It was that promise that made me fall for him in the first place.
We were both Chinese-American, but our hearts had always belonged to the East.
I thought we shared the same dream.
Turns out, he'd given up on it a long time ago.
The only place he wanted to be was wherever Vivian Blake was.
That night, he came home late.
I was already in bed when he stepped onto the balcony to make a call.
"Vivian, don't cry."
"Mm, the paperwork's all been submitted..."
"Don't worry, I'll be there..."
He soothed her for a long time, his voice carrying a tenderness I had never once heard directed at me.
In the middle of the night, he rolled over and mumbled something in his sleep.
"Vivian... I miss you..."
I smiled bitterly in the dark.
I used to be a heavy sleeper.
Apparently, I'd missed quite a few confessions.
The next morning, Robert left early.
"Don't forget to go submit the paperwork."
His eyes flickered with something like panic, but he didn't linger for even a second.
On the desk sat a stack of immigration documents.
His were already gone. Only mine remained.
I gathered the papers, filled in the gaps, and went to the embassy.
The consular officer was an elderly Chinese-American woman in reading glasses. She looked to be in her sixties.
She reviewed my documents, then looked up at me over the rims of her glasses.
"You're going back?"
"Yes."
"You're a scientist?"
"Yes."
She was quiet for a moment. Her eyes reddened.
"I've sat at this window for thirty years. I've watched countless people walk out of here, heading to Canada, to Europe."
Her voice trembled.
"But someone like you, going from America back to China? That's rare."
She stamped my papers without hesitation.
"Welcome home."
My nose stung.
When I was little, my grandfather used to tell me something.
"No matter how far you go, never forget the road home."
He'd been gone for over a decade now.
His grave was back in China, in a small county town in the south.
I hadn't visited him in ten years.
This year, I was going back.
With my dream, with my research, I was going home to see him.
That evening, Robert came through the door carrying a bag.
"Virginia, I brought you something."
It was a small figurine of Cambridge, the university crest engraved into the base.
"See? You've always had a connection to Valkenheim. You even got accepted into the Cambridge exchange program back then. Too bad you never went."
My fingers slowly curled into a fist.
Five years ago, I'd earned a spot in Cambridge's exchange program. Two full years.
It was the opportunity I'd dreamed of my entire academic life.
Cambridge's aerospace engineering program ranked in the top three worldwide.
My advisor had told me himself.
"This kind of opportunity doesn't come around twice. Once you're there, your entire academic perspective will change."
I was ecstatic. I started packing immediately.
Then, one month before my departure, Robert was diagnosed with acute appendicitis.
The surgery was minor. Three days in the hospital, a month of recovery, and he'd be fine.
But he grabbed my hand.
"Don't go. Stay with me."
I hesitated.
"But this opportunity is so rare..."
"There'll be other opportunities."
He cut me off, a note of impatience creeping into his voice.
"I'm sick. Shouldn't you be here taking care of me?"
In the end, I stayed.
And that once-in-a-lifetime spot went to Vivian Blake.
Looking back now, there was nothing coincidental about it.
Vivian wanted that spot, so he engineered it for her.
Vivian wanted him in Valkenheim, so he abandoned everything he once believed in.
