Page 73 of Something in Between

The waiter comes over with our food and refills our waters. I thank him. Royce fidgets again, this time with his napkin.

“So your dad wasn’t too happy about journalism, huh?” I ask.

“Nope. He keeps sending me links to all these articles about how it’s a dying profession and all these ex-journalists now drive for Uber.”

I grimace. “Yikes.”

“Yeah, well. Dad wants me to major in political science, which means I’ll probably have to intern for him at some point,” he says, getting that look on his face again.

“That bad, huh?”

“The worst.”

“Well, in other news, I turned in my Stanford application,” I tell him.

He raises his eyebrows and he talks all in a rush. “That’s great! You said it’s your first choice, right?” he says hopefully.

“Yeah.”

“That would be cool if we both ended up there,” he says. “We could probably room together or share an apartment if we wanted. I think they let you do that. Not freshman year, but later.”

“Are you asking me to move in with you already?” I tease.

He blushes. “Oops.”

“No, I like that you always make plans for us,” I tell him. I do like it. I like that he’s so sure of me, of what he wants, and that he wants me. I indulge in a fantasy of the two of us at Stanford, walking the quad, going to the library. Sharing an apartment senior year maybe. How much fun it would be, to wake up in his arms—to be with him all the time. We’ve only been going out for a short time and already he’s got us shacking up. What would my parents say about that?

We’re Filipino, and we go to church every Sunday. They don’t approve of premarital sex. My dad would probably insist we get married before we moved in together.Shotgun shack-up, I think with a laugh.

“What’s so funny?” he asks.

I tell him about the image of my dad with a shotgun and he gets a strange, nervous look on his face, and I can’t tell what he’s thinking. “Don’t worry, I won’t let him shoot you,” I say.

“Gee, thanks.”

“Much,” I say, and then we’re both laughing.

I tell him what’s going on with Mr. Alvarado, about all the risks involved with a hearing, and how Mom and Dad have been arguing constantly about what to do next.

“I guess once you throw it out there, anything can happen. You get on the government’s radar and that’s a two-edged sword for sure,” he says, between bites.

“Yeah. Even though I’m dying to visit, I don’t want to go to the Philippines to live. There’s nothing there for me. My life is here.” I push my fish around on my plate, having lost my appetite a little.

“What are your chances?” Royce asks. “When it’s said and done, if you don’t have near-certain chances, your family shouldn’t do it. It’s too risky.”

“It’s awful, isn’t it? No one who’s been in America as long as us should have to go through this. I’ve been here most of my life. I can barely remember the Philippines. I used to think I belonged equally to both cultures, but I’m not really Filipino, and now I’m not quite American either.”

“You’re who you’ve always been, Jas. That doesn’t change,” he says. “Like I said the other night, I really think we should ask my dad to help. He can do a lot, he knows so many people.”

“I still don’t think that’s a good idea,” I say. “I don’t want to put you in the middle of all this. Do you even trust him to know about my status?” I ask nervously, the butterflies returning to my stomach.

“There has to be some way I can help,” Royce says. “Look, I know you think my dad’s a bad guy, but he’s not really. He would do this for me.”

“I don’t need anything from you except to just be there for me,” I say. I want to reach across the table and touch him, but I don’t. I’m still a bit shy after our sort-of-breakup.

“I am,” he says. “You know I am. But you need to tell more people what’s going on.”

Suddenly, I recall someone else saying the same thing.

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