap it allows. A huge, orange moon hovers just above the shrub line that banks Harris’s yard. Pale ears of fungus sprouting from a pile of logs cast mini black shadows on the grass. I am possessed by an impulse to grab Samir, not to let him go.

Instead, I ask him not to tell anyone about what’s happened. “I’ll sort it all out. I’ll find Sig. I’m sorry I even bothered you about it.”

He says not to worry and that he’ll see me tomorrow.

After I’m sure he’s gone, I go outside and pour the remaining raisins in a snaking trail down the driveway.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.