Page 1 of Some Things Never Change

Chapter

One

CHRISTMAS

“But, Mom, I love Julie!”

My heart jumped to my throat. The heat of embarrassment immediately rose up my neck to my face, ears, and scalp. It was ridiculous of me to even be this flustered as if I hadn’t heard it year after year for the last twenty-something years. As lame as it was, my chest still constricted and flipped at those stupid, silly words as if I was hearing them for the first time.

“There you are,” said a deeper voice, startling me.

I knew exactly who it was, and yet, I still jumped. Darn you, Andy.

I didn’t even hear him come in. I turned to lock eyes with the hazel green ones in front of me. What a coincidence it was for him to come into the kitchen right as his younger self continued to proclaim his love for me as an innocent, clueless seven-year-old. His young voice traveled clear and loud even from down the hallway.

I was in the kitchen alone, trying to hide away from my family as they watched footage from old, homemade VHS tapes from the late nineties. It was Christmas night and Andy’s dad was feeling sentimental and nostalgic. My brother, Jonathan, was also egging him on as always. So, we were stuck watching this old video footage of our families again like we did every single Christmas before.

“H-Hey,” I said back with burning cheeks.

There was nothing more flattering than knowing that Andy Hughes once proclaimed he was in love with me, but those words were said over twenty years ago. Yet, I was still embarrassed by them. At one point in our lives, Andy and I were the butt of both our families’ jokes and relentlessly teased for it. We stood there for a few awkward seconds as the homemade footage from the living room played on.

“Can Julie stay with us forever?” I could hear seven-year-old Andy say as the footage continued rolling. His voice was urgent and unrelenting. “I want her to live with us forever!”

“No, Andy, she can’t,” said his mom with an amused laugh.

“But, Mom! She’s so cute and soft! She even smells like strawberries! Can she stay with us forever? Please? I love her so much,” continued the young boy.

I turned away from adult Andy with my face searing hot at the heartfelt love confession. “Did you even know what you were saying then?” I asked curiously.

My chest and stomach still flipped and flopped inside me as my brows knitted. I turned back to Andy, pretending to be calm. He leaned against the kitchen island behind us as he stood close to me, towering over my frame. He gave me an easy smile and shrugged.

Andrew Kou Hughes. Even though his legal name is Andrew, we actually never call him that. It had always been Andy, except for teachers, from what I remembered. His middle name, Kou, means gold in Hmong, and he has never lived it down since birth. Being the golden boy since we were young, he was always his grandma’s favorite, a star athlete, and a well-performing student.

Anthony, his fraternal twin, was never far behind him either. The two of them were always on par with one another with their academic and extracurricular successes and even now with their successful careers.

The twins’ mom, Auntie Gao, is my mom’s best friend. Their friendship started in one of the Thai refugee camps that our ethnic group, the Hmong people, along with many others, fled to from Laos. Laos fell into a communist takeover in the mid-seventies, not long after the Vietnam War. Many escaped into the borders of Thailand, a neighboring country, and lived in refugee camps for a few years.

According to my grandma, Auntie Gao and my mom were often joined at the hip until their families parted ways when they came to America. My mom and relatives went to California and Auntie Gao to Minnesota. Even with the distance, my mom and Auntie Gao kept in contact over the years, often through long monthly letters to one another. Long distance phone calls were expensive back in the day, so they hardly talked much over the phone.

Eventually, Auntie Gao and her family moved to California after deciding to live closer to her younger brother and aging mother and for the warmer weather. The day they came into town with their moving truck was the same day Jonathan and I met the Hughes twins for the first time. This was how this embarrassing footage of Andy confessing his “love” for me was captured.

For a few years, they lived across town. We visited them every other weekend, as our dads went fishing or watched sports together while our moms chatted and gossiped. All the while, we ran throughout the house, swam in their enormous pool, or played basketball in the driveway.

But, everything changed after my dad suddenly passed away. Their family moved in next door, and we have been neighbors since. Andy chuckled, pulling me out of my thoughts.

“Can you blame me? You were so goddamn adorable,” he said. “Look! You were the cutest!”

His lips curved into a wide grin as he pointed to pictures of us through the years of growing up together taped onto the fridge by Auntie Gao.

“And I smelled like strawberries, which I’m glad I don’t anymore,” I quickly added.

“God, I used to love that strawberry shampoo you used so much. My parents had to go out and buy Anthony and me some because I was a boy obsessed.”

I shook my head at him with a smile on my lips as I quickly let my eyes trail over the pictures of us—the twins, Jonathan, and I—over the years. One painstaking fact that was clear was how both Andy and Anthony have always been good looking.

Given that they have a white father whose background includes both English and Scottish heritage and an Asian mother of Hmong Lao lineage, they were both visually stunning. Despite not being identical twins, Andy and Anthony both have similar, perfect, sharp noses and strong jaw lines from their dad paired with hooded eyes and full lips from their mom. They were even the same height at six-foot with a similar build, ironically enough.

I thought the two of them were the perfect balance between the West and East, even though their looks slightly lean more toward their Asian mom’s side. Anthony was only five minutes younger than Andy, but Andy never let him live it down.

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