I leaned against the kitchen doorway, watching his back, opening my mouth to say, "Don't come again in the future."

But the words stopped in my throat, swallowed back.

I couldn't say it.

Chapter 20

The day for the follow-up arrived again.

The third follow-up after the surgery.

He had been there for the first two, but this time I intended to go alone. I had already troubled him enough; I shouldn't let this continue.

The night before, he sent a message: I'll accompany you tomorrow.

I replied: No need.

He sent another: Your follow-up is at ten in the morning; the hospital is half an hour from your home. I'll wait for you at the entrance of your complex at nine.

I thought about it for a long time but couldn't remember when I had told him the time of my follow-up.

Perhaps I let it slip during a conversation, and he remembered.

He was always like this; he remembered a bunch of things he shouldn't, and he didn't forget a single thing he should have.

At nine o'clock the next morning, when I went downstairs, he was indeed standing at the entrance of the complex.

He was holding breakfast—xiaolongbao, still hot, wrapped in a plastic bag with the opening tied into a knot.

There was warm water in a thermos, and a folding umbrella—black, stuffed into the pocket of his windbreaker, with the handle protruding.

"The forecast says it will rain today," he said.

His voice was a bit hoarse, as if he hadn't slept enough.

The dark circles under his eyes were heavier than a few days ago, and his lips were somewhat chapped.

I looked up at the sky.

It was autumn in Shanghai; the sky was high and the clouds were thin, and the sunlight leaked through the gaps in the plane tree leaves, casting patches of light on the ground.

There wasn't a cloud in the sky.

I didn't say anything.

He handed me the breakfast, and I followed him into a taxi.

When we reached the hospital, there was a long line at the registration window.

Caleb went to wait in line, and I waited in the waiting area.

About twenty minutes later, he came back with the registration slip.

The follow-up process was quick.

Blood draw, CT scan, seeing the doctor.

The doctor said the recovery was good and all indicators were normal.

He stood at the door of the clinic, motionless as he listened to the doctor. It wasn't until the doctor finished speaking that his shoulders relaxed slightly.

When we stepped out of the hospital, it was actually raining.

A sudden downpour, carrying a damp scent of earth.

He opened the umbrella and held it over my head, leaving the majority of his own body exposed to the rain.

I subconsciously pushed the umbrella toward him, but his arm didn't budge.

"Why are you standing in the rain?" My voice was mostly drowned out by the sound of the rain.

He tilted his head, probably not hearing me clearly, but he didn't ask me to repeat myself. He just held the umbrella more steadily, tilting the canopy further toward my side.

The rain grew heavier and heavier; we waited by the roadside for a long time before we could hail a taxi.

He opened the back door, let me get in first, and only got in himself after closing the umbrella.

His soaked windbreaker clung to his body, revealing the contours of his shoulders and arms.

He was much thinner than before; there was a hollow where his shoulder blades were, as if there was a large space beneath his clothes.

I rummaged through my bag and handed him a tissue.

He took it but didn't wipe himself; he wiped the water off the seat first.

He wiped it very carefully, absorbing even the water in the crevices, and only then did he roll up his soaked sleeves and wipe the rain off his face.

I watched him wipe the seat, watched the faded red string revealed when he rolled up his cuffs, and watched the few tufts of hair standing up at the back of his head when he lowered it. My nose felt sore, wave after wave.

This person always thought of others first, and only then of himself.

It was like this three years ago, and it is the same now.

The rain outside the window became heavier, and the wipers swung back and forth on the windshield, clearing a layer of water, only for new water to cover it again.

The whole city blurred; the lights of the street lamps turned into blurry blobs—red, green, yellow—like a palette that had been overturned.

I turned my face toward the window, where his side profile was reflected in the glass.

He was looking at the road ahead, wondering what he was thinking about.

Rainwater dripped from the ends of his hair, sliding down his cheek to his chin; he didn't wipe it away.

My hand gripped the pack of tissues in my pocket, but in the end, I didn't hand it over.

I withdrew my gaze and closed my eyes.

Chapter 21

Another month passed.

Caleb’s belongings began to appear in every corner of my home.

A toothbrush appeared in the bathroom, slippers at the doorway, a coat on the armrest of the sofa.

I didn't know when they had appeared, just as I didn't know when he had started treating this place as half a home.

I didn't ask, and he didn't explain.

We maintained a strange, tacit understanding.

He didn't mention moving in, and I didn't mention him staying; he didn't leave, and I didn't drive him away.

Once, when I came home from work, I found him cooking in the kitchen, and a bouquet of chamomile was placed on the stove.

Small white and yellow flowers were squeezed together in a glass bottle filled with clear water.

He handed the flowers to me, saying they were pretty.

I took them and lowered my head to smell them; they were faint, like a summer breeze.

"How did you know I like chamomile?"

"You said so before."

I froze for a moment.

Had I said that? I didn't remember.

Our past was like a book I had deliberately closed, telling myself not to flip it open, yet someone was always flipping it for me.

While eating dinner, he suddenly spoke: "Mina, I want to move in."

My chopsticks paused.

The steam from the pork rib soup blurred his face.

"The apartment I'm renting expires next month, and I don't want to renew it. Your place is closer to my company."

I knew he was lying.

His company wasn't close to my place; I had checked.

The location he mentioned required two transfers by subway, a one-way trip of nearly an hour.

But I didn't expose his lie.

I lowered my head and shoveled a mouthful of rice. "Whatever you want."

He didn't speak, but I could feel his gaze resting on the top of my head, carrying a kind of cautious anticipation.

That gaze made me feel completely uncomfortable, as if I were something fragile, as if he were afraid I would disappear the next second.

The next day he moved in.

He didn't have much luggage; a single suitcase finished the job.

When he hung his clothes in the wardrobe, I looked at the half of the closet that had been empty for a long time and suddenly had things in it, and I felt an indescribable sensation.

It wasn't a sense of stability. It was fear.

I was afraid that I would get used to his presence, and then one day he would disappear again.

Or, one day I would disappear.

At night we lay side by side on the bed, with a wide distance between us.

I lay on the left, he lay on the right, and neither of us touched the other.

The room was very quiet, quiet enough to hear each other's breathing. His breathing was light and slow, as if he were deliberately controlling it.

"Caleb."

"Yes."

"Why are you so good to me?"

Silence followed for a long time, so long I thought he had fallen asleep.

"Because I want to be good to you."

I buried my face in the pillow, not letting him see my expression.

Under the quilt, my hands were clenched into fists.

One night, I woke up in the middle of the night and found him watching me.

Moonlight leaked in through the gap in the curtains, falling on his face; his eyes were bright, carrying a very, very deep light.

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing, I just wanted to look at you."

I turned over, facing away from him.

"Go to sleep."

He let out a soft "mhm," and said nothing more.

The mattress vibrated slightly as he turned over, and we were back-to-back.

After a long time, I heard him speak in a low voice, as if talking to himself: "Mina, do you still love me?"