Sushmita and her quarterback boyfriend Ravi, Jamie and three other floormates of ours to go clubbing with me.

Because neither Sushmita nor Ravi knew the eighth-floor residents, I thought it was going to be an awkward dynamic but it wasn't. Sush and I were very comfortable with each other, and Riley remembered her from a WISA Quiz Night event she and Krista had attended at my request. Jamie and Ravi were teammates, and the latter meshed well enough with my other three floormates. So our group of eight worked out nicely for the night.

Half an hour past midnight, I tapped Jamie on the shoulder and beckoned him to lean down. I said into his ear, "Can I check my phone?"

I used Jamie as a walking purse, precisely because his jeans had abhorrently spacious pockets and women's clothing could be reliably expected to have none. Whenever I visited Topaz or any other nightclub, I tried not to bring a bag. Things could fall out if I danced or jumped around too boisterously, and it was added weight that inconvenienced me.

Jamie fished my phone out and gave it to me. "Are you stepping out?"

"Yeah, just for some fresh air. I feel icky."

"I'll come with," he said, stepping away from the group.

No.

I'd come to notice something over the month or so that the semester had been in session. Whenever I got into drunk mishaps, Jamie was the one I sought out. Subsequently, whenever that happened, he was always ready and willing to help me. I trusted him to look after me and—whether he seemed to know it or not—he never failed me.

But that meant I was dampening his nights, curbing his fun levels, if I couldn't handle the large volume of liquor I drank. Good friends didn't do that.

I held up my hand to stop him. "Not necessary. I'll be back in two minutes."

Jamie arched a sceptical eyebrow at me. "Look at you."

I dutifully did as instructed, looking down. I took in my neon crop top—courtesy of Krista—and black leather skirt. My tan legs below that, and the faded white sneakers I had dubbed my clubbing shoes.

My eyes raised to Jamie's, narrowing in confusion. "Smoking hot, what about it?"

"I meant," he blew a puff of air skyward, "you're hammered. Dressed like that. And you want to step out in the shady part of town. Alone."

"Fine, Dad. Don't get your panties in a twist. But it'll be really boring. Completely uneventful. No falling down. No vomiting. No boys, even." I promised.

As we exited, the cool air of nighttime hit my face and draped over my bare arms and legs. I saw Krista working the line by the door—entertaining those waiting for entry with photo ops and conversation so that they wouldn't leave—and gave her a wave.

"Hey, Viv!" she called back. "Do you need me to call an Uber?"

"No," I assured her confidently. A dense, unsettled feeling settled in my stomach, but I ignored it. "Jamie's got me."

Krista glanced behind me for one second, and then nodded.

I plopped onto the sidewalk with a relieved sigh. It felt so good to get off my feet after dancing for so long. The sweat on my back blissfully chilled my body. Jamie watched me as I breathed heavily, relishing the cold air in my lungs.

After two minutes of silence, he bounced a conversation starter to me. "What are you going to do after you graduate?"

Placing my hands behind me on the concrete, I leaned back to stare at the stars. I'd been to New York before, where it was too bright to see stars. I knew right away, after a decade or so of globetrotting and career-building, I wanted to settle somewhere with pellucid midnights and lots of cicadas after dark. The perfect backdrop for stargazing.

Jamie's question floated around in my head, wrapping around me and drawing an unscripted answer from my lips. I had no filter usually, but I was even more candid around Jamie. It could be a blessing to have someone to listen to my most honest thoughts, but I knew some things I said worried, aggravated or disturbed him. We were really different people.

"I'll go to med school. Not sure where at the moment. Then after med school I'll be a doctor. After that, it's a blur. Well, everything's a blur at the moment," I laughed sarcastically, "if you know what I mean."

"Yeah."

"What about you?" I turned my head to see him already looking my way. "What will you do?"

"I thought I was going to go back to California after college. But the East Coast is really cool," he murmured. "There are always jobs going in IT. Maybe New York."

"Rent's crazy high there."

"I know. But I feel something pulling me there." He shrugged. "I can't explain it. Have you ever felt that?"

I shook my head. I replied truthfully, "No. I haven't."

All my decisions were made from a place of logic. I'd always heard reference to gut feelings or instincts in books and movies, but I'd never really had a strong calling like that. The few decisions I'd made without thinking produced less than desirable results, but the ones I'd made even after thoroughly mulling it over had turned out worse.

Maybe I was at my best when I didn't think.

"Hm." He peered at me with his bright green eyes, looking very much like he had the night we met. Curious, and intent. That expression didn't appear often these days, because there weren't many things unknown between us now. "Will you be happy being a doctor?"

"I'm happy so long as I keep moving. Keep being productive. Keep finding new things to conquer. When my mind is idle, I..."

Fall back down.

The icky feeling in my stomach reared its head and sank its fangs into me.

In a split second, I lurched forward and emptied my gut onto the concrete between my feet. Jamie's hands were immediately holding my hair back, and his voice was straining to stay calm, "Whoa. Viv. Talk to me. Are you alright?"

Another wave followed, and the ground off the side of the curb was starting to look more pale than dark. Lumpy, too. I circled my index finger and thumb together without raising my head, and groaned, "Copacetic."

Darn. I broke that promise.

He waited with me for five more minutes, but nothing else came. I felt thoroughly emptied—so there wouldn't be anything to throw up anyways—and really cold. Jamie's arm wound around my shoulders and shook me gently. I hadn't realised I was dozing off until the movement snapped me back.

"Get up," he murmured softly. "Uber's here."

My eyebrows furrowed. "That was quick."

"I told Krista to call one ages ago," Jamie revealed. "I knew you were done for the night."

Ugh. Jamie had been really celibate, moderately drinking and utterly boring as of late, but at least it was an uncharacteristic development. At least he might bounce back to his usual party-loving ways.

Krista was always like that. I usually teased her about it endlessly and tried to convince her to come out with us, but she was as stubborn as I was. Plus, she'd have the odd moments like now where I did something completely humiliating, she turned out to be right, and that would cement her conviction even more.

Drinking just leads to bad choices.

I pouted at Krista as she held open the door of the Uber for me. I was annoyed at her, but she was also my best friend. She was looking out for me. And she was warm and smelled really good when I hugged her tight.

"You really are a poo," I grumbled in her arms.

"I know," she laughed mirthfully, squeezing me affectionately. "Take care of her, Jamie."

My knuckles landed audibly on the Jays' bedroom door.

"Jamie. I know you're in there."

A beat of silence. And then, faintly, "You should be in bed."

It was about two in the morning. I'd taken off my makeup and lashes, thrown my clothes into my washing basket, showered every inch of me and brushed my teeth twice. All the evidence of my embarrassing encounter had been cleared away, except the guilty memories that plagued me.

"I want to say sorry," I explained, pathetically leaning my forehead against the door. "I didn't mean to ruin your night again." I still didn't remember Game Day, but I knew I hadn't nearly finished making up for it. And now this.

"You didn't. Go to sleep." Jamie's voice was quiet through the wood, but he was clearly exasperated. I wondered if bothering him would make him more likely to open the door or to ignore me.

Hoping for the former, I continued, "I did, and I apologise. Even though you've been really fuddy-duddy lately, you still shouldn't have to babysit—"

The door swung open, and Jamie appeared before me. He was wearing only boxers, and the words dried in my mouth. I was still the slightest bit intoxicated, and being confronted with biceps and washboard abs was stretching the abilities of my quicksilver tongue.

Thankfully, Jamie filled in the silence for me. He ran his hand through his bed hair and questioned, "Fuddy-duddy? Numbnuts? Where do you get these words?"

"My brain is a colourful place."

That, and when Aaron was born I swapped out all the expletives and insults in my vocabulary for more PG versions. The habit solidified, so now I was stuck talking like a Disney Channel character.

"I bet," he agreed grumpily. It looked very much like I had interrupted his sleep, but at least he was here talking to me. "How are you feeling?"

"Tired." I yawned.

"That's why I told you to go to bed—"

I pushed past him and into the Jays' room.

"—what are you doing?"

Jamie's duvet was flipped open diagonally, like the first fold when I made origami from A4 paper, exactly where he had left it when he got out. I jumped for his blissfully warm sheets and pulled the duvet over me.

"Going to bed," I answered matter-of-factly.

His pillow smelt of clementines when I buried my nose in it. So that's where his gorgeous smell came from. Shampoo.

When I saw Jamie's incredulous, put-out expression still by the door, I laughed out loud. "I'm kidding. Just come talk with me till I get really sleepy, then I'll go back to my room."

He didn't budge. His arms were still crossed, emphasising the curve of his muscles. I jutted my chin out stubbornly. I had no qualms about falling asleep right here, Jake be damned.

When Jamie realised this, he sighed and walked over to the bed. Happily, I raised the blanket for him to slide in next to me, keeping a respectable foot of distance. I settled on my side, facing him, and closed my eyes.

He asked tentatively, "What do you want to talk about?"

"Tell me about your childhood."

"Like, from day dot, or a general overview?"

"Whatever you like. I just want to focus on your voice," I mumbled blissfully.

"Alright." He thought for a moment. "Jake and I have lived in the same family home all our lives. We have an older brother, Vallen, and we grew up very close to our extended family. My cousins lived just around the corner, so we'd have bike races over to the Olsens' house all the time. The winner was the first to touch their mailbox," Jamie recalled. "It was mostly good, except around the time Soph and Luke's dad, my uncle, died. He was military."

My eyes shot open. "I'm sorry about that."

Jamie shook his head, shooing away my alarm. "He died a hero. At least we had that. Things could have been worse."

"Yeah," I agreed reluctantly. When I realised Jamie wasn't speaking further—just looking curiously into my eyes—a warning raced through me like static electricity. I closed my eyes.

His voice came deep and husky minutes later. "Tell me about your childhood."

I let a sleepy breath leak out of me. "I have one little brother, but he wasn't born until I was seventeen. My parents worked long hours, so they'd drop me off at the after-school programme the Table Tennis League ran until I was old enough to be home alone. That's why I'm so good at beer pong," I chuckled. "I'm grateful for them. They were refugees fleeing the Khmer Rouge as kids. They started with nothing, and they gave me everything."

"What's— what's that?" Jamie asked softly. Then, his voice dropped to a bashful whisper. I'd never heard him sound so unsure of himself. It was odd, and I disliked the sound. "I'm sorry. I don't know much about it."

"That's alright," I assured him, opening my eyes. In daylight, his eyes were emeralds. Now, while his face was backlit by the slivers of moonlight that entered through the unshielded window, they were pools of deepest pine, almost black.

I had to think for a while to even recall what I knew about the Khmer Rouge. I'd never been to Cambodia. Sometimes I didn't feel any different from the next red-blooded American. Other times, being singled out was the most hollowing experience of my life. It didn't even seem like racism, at the time.

My first boyfriend in college was Johannes. Coming from a fairly multicultural high school, I had not been prepared for racism when it smiled sweetly at me and gave me gifts and warmed my bed. Johannes possessed an Asian fetish so intense that it nearly turned me off dating interracially forever—till Bryson came along.

It started with wanting to watch my favourite anime with me—great, I thought at the time, something in common. Next Johannes wanted me to dress as a schoolgirl while we had sex and speak in falsetto tones, claiming he had a kink. Then, he started getting terse with me each time I raised my voice or acted brashly. If I spoke gently, he was endlessly kind and showered me with attention and praise.

I realised only months after he broke up with me—apparently, I was too aggressive—that he was trying to condition me into being perpetually soft-spoken and coy, like some half-formed, two-dimensional anime girl come to life. It sent a shiver down my spine just thinking about it still.

I made sure to choose my next boyfriend carefully: Sung-seo was my attempt to date within the Asian diaspora after the mindfuckery that was Johannes. We bonded immediately over cultural touchstones and shared childhood memories. I didn't have to explain to him that I was naturally abrasive and emotionally reserved. All the women in his life were like that. He got my anime and parenting references. It was easy, till he suddenly fell out of love after eight months and nervously dumped me.

Ah, well. You win some, you lose a lot more.

Alongside my personal history, snippets of my cultural history rose to the fore. "Basically, Cambodia was colonised up until the end of World War Two. When the French government withdrew, a communist regime called the Khmer Rouge took over. Millions of people died from genocide, or famine, or disease in the span of four years. But neither of my parents can remember their life there. They were too young."

Jamie's brow furrowed, and my fingers itched to smooth out the lines on his forehead. But I kept still, just to preserve the palpable stillness between us, falling over our shoulders like a second blanket. He eventually said, "It was very brave of your grandparents to get them out."

"It was. I'm proud of where I came from."

At times, I was conflicted about my roots. My parents were raised bilingual, but English became their dominant language by the time they started middle school. They raised me barely speaking Khmer, catching droplets of it in passing conversations like dew from tree leaves. Aaron heard even less of it.

I knew the Khmer Rouge was an atrocity, but it was not one I knew personally. I felt twice removed from the famine. When I talked about it, I felt the ache of an ache. A dull, throbbing sympathy and pain in my chest, rather than scalding agony. It wasn't my story to tell, I felt.

"There are pictures of me with my grandparents from when I was young. But I can't remember them."

Jamie's sympathy was immediately clear. I considered how it felt to hear that.

He had grown up in a small town, surrounded by family—immediate and extended alike. The death of his uncle, Sophie's father, obviously hurt him immensely. But when my grandparents died, I remember thinking this exact thought: Oh, no. Mom's going to be heartbroken.

Not myself. Just her. I only knew grief as a peripheral presence, never something I had held close and called my own.

I didn't know how to tell Jamie this. I was too drunk to articulate it. His eyes were too soft to handle it. The bed was too warm to mar with sadness.

So I sighed and shuffled further into the blankets. "It's okay. You don't have to say anything. I don't think I've even fully reconciled it either."

He nodded, and he complied. My eyes drifted shut, and they didn't open again. Before I fell asleep, Jamie's arm looped around my waist and pulled me close. In return, I inched my face closer until our foreheads touched, our breaths falling into sync.

I'd said I would go back to my room.

Damn. Another promise broken.

A heavy-ish chapter compared to others!

When I first started writing on Wattpad, I went straight to writing white MCs despite being a POC because that trademark was prolific. Now I love infusing my own experiences (adapted) into my romcoms, like Viv's not feeling Asian enough, and Krista's tension with making her family proud (in Nightlife).

Blackout, Nightlife and my next book (a secret) all star Asian women because truthfully I have to stick to my comfort zone a bit before branching out (if ever) and doing credible justice to others' lived experiences.

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Aimee x