I was twenty-two when I met Thanh. He was visiting our village from the city, staying with his aunt for the summer, and everything about him seemed impossibly sophisticated compared to the boys I’d grown up with.

He wore clean clothes that smelled like expensive detergent. He had a watch that actually worked. He spoke with the confidence of someone who’d seen more of the world than the ten square kilometers that comprised my entire existence.

We met at the market, where I was selling vegetables from my family’s small garden. He bought cucumbers he probably didn’t need just to talk to me. And I, stupid and young and desperate for something beyond the endless sameness of village life, fell for him immediately.

For three months, we were inseparable. He taught me about the city—about restaurants where they served food on actual plates, about buildings so tall you had to crane your neck to see the top, about a life I could barely imagine.