Walmart and Rice Fields Julia Fu

They say: Julia and _____ sitting in a tree The October wind kicks up his not-quite-straight bowl cut, revealing a forehead . As we pedal up the steep hill to the park, my thighs burn. He has already reached the top and yells at me “go faster.” The tension in my bike chain feels enough to snap as I pedal faster. When I reach the top, he makes fun of me for how slow I am. I retort with a blow to his messy, badly cut hair. His barber cut it too short, and he complains of how much forehead is revealed.

They say: K-I-S-S-I-N-G I wonder what my life would have been like without those ten days I spent with him. We spent part of summer together in China. Our friendship cemented in dim sum, bad C-pop songs, and tour buses that smelled like herbal medicine. The hot, sticky air that enveloped us during that time has kept us stuck together now. “There has to be something else going on,” they say. I wonder if there’s a world where we can bike and listen to TFboys and no one will bother us.

First comes love, then comes marriage In dozens of movies and so many books the girl and the boy form a friendship then fall in love, but I feel no romance toward him. Did we do something wrong? Is something not right with me? Then comes a baby in a baby carriage The park that we bike to has a view of street-lit suburbia, houses squatting in the dark, planets away from the rice fields of China. The sun is setting behind the Walmart. Pink clouds dot the sky like blush. It is the prettiest Walmart tableau I’ve ever seen. We stand with Lil Uzi playing in the background. I stare at his wonky haircut and smile. What other people think. It doesn’t matter. This is all we need.