Summary

One year to the day after Ken’s death, Hsu entered a record store, where a clerk held up a copy of the soundtrack from The Last Dragon. Interpreting this as a sign, Hsu stayed up late writing a new zine. Near the end of his senior year, Hsu began dating a woman named Joie. Joie was accepted to New York University for graduate school, while Hsu enrolled in a PhD program at Harvard. He “spent most of [his] first year at Harvard looking forward to bus rides to visit Joie in New York” (170).

In New York, a mutual friend asked Hsu if he and Ken were “really that close.” (170). The question shook Hsu and caused him to worry that he was misremembering the past. Both Joie and Hsu “found grad school vexing” (171). At night, Hsu sometimes examined items that had once belonged to...