This Time It's Real

by Ann Liang

It’s not as if I don’t believe in love itself, because I’ve witnessed it. My parents first met in high school, when Ma was class captain and Ba was the quiet, mysterious kid who always came to school in wrinkled shirts and turned in his homework two days late. After they were assigned to the same desk, they started passing handwritten notes and doodles to each under the table. Notes turned into lunches together, which turned into proper dates, which eventually then escalated into a serious, long-term relationship. They ended up going to different universities on opposite ends of the country to study very different things, but they handled the distance just fine. And now, decades later, at the age where most marriages tend to stagnate and turn sour, they still love each other that much. They don’t always remember their anniversary or go out to fancy restaurants for dates, but Ma once spent four hours lining up in the rain just to buy Ba’s favorite brand of roasted chestnuts, and Ba has been to every single one of Ma’s work events and cocktail parties, even though he hates those kinds of social functions. I guess my point is that I do believe in love. Really. I’m just not convinced that kind of love could ever happen to me.