那天晚上在家收拾行李的时候，一想到可能发生变化的未来，我恐惧地哭了。我们都会有各自的生活，也许很少会想起对方。就在那个时候，电话响了，我把眼泪擦掉，努力用平静的语调问好，电话那头传出的声音让我知道一切都进行得很顺利——是蒂姆。我甚至还没有来得及问好，蒂姆就急切地对我说：“蒂娜，我们能不能早点儿见面，今晚可以吗？”
我还没有完全挂上电话，就情不自禁地咧开嘴笑了起来。我跳上车子，向他的学校驶去。我是如何在那么短的时间内赶到学校的（我用了1小时45分钟），这已骗无关紧要了，重要的是见到他的那一刻，我拥抱了他，告诉他我爱他。事实上，我曾骗那样做过无数次。然而，他这次把我从怀里推开，注视着我的眼睛说，他爱我，然后吻了我。这个吻似乎包含着几个月、甚至几年来彼此付出的真情。
第二天早晨出发前往学校的时候，我的整个脑袋、整颗心想的全是蒂姆。当我拿出钱包掏钱买汽水时，一张小纸条掉了出来。那是蒂姆写给我的，直到现在，我一想起上面的话语仍然会开心地微笑：“蒂娜，我对自己感到很气愤，为什么这么晚才向你表白我爱你！”感动的泪水夺眶而出，我感到了真正的幸福，对我们的关系也安下心来。
我依然保留着蒂姆写给我的纸条，我们一直保持着那种非同一般的友谊，直到永远。只是，现在我们分享了更多的东西——三个漂亮的孩子和同一个姓氏。
命中注定的搭档
An Unlikely Hero
托尼·卢 / Tong Lu
When Dr. Gullickson was assigning project mates for his introduction to experimental psychology class, I secretly hoped he would pair me with a cute coed or at least a classmate I could have some fun with. Above all, I hoped he wouldn' t assign me to work with the intense, fiercely competitive, singularly serious fellow who always wore dark clothes and apparently had a personality to match. As fate would have it, Dr. Gullickson very deliberately matched everyone in class and announced that I would be working with the one person in class I wanted to avoid.
I went up to my new lab mate and introduced myself. He looked at me as though I weren' t there. I felt he treated me as though I would hold him back and probably cause his grade-point average to take a nosedive. He wasn' t outright mean or abusive. He just gave me the impression he could do whatever project we dreamed up better if he did it alone. He was a loner, and I could only impede his research. He had important things to do, and I was going to be something of an annoyance he' d have to deal with.
Needless to say, I didn' t look forward to an entire semester of being brushed off,but I tried to make the best of it and didn' t say anything, lest I make things worse.
The project required each lab team to develop a hypothesis, set up an experiment to test the hypothesis, run the tests, do the statistical analysis and present the findings. Whatever grade the team received would be shared by both students. When my lab mate and I met to discuss our project, I was uneasy. Here was this challenging student who had a reputation for single-mindedness and good grades—the exact opposite of me. I was outmatched. I actually wanted to drop the class at one point, but stopped short because I didn' t want to give him the satisfaction of my chickening out. I asked my friends at work what I should do, and the overall response was to stick it out no matter what.
After lengthy discussions, we somehow agreed to do a study on the tactile-kinesthetic perception of space. I wasn' t sure what it meant, but at least we had a topic. We started to meet regularly to formulate our plans, and every time I felt the project was more his than mine. The more we met, the more I resented his intelligence and his ability to cut through to the core issues. And I was aware he was much more advanced than I. He knew technical things and approached every detail with great singularity of purpose.
I, on the other hand, must have seemed naive, with little to offer. At one point l summoned up my courage and asked him why he seemed so uptight and serious. To my surprise, he replied that he didn' t have time for small talk or petty people and things that would waste his time. He even went on to say that he didn' t have many friends because most so-called friends were just a distraction. But, he added, when he did choose someone to be his friend, they would be a friend for life. I was floored by his cold and cynical response. Right then and there, I realized the end of the semester couldn' t come soon enough.
As the semester wore on, we tried to fashion a simple yet elegant experiment. Part of our job was to select students who had volunteered to be subjects for our project. I decided to devote myself to the task of working with the subjects, while he developed the scientific model. I put in my two cents' worth whenever I could, but I still felt he was the driving force.