Never Thought I'd End Up Here

by Ann Liang

“We’ll have you moving on from her in no time,” he says with a wink. “Who said I wanted to?”

Just because you’re not naturally good at it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t continue. But what’s the point in continuing something if you aren’t naturally good at it?

“The test is to help gauge the extent of your Chinese abilities, including your reading and writing proficiency. I’ll give you half an hour to finish. And if you have any questions,” Wang Laoshi adds, “please do hesitate to ask me. It’s best you work it out yourself.”

On a bad day, books offer a language for your pain, and on a good day, books remind you just how precious your life is.

“If you have any objections, I don’t want to hear it—all decisions are final.

I think I found my spirit animal

I have no idea what to do when Cyrus is smiling at me like that.

I see the exact moment when his expression slips into skepticism and then drops straight into disbelief. “Why did you feel the need to say all that?” “What, you wanted a big story, didn’t you?” I say, shrugging. “I don’t have one that’ll satisfy you, so I had to make something up.” He opens his mouth. Closes it.

time shouldn’t have the power to change someone completely, from the kind of person who would get me expelled on a false accusation to the kind of person who would protect me with their own body, bow their head the way he did, like the hurt lived inside him.

Leah. You remind me of the greatest sculptors, who can turn marble into the impression of billowing silk, the coldest stone into something soft. I suppose what I’m trying to say is that everything you touch turns beautiful. The world becomes beautiful, as long as there’s you.

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

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

And the word mei, for “beautiful,”

“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.

while everyone else was moving on, I was moving in circles.

He knows me in ways I wouldn’t have thought anyone ever could, or would ever even bother to. It’s like he’s reached into my brain and peered at the mess there and gently untangled everything.

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

… This whole time?” I ask him, almost afraid to believe it. “Of course,” he says, watching me intently, his dark eyes serious, his hair tousled and soft around the sharp lines of his face. “There’s never been anybody else for me. There never will be.”

“I can promise to never bring this up again. But I meant it when I said that I can be whatever you want me to be: whether that’s an enemy for you to curse and hold a grudge against for the rest of your life; a friend you can trust to accompany you anywhere and drive you safely back home, the one you can call at any hour of the night and tell all your secrets to; or the person you fall for, who will always wear a jacket so you don’t have to bring yours, who will be the first to find you when you’re lost and alone, who will remind you how heart-wrenchingly, unfathomably beautiful you are even on days when you don’t feel it. 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.”

“Qin ai de.” I recognize the words. “Did you just call me your worst enemy?” He smiles against my lips. “I was lying.” “What?” “Qin ai de doesn’t mean my worst enemy,” he says. “It means my love.”

It’s very easy to fall in love with you, Leah. The easiest thing in the world.”

“No, you’re not weak at all. If something costs more than it’s worth, you let it go. If anybody dares make you feel bad for it, then screw them.”

No matter how hard I run, I can never escape the versions of myself I used to be.

“You failed?” she repeats, her voice free of judgment. There’s only concern and more patience than I deserve. “At what?” “Everything,”

“My life. I—I have no idea what to do or where to go. Everyone else has their own talents, like a sport or an instrument or a subject in school, and they’re all heading off to college with some idea of what they want, and it’s like they were all made for something. But I’m not smart enough, and I’m not athletic, and I’m not particularly likable, and I’m not that funny or interesting, and I don’t even have a five-day plan, let alone a five-year plan. Maybe I’ll never be better than this,” I whisper, still patting the cow. It’s the closest thing to comfort that I have right now. “Maybe I’m just not cut out for anything.”

Daisy stares at me, stunned. Then, very slowly, she says, “Leah, have you never had a real friend before?”

“I don’t know exactly what you’ve experienced in the past,” she goes on, louder, raising her voice for the first time since we met at the airport, “and there are a lot of horrible people and horrible situations, but you can’t keep holding on to that for the rest of your life. You have to believe that there are people who will genuinely like you, and care about you, and worry over you when something’s wrong.”

I wouldn’t expect you to go from hating me to trusting me completely right away—I would want the chance to win your trust slowly, bit by bit, if I had the honor.

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.

“No fantasy could ever live up to you,” he whispers. “Nothing can compare to how it feels to look up and see you there. Even though I thought of you every day after you left, my imagination has proven to be painfully inadequate when it comes to the sound of your laughter, or how your brows furrow when you’re focused, or the way you steady yourself before entering a room.

I feel that shift deep inside my chest, like my heart has moved just to make more room for him. Xindong. Gazing up at him, his dark eyes and quiet smile, I’m not sure my heart will ever be still again.

His complexion turns a lovely, irresistible shade of pink, his smile shy, and I decide that I’ll never stop thinking of ways to make him blush.

“You did all that … for me?” I whisper. My heart leans all the way forward, close to toppling right out my chest. “Of course,” he says.

I could tell how unhappy you were. You hid it well enough, but your smiles were always forced, your laughter strained. It’s like you were making yourself go through all the motions without feeling anything, and I … I couldn’t bear to see you that way. 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.

When the film finishes developing in my hand, half the frame is filled with sunlight. There’s so much sunlight in every photo I take of him. Like the sun is all I can see when he’s with me.

Doing things because of how they make me feel rather than how they might sound.

Nothing’s perfect, but everything’s wonderful.