When I woke up, Jimmy was gone. The world was gray and light slipped in through slits: strained, weary, gray as the world. I paced around, sat down, and listened to a song that I had heard before, only it was sung in a way I had never previously heard.

I would love to have an excuse to visit that sorry city of my birth. I would love to sit in my mother's lush backyard, while she rambles about her three parakeets in their turquoise minaret-shaped cage. I would love to watch Cambodian karaoke dvds with my dad and have him translate every one. I would love to go with my parents to a strip-mall buffet, regardless of my dislike for buffets, and watch them get gleeful over how much food they've piled on their plates. I would love to listen to my mother try to save my soul, and inevitably fail.

My decisions are taking effect. I can actually believe in their power to shift the future's shape. Soon, faraway from this part of the world, I will be naive, terribly excited, and alone, without anyone but my memories and Jimmy, who once remarked that I am a refugee from my family. Well, a refugee still longs, no? Even for what would ruin her. At this point, my dearest wish is to see the people who were so influential during such a long lonely period, for one more time, without their bile and disappointment; I want a proper goodbye when I finally leave behind the topography of my adolescence.

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