One month before we were supposed to go home, my husband quietly changed our immigration paperwork.

His friend tried to talk him out of it.

"Just because Vivian Blake is in Valkenheim, you secretly switched the destination? Your wife has her heart set on going home. She already got her acceptance letter from the National Aerospace Institute. You think she'll agree to this?"

"The whole reason you two chose to study in America was so you could go back and contribute someday, wasn't it?"

My husband shook his head slowly.

"Virginia Lyons loves me. Once she finds out I changed the paperwork, she'll come with me to Valkenheim."

"Vivian's all alone out there. Our country has plenty of people, but Vivian only has me."

I stood there, heart heavy, and turned away without a word.

If he chose to chase love, then I would choose to chase my dream.

A month later, when the plane touched down, he called me in a rush.

"Virginia, are you overseas yet?"

I looked at the red banners fluttering before me, and my chest swelled with something fierce.

"I've been here for a while now."

……

I had stopped outside the lab door.

Derek Thornton's voice carried through again.

"Robert, if you've really gone through with the switch, then at least tell Virginia to her face. What if she genuinely doesn't know..."

Robert Weiss shook his head.

"She's been talking about going home for years. It's the thing she cares about most. There's no way she doesn't know I changed it."

"And if I told her in person, you know her. She'd make a scene. Why bother?"

Derek frowned.

"You know she'll be furious, and you still went behind her back?"

Robert let out a sigh.

"I didn't have a choice. Vivian's alone and she's sick. I can't just abandon her."

The corner of his mouth tugged into a smile, steady with certainty.

"Virginia gave up Cambridge for me once. Asking her to give up one more thing? She'll fall in line. She always does."

His words floated out so lightly.

As if everything I'd sacrificed was simply owed to him.

Derek's voice carried a note of suspicion.

"Don't tell me you're still hung up on Vivian Blake."

Robert paused. He didn't answer right away.

A long moment passed before he finally spoke.

"When it comes to her, I have no resistance."

"And Virginia? What is she to you?"

I wanted to ask that too.

Robert exhaled, long and slow.

"She's the most suitable wife."

Suitable.

Not the love of his life.

He didn't spell it out, but everyone listening understood.

Derek's brow furrowed deep.

"Robert, you can't have it both ways. Keep this up, and you'll end up with nothing."

Robert flashed a confident grin.

"Derek, you don't get it."

"A man's got to be a little greedy. Otherwise, what's the point?"

He lit a cigarette, entirely pleased with himself.

"Virginia's always been sensible. She only cares about her research. Jealousy, possessiveness, none of that's in her nature."

"Vivian's different. She's soft. She leans on me, needs me. With her, I finally understand what passion feels like."

A smug smile crept across his face.

"A man has different needs. That's just how it is."

"And your duty to your country? No regrets?"

Robert's expression tightened.

"If I can't even protect one woman, what business do I have protecting a country?"

"Everyone has regrets in life. But Vivian is the one regret I refuse to carry."

Derek shook his head and said nothing more.

I'd heard enough. I turned and walked home in silence.

I thought about the first time I met Robert Weiss, at an academic conference in Boston.

He was on stage giving a presentation. The last slide of his deck read:

"I hope that one day, I can bring my research back to America."

Back then, there was light in his eyes.

It was that promise that made me fall for him in the first place.

We were both Chinese-American, but our hearts had always belonged to the East.

I thought we shared the same dream.

Turns out, he'd given up on it a long time ago.

The only place he wanted to be was wherever Vivian Blake was.

That night, he came home late.

I was already in bed when he stepped onto the balcony to make a call.

"Vivian, don't cry."

"Mm, the paperwork's all been submitted..."

"Don't worry, I'll be there..."

He soothed her for a long time, his voice carrying a tenderness I had never once heard directed at me.

In the middle of the night, he rolled over and mumbled something in his sleep.

"Vivian... I miss you..."

I smiled bitterly in the dark.

I used to be a heavy sleeper.

Apparently, I'd missed quite a few confessions.

The next morning, Robert left early.

"Don't forget to go submit the paperwork."

His eyes flickered with something like panic, but he didn't linger for even a second.

On the desk sat a stack of immigration documents.

His were already gone. Only mine remained.

I gathered the papers, filled in the gaps, and went to the embassy.

The consular officer was an elderly Chinese-American woman in reading glasses. She looked to be in her sixties.

She reviewed my documents, then looked up at me over the rims of her glasses.

"You're going back?"

"Yes."

"You're a scientist?"

"Yes."

She was quiet for a moment. Her eyes reddened.

"I've sat at this window for thirty years. I've watched countless people walk out of here, heading to Canada, to Europe."

Her voice trembled.

"But someone like you, going from America back to China? That's rare."

She stamped my papers without hesitation.

"Welcome home."

My nose stung.

When I was little, my grandfather used to tell me something.

"No matter how far you go, never forget the road home."

He'd been gone for over a decade now.

His grave was back in China, in a small county town in the south.

I hadn't visited him in ten years.

This year, I was going back.

With my dream, with my research, I was going home to see him.

That evening, Robert came through the door carrying a bag.

"Virginia, I brought you something."

It was a small figurine of Cambridge, the university crest engraved into the base.

"See? You've always had a connection to Valkenheim. You even got accepted into the Cambridge exchange program back then. Too bad you never went."

My fingers slowly curled into a fist.

Five years ago, I'd earned a spot in Cambridge's exchange program. Two full years.

It was the opportunity I'd dreamed of my entire academic life.

Cambridge's aerospace engineering program ranked in the top three worldwide.

My advisor had told me himself.

"This kind of opportunity doesn't come around twice. Once you're there, your entire academic perspective will change."

I was ecstatic. I started packing immediately.

Then, one month before my departure, Robert was diagnosed with acute appendicitis.

The surgery was minor. Three days in the hospital, a month of recovery, and he'd be fine.

But he grabbed my hand.

"Don't go. Stay with me."

I hesitated.

"But this opportunity is so rare..."

"There'll be other opportunities."

He cut me off, a note of impatience creeping into his voice.

"I'm sick. Shouldn't you be here taking care of me?"

In the end, I stayed.

And that once-in-a-lifetime spot went to Vivian Blake.

Looking back now, there was nothing coincidental about it.

Vivian wanted that spot, so he engineered it for her.

Vivian wanted him in Valkenheim, so he abandoned everything he once believed in.

And now, he was using a figurine to remind me.

You can finally go to Cambridge.

He didn't know that the figurine wasn't a gift to me. It was a knife.

I didn't respond. I just kept packing in silence.

The trash can was already overflowing.

Our wedding portrait. A sample of our wedding invitation. The plane tickets from our honeymoon.

"You're throwing all of this away?"

He sounded confused.

I'd treated every one of those things like treasure once.

I kept my voice flat, my hands never stopping.

"There's too much stuff. Something has to go. You can't keep everything."

His brow creased slightly, as if he'd caught something beneath my words.

But he didn't move. He didn't fish anything out of the trash, either.

I pointed to a box in the corner. It was full of his and Vivian's things.

Old photographs of the two of them. A scarf she'd given him. Letters she'd written him.

"What about those? Tossing them too?"

He panicked instantly, rushing over and clutching the box to his chest.

"These can't be thrown away!"

Realizing how that looked, he let out an awkward laugh.

"These are Vivian's things. I'll bring them to her when I return them."

After he said it, he watched my face with open expectation.

As if waiting for me to ask where.

I didn't ask. I just said, "Oh."

A long silence passed. He shifted, uneasy, and tested the waters.

"Virginia, have you been following up on the immigration process?"

"I have."

"So… you've submitted all your paperwork?"

"Submitted."

He exhaled, visibly relieved, and smiled.

"Good."

I gave no reaction.

I just tossed more things into the trash.

We started dealing with the house in the States.

Robert began posting foreign apartments on social media.

Friends left comments.

"Already picked a place? We'll come visit once you're settled!"

I didn't like any of the posts. I didn't comment.

We'd lived in this house for ten years. Every corner held a memory.

A map of home hung on the living room wall. We'd put it up the day we moved in.

Back then, he'd held me close and said,

"When we go back, we'll visit all these places."

He'd marked dozens of spots with red pushpins.

"These are the aerospace cities. Someday we'll see every single one."

The map was still there. The red pushpins were still there.

The man who'd said those words no longer remembered them.

"Virginia, what do you think of this one? Right on the Thames. You can see the London Eye from the balcony."

He watched me, gauging my reaction.

I gave a soft "Mm."

"The ones back home are probably just as nice."

He froze. A flicker of confusion crossed his face.

"Virginia, you don't like Valkenheim?"

"I do."

His expression relaxed.

"A few days there for a vacation would be lovely."

He went still again.

He was about to say something when his phone rang.

A video call from Vivian.

"Robert, my foot hurts so bad, I can't move…"

She was crying in that delicate, helpless way of hers, tears glistening like rain on white petals.

"What happened?"

Robert shot to his feet, his voice tight with alarm.

"I missed a step going downstairs and fell down the whole staircase…"

"I'm all alone. I'm so scared. There's no one to take me to the hospital…"

Vivian's tears fell harder.

"Don't move. Whatever you do, don't move. I'm booking a flight right now."

Robert was frantic. He turned to look at me.