I met you twelve years ago. You were a difficult child. You liked eating dirt off the ground, I remember, and you got so sick your cheeks started turning a pasty yellow. I wanted to tell you there were much better things to eat. I wanted to buy you chocolate and cupcakes and cookies, sachima and tanghulu and red bean buns. I remember crouching down to your height and staring straight into your brown, brown eyes, and you stared straight back into mine like that defiant little girl you were. You said, Mommy doesn’t want me talking to strangers. I said, I’m not a stranger, but you didn’t believe me so I looked and looked and looked at you, that same wispy black hair, that same button nose, that same birthmark under the lip. Then you said you didn’t like me because I scared you a bit, and I wanted to say you scared me much, much more. I knew you weren’t a stranger yet you felt a whole lot like one. You weren’t me, I wasn’t you. I thought for a while about what that meant. Was I not you, or were you not me?

I said you had infinity right in front of you but you wouldn’t listen. You liked all those neon signs in the city, the blue, green, lavender, red, gold. You asked me where the signs led and I said to the end of infinity. Is that a good thing? you asked, but I didn’t answer. I didn’t know the answer. Twelve years later, I still wouldn’t know.

You liked the glittering lights, the flickering street lamps. I told you about the moths trapped inside. That’s the end of infinity, I said. Ambition is the end of infinity. Then it’s a good thing, you replied. I asked you why and you pointed at the moths. They’re stuck forever, but they’re stuck forever in the place they want to be. You sounded as though you knew everything, and maybe you did.

There's no new beginning after the end, you said, so if the end never ends, isn’t the end of infinity also infinity?

I looked at you for a long time. You were smart, scarily smart, and I didn't know why.

Rationality is the only thing that separates us from moths, I said at last.

You shook your head and took my hand. Tugged me toward the neon signs, the glittering lights.

No, you said, it’s hesitation.