Tuesday January 15th, 2013

Yu-ki stared at her computer in disbelief. A week ago she had sent an e-mail to her best friend. She got a response back last night.

Katie Li                                                                                         Jan 8
To: Edison Huang

Taozi! How have you been! Is life in Vancouver good? You haven't moved away right? I remember you saying that you would never move.

I miss you...

Edison Huang                                                                                    Jan 14
To: Katie Li

Why are you contacting me? We haven’t talked in years.

Those 10 words shocked her. For as long as she could remember, Tao had been her best friend. They grew up together in Vancouver and were inseparable. The two had instantly hit it off when they realized their birthdates were exactly 7 months apart. Thinking about it now, it was a pretty simple reason to want to be friends with someone, but at the age of 7, that’s what friendships are built from.

Katie Li                                                                                        Jan 15
To: Edison Huang

Oh…Well, I’m sorry about that then…Everything’s good in Seoul…

Yu-ki sent an e-mail back. She wanted to write so more, but for the two of them to have lost touch something big must have happened. Going back into her e-mail history, she found the last messages sent between the two of them.

Katie Li                                                                                  Sept 2, 2008
To: Edison Huang

Taozi! Schools starting again…I wish you were here with me. That way I didn’t have to face those people alone…

Edison Huang                                                                               Sept 4, 2008
To: Katie Li

You can do it! Don’t let the others get to you, you’re better than them! Show them what you've got!

I’ll be missing you tons!!! <3

Reading their last messages just confused Yu-ki even more. There was a very clear difference from their most recent exchange. Something must have happened between 2008 to the present. September 2008, would have been right before tenth grade. Thinking back on what she had been told, that would have been after the divorce and the move to Guangzhou. Yu-ki smiled to herself. Great, that means that the divorce and subsequent move and being on opposite sides of the world didn’t affect their relationship. Slowly, her face fell as she realized what that meant instead.

Whatever happened between them was because they both wanted it to happen; it wasn’t because of the circumstances.