I think you're the reason that I'm a vegetarian. When I first met you I thought it was just another of your quirks: you don't let anyone touch your feet, you never go out to parties on Saturday, you don't eat meat.

I got to know you better. You were a senior two months from graduation, while I was just a sophomore who already HAD a girlfriend. I had no business falling in love with you. But I would get up early on Sundays to go the dining hall at a certain time when I knew you would be there, just so I could accidentally have breakfast with you. I would leave parties half-drunk so I could hang out with you in your quiet, dim dormroom. You had a show on the college radio station, and I would come visit you while you were on the air. Once you played the song "Kevin" by The Faith Healers, and I knew I'd be stuck on you forever.

You were always very polite, perfectly friendly, but nothing more. I wanted to bury myself in your long, black hair. I wanted to know everything about you, how'd you gotten to be so beautiful, so funny, so intelligent, so perfect. I hated myself for being young. Stupid. Inferior. Once you asked me about my girlfriend and I wished I was dead. You knew exactly how to keep me in check, how to keep me devoted, but never satisfied.

I liked to think that maybe you just didn't want to get into a relationship with graduation so close. But I knew, inside. It was me.

One night, just before your graduation, I left a party early to walk you home. We walked slowly across campus, and secretly I was glad that you'd broken your leg; it meant that we had to walk slower. When we got to your dorm, I was ready to say goodbye, but you invited me up inside, saying you had something for me. You knew what saying that would do to me.

Up in your room, you said "Close your eyes, and put out your hands." I was very confused, but as I did it, I felt something lightly fall into my palm. I opened my eyes: a beautiful, delicate, blue and purple paper butterfly. "I made it for you," you said. How did you get the paper to have those deep colors, that fine but rough texture? How did you get the wings to curve so gently? I didn't have anything for you.

You were hoping to go back to Korea after graduation, you said. But if you didn't, you'd be working in your parents' restaurant on the other side of the state. You gave me directions to get there, so I could stop by some time. I didn't tell you I didn't have a car, had no way of getting there. And what would it have been like had I made it there? You wouldn't have been there. I would have eaten quickly, alone, and then driven the 3 hours back home.

Two years later, on the day of my graduation, I was at the mall, in a super good mood. I'd made it through the interminable graduation ceremony that morning, and now we were just picking up a few things for a gigantic party that night. I was single and ready to begin my life. Everything was perfect.

On our way out I caught the eye of an Asian girl walking past. She was beautiful, with short, dark hair.

Right as I reached the exit, I stopped and turned around. You were looking back at me. Like you remembered me, from far away. It was your hair - that's why I didn't recognize you right away.

I pushed through the heavy doors, out into the air, and kept walking.

I'm sorry, Jin-hee. I'm sorry. I couldn't go through those emotions again.

I don't know what I would have said to you. I've been a vegetarian for almost 6 years now. I still have the butterfly. I keep it in a box.