Page 28 of Taipei Story

I remained there for several hours. I kept touching the screen of my phone, hoping for any communication from JC or Anna, but there was nothing. It occurred to me that I should eat something, or drink some water, but the effort required to do these things seemed insurmountable. I made some desultory attempts to return to my textbooks, but it was hopeless. I couldn’t focus through this fog. I felt I was waiting for something bad to happen, and until it did, I could not continue with my life.

I’d given up on the day and gone to bed early by the time Anna came home.

I rolled over and sat up. “Hey.”

“Oh, hey.” She didn’t turn the light on. “Sorry I woke you up.”

“It’s okay, I wasn’t really asleep.”

“Did you have a nice time in Beitou?”

“Yeah, it was all right. I’m sorry you couldn’t make it.”

“Yeah, well.” Anna set her bag down and started taking things out of it, one by one. Water bottle, then textbooks, then umbrella. “I wouldn’t have made it until late in the day, and then it wouldn’t have been worth it.”

“No, you should have come. I wish you were there. It was—I don’t know. The vibe was kind of off with JC.”

“Was it,” said Anna.

I thought about how much to tell her. Maybe later. She looked tired. I needed to frame things so that she wouldn’t think that I had wanted to sleep with JC behind her back, or that she had been deliberately excluded because we didn’t want a third wheel. The problem was that all these things were true, at least partially, and I had to figure out what I thought about it all before I broached the subject with her. “I get the sense it was kind of off season. So a lot of the good stuff was closed.”

“I see,” said Anna. “Then I guess I didn’t miss anything.”

“No, you really didn’t.”

We were both speaking in a bizarre, gentle tone, like we were tending to babies. We had to maintain the veneer of the dark, the friendly quiet. I couldn’t stand it.

“Do you want to go ride the Maokong Gondola tomorrow?” I asked. “It looks like it’s only raining in the morning, so we could go after lunch. And then maybe we can check out the zoo, if it’s not too hot?”

Anna was silent for a moment. “I’m really behind on my homework, to be honest.”

“Oh, okay.”

“But maybe we can do that on a different weekend.”

“Yeah, whatever you like.”

I pulled the covers up over my shoulders. Anna sat awhile in the dark, clicking through her phone. Then she stepped into the bathroom and closed the door.

ANNA LEFT EARLY THE NEXT MORNING.

“Impromptu trip,” she told me as she zipped up her bag. I didn’t fully understand what was going on. I was half asleep, and somehow she was already showered and fully dressed. I gathered she was going on a hike with Skipper and Belinda. I didn’t ask whether I could go, or why she hadn’t told me sooner. It was clearly punishment for leaving her behind for Beitou.

I couldn’t sleep after that. I lay in bed, scrolling mindlessly through my phone. Anna and I had spent the spring semester reading through Taiwan travel blogs, making a shared bucket list for our weekends.

Underground jazz club

Hualien day trip

Kaohsiung/Tainan?

Maokong Gondola—zoo after—PANDAS!!!

We’d been so excited about those pandas. We hadn’t shut up about them all semester. It was as if the pandas were some religious icon, and once we glimpsed the pandas, then our pilgrimage would be complete.

I’m sorry about yesterday, I texted Anna. Beitou really was a bummer. I hope you’re having a nice time.

She didn’t respond.