Never Thought I'd End Up Here

by Ann Liang

Breathe in for four. Hold. Out for four. Good. You’re good now.

aw i do this too

esteemed professors in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Stanford and a Grammy-nominated composer on the side,

lol ann liang loves an impossibly accomplished sibling comparison

Who’d steal my pencils. My homemade snacks. My scrunchies. My science homework, which is how I confirmed that he was stealing for the sole pleasure of stealing from me, because my grades were far worse than his.

ok so ur telling me he's always been in love with her got it

Maybe a change of scenery will help. It’d be preferable to slowly losing my mind inside the house.

this is why im in china too

“You’re scared of flying,” I say.

this reminds me of a little someone i used to know...

I’m really here. In Shanghai. On the other end of the world, thousands of miles from all I’ve ever known.

i mean i was in china last year but it’s my first time in shanghai and it's still unreal

just after I turned pretty,

sighh i wish you were more self confident that's all you're missing

On a bad day, books offer a language for your pain,

yes yes yes yes yes

Sean, who’s dozed off so close to the edge of the ferry I’m concerned he’s about to fall into the river.

sean is me and i am sean

“Qin ai de, or whatever that was,” I say. “It sounded like an insult.” “It means my worst enemy,” he says casually

hehehe it means beloved

And I mean, isn’t that what happens in your secret little fantasies about me?” It works even better than I thought.

that's cuz it's true lolol

Cyrus’s strides are much shorter, slower than they were before, and he glances at me every few seconds, as if to make sure we’re moving at the same pace.

sighh i find the most miniscule things endearing

I have no idea what to do when Cyrus is smiling at me like that. “Leah, you have to show them your cloud drawings.”

cyrus and leah are both very good names i approve

like the hurt lived inside him.

IT DOESS cuz u hurt him as much as he hurt u bb pls treat my poor cyrus better he cant help tht hes in love with u

He’s always carrying a book with him, and never the same book twice.

must be the hottest thing about him

Really, Leah,” he says, gentler, more serious.

ugh i can just imagine the way he says it so soft like girl i would cave in a second for him

His eyes drop down too, drifting to my lips with such weight and intent that I can almost feel the ghost brush of his gaze. “I can be whatever you want me to be.”

ohhh boy hes been pulling lines all the time but this is so outrageous u have got to notice leah

This happiness though—it’s new. It stays without asking for permission. It simply exists, like the water and the sky.

:,)

I tell him, “You have a nice voice.” He pauses. “You must be tired.” “What?” “When you’re tired,” he says, “you forget to hate me.” “I forget to hate you a lot of the time,” I whisper.

He said that was the secret to a relationship: You had to keep things interesting, even if that meant getting on their nerves.

oh my god so that's why he treated leah like that as kids

I don’t actually, like, like anyone until I’m certain they’ll like me too.

samee i get u oliver

“You’ve always been beautiful—beautiful like the stars are, like Shanghai is. I could never get sick of looking at you.

if someone said this to me id melt into the ground

irrevocably,

i love this word

“I did. I must have apologized thirty, forty times over in my letter … I wrote it so many times I ran out of ink.” “Letter?” The ground seems to wobble beneath my feet, my mind racing faster and faster like a bullet train, threatening to throw me right off its tracks. “What letter?”

RAHHHH BEST MICROTROPE EVER

“You’re in love with me?” I whisper. “Since when?” His smile is wry. “Only the past seven years.”

AHHHHHHH

“There’s never been anybody else for me. There never will be.”

nonono ur so young tho that's just not fair

The only thing I ask is that we don’t ever become strangers, because I really—” He breaks off. Clenches his jaw, fighting against some ineffable emotion. “I don’t think I could bear it, Leah. I don’t think my heart would be able to survive it.”

oh ann liang you know exactly the key to my heart

Like, you can barely stand up when you’re in her presence. You look at her like you’re seeing the moon for the first time or some shit. It’s kind of disgustingly obvious.”

Cyrus dilemma.

wat dilemma?! ur in love with him too obv pls just get together and live happily ever after

“Leah,” he says, so tenderly I think I might burst into tears again.

i would tbh

my heart swells at the silly, simple, human fact that when we stumble upon something beautiful, our first instinct is to show it to the people we love.

I’m still not sure where I’ll end up a month from now, or a year, or half a life, whether I’ll find something I love as much as I love this moment, and whether it’ll last. But all I have to do is look out at the sky, that deep, lovely, endless blue, and remember that no matter where I end up, joy will never be too far out of reach.

Now, though, she said softly, when you talk about him, when you talk about Shanghai … Your happiness is real. It’s practically radiating off you.

that's how i felt at berkeley, like the hapiness in me was so tangible, so evident, so ready to be seized and shared