Everything westward is loud: a neon metropolis between carnival and criminal. “I don’t know,” I say, overwhelmed. This side of the fence, the done thing is to refuse—strangers and cigarette lighters, the law, intimacy. But his praise erodes my “no” until it’s small and uncertain. What’s the harm in letting this boy, whom I might someday love, take a photo? “Please,” he says, urgent somehow. He can’t help himself. He kisses me. I like his shoulders, but not his breath filling my lungs. I like that he bought me flowers. I don’t like it at all. He wheels me around, sets me in the middle of the empty street, as if I’m the main character of a romance or an oncoming car wreck. “Stay there,” he says, already racing away. Later, when the imprint of his flash recedes, I initiate the kiss good night, tell him I had a wonderful time, and let’s do this again. He tries for a second date; I ghost him, play dead. Years pass. The city paves over the street and tears the fence down, a gallery springing from once impoverished ground. In a house thousands of miles east, I’m married with one son, one daughter. I’m reading them a picture book with heroes and villains when I receive a text from an unknown number: a photo—my body from the shoulders down. Affixed above is a soft display light. The caption, Art. I realize I’ve never liked my shoulders, and that night, alone, walk onto any empty street.

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C.K. Liu preferred not knowing what the underside of butterflies looked like.