A/N

we're almost there.

all my love,

krissy

❂

N I G H T    T H R E E

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DECEMBER 29, 2019

Wen and Mei are nineteen

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THE HOSPITAL BED creaks beneath her as she flexes her fingers.

Mei winces as she rises to her feet, albeit unsteadily, and her dad steps backward to give her room, a hand hovering watchfully over her uninjured arm in case she falls.

They're in the buzzing fluorescent-lit ER room where all the bus passengers involved in the accident have been gathered. Nurses rush to and fro rows of beds where parents crowd around young students groaning from broken limbs and bleeding gashes.

Mei's hair falls in greasy tangles around her grime-stained face, her clothes stained with dried blood from some minor cuts, wet mud clouding the rips on her jeans.

She still feels the panicked echo of her heart from the aftermath of what's happened. It's typhoon season, and amidst furious torrents of rain, the student bus taking students through the New Territories to the Chinese University of Hong Kong in Shenzhen lost control at the edge of a sloping highway—sliding with a deafening shriek into a line of Christmas-adorned trees and falling with a great crash on its side.

The memory is muddled—full of screams and icy rainwater and this God-awful stinging pain exploding all over her limbs. It was suffocating, and Mei feels leached of breath and utter strength, even as she walks out from the room, luckily, with only a cast on a broken arm and patched-up bruises.

"You're sure you're okay?" asks her dad, eyes wide with concern and frustration as he guides her slowly with a hand to her free wrist. "Is the pain bad? Do you want me to call the nurse back? You're so p—"

"Ba, I'm fine." She releases a tired sigh. "I just want to go home."

He rolls his lips in unhappily, sighs, and helps her out into the hall, prescriptions for painkillers in hand. In truth, she just wants to leave the hospital entirely—the thick disinfectant only makes her dizzy with memories of her mother's soft smile.

But Mei has no such luck and winds up in the waiting room instead. With the rains still so harsh outside, her dad resigns to letting her rest on the cushioned chairs so he can pick up the prescribed drugs down the street. She sees only his worried face, his mouth moving, then closes her eyes as he squeezes her hand and runs off.

A part of her wonders where Wen would be, if they were still dating. If he would still be here with her. She recalls, for the thousandth time, how many soft mornings and warm evenings they spent with each other, fingers tracing patterns against skin, counting down the days until his school break ended and he flew back to the United States for university.

She still remembers the conversation, three months ago, that broke her heart to pieces; she sees the resignation in his eyes and the knowing tears wet on his cheeks.

After she and Wen had grown comfortable with each other and spending months trying to ignore how much burdened he was when he returned to Hong Kong to visit, Mei confronted Wen. Told him she couldn't bear seeing his face when he walked the streets and saw only the three parents he had lost, the heartbreak he had endured, the loneliness he had suffered—how he had given so much for people in a city that had beaten him down emotionally, financially, mentally.

It's a cycle, her mouth said. The words ran free of her control, yet they bore the truth she'd avoided for months. You see grief in everything. As long as I'm here, you'll never move on.

He studied her, then, as if waiting for her to say more, and when she didn't, and he looked away, she realized it was over. 

His words are a knife. So it was never meant to be, then.

That was four months ago.

She shakes the thoughts from her memory, then straightens and flexes her fingers again. Proof that she's alive and okay and healing.

She looks around—children are doing puzzles or staring at Canto dramas playing on television screens, parents dozing off, elderly wringing out soaked newspapers and patting down damp British-style berets.

Her mouth feels dry as sandpaper. Wincing, she rises to her feet to poke around hospital halls for a vending machine.

The hall extending from the waiting room glows in the grey half-light flowing through bleak, rain-streaked windows. She turns down at the faint whir of a vending machine, a triumphant smile curling her lips, and fishes out a few bills from her mud-caked pocket.

Just as the Vita Lemon Tea pops out of the machine, she hears shrieking winds sweeping in from the panicked slide of hospital doors. Frantic footsteps. Frenzied voices.

She's poking the straw through when one voice overpowers all the others.

"Please, just tell me where sh—"

"Wai. You're not the only one related to a patient here. Let me check—Li—"

"Li Meifeng."

"You're wasting your time. Her father checked her out a few minutes ago."

A sharp exhale disturbs the air. Heart racing, Mei peeks into the waiting room from the hall, fingers toying with the straw, eyes wide. And freezes.

Wen.

His face is pale. He's drenched in bone-chilling rain—it slides off his windbreaker, soaks the hoodie beneath, gleams on his shoes. Casts a glossy sheen over his skin and drips off eyelashes and tangled hair. A hand grasps his hair so tight his knuckle are white, and his eyes wander, stricken with panic and fear.

When they stumble upon hers, she loses her breath.

Months of pain fall away. They vanish like sand as his feet move—slowly, then faster until he's crossing the distance in a breath of cold wind and rain.

She stares. "Wen—"

He pulls her into his arms so abruptly she stumbles backward into the hall. Damp rainwater trickles across her skin, seeps into her stained clothes as he buries his nose in the crook of her neck. Holding her so tightly her bruises ache.

She remains still. Stunned. Her cast digging into his chest. His hand, wet with rain, trembling against her hair.

He pulls away breathlessly. "You're okay," he whispers, eyes searching her for injuries as his hands fly to her cheeks, her shoulders, her hands. "You're okay, right? Is it just your arm? Where else..."

Mei still can't believe he's in front of her. "I'm okay," she murmurs.

Wen sighs with relief—he cradles her face, thumb brushing against her skin out of habit, then pulls her close again.

"Okay," he breathes, smoothing back her hair. "As long as you're okay."

Her heartbeat stumbles precariously. Even as he hugs her, as he soaks in her presence and rests a hand against her hair, she remains still. Vita Tea in one hand. Cast restraining the other.

As if coming to his senses, Wen stops.

The moment dissolves.

Slowly, the distance between them returns. Mei senses their walls rebuilding, brick by brick, barriers rising again. Wen pulls away, his eyes still helplessly vulnerable as they meet hers.

He swallows, the flush of embarrassment clear on his cheeks as he realizes how much he's forgotten.

"Sorry," he murmurs, gaze faltering. "Just...when I heard accident, I just...with my parents, I thought..."

She nods. Tucks hair behind her ears. "I know."

Wen's eyes rise to hers again, and she's hit with the sudden realization that this is the first time they've seen each other since they broke up. And she knows, immediately, that regardless of how many times she's stared herself in the mirror and convinced herself she's moved on, she hasn't. In seconds, Wen has turned each and every effort to dust.

His fingers twitch at his sides, his eyes darting to her hair, her lips.

"I should go," he say quietly.

Mei doesn't know how to smile. "Yeah," she murmurs.

He nods, slowly, letting the words sink in. Letting the willpower sink in. He backs away, gaze lingering, as if wanting to say something.

But the words don't come. All that leaves his lips is a soft, "Bye," and the weak rise of his hand. She catches only the glimmer of his eyes as he rushes out of the hospital into the pouring rain. Gone.

His absence leaves her short of breath. Mei remains frozen in the hall, dwarfed by the bleak warmth, heartbeat echoing in her ears.

It's only when her phone rings that her attention stirs.

Her heart skips nervously. It's Wangmin—calling rarely all the way from New York, where he's now working.

"Hey," she greets, puzzled.

"Hey, I heard about the accident. Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine."

He releases a breath of relief. "Thank God. And Wen?"

She frowns. "What about Wen?"

"Well, he's over there, right?"

"He was." Mei's skin is still damp with his rain-soaked touch. "But how did you know that?"

Wangmin sighs—she can see him dragging an exasperated hand over his face.

"Please help him," he says tiredly. "The poor son of a bitch just missed his flight back to New York, and he has an exam in twenty-four hours."