That summer tasted like peaches and cheap bubble tea—sweet, sticky, the kind of thirst you can’t quench. Shanghai’s skies hung low, bruised pink and violet, as whizzing low-flying airplanes cut through the haze. We’d have headphones whispering the same playlist, just running circles and circles through those humid summer nights. Youth, I’d learn, is just a series of near-misses: almost catching the sunset, almost understanding love, almost believing you’re invincible.
……
“The world’s full of people trying to be less,” he said. “Be the one who isn’t.”