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One Step Away

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Zhao Lian pov

Some Things End Without Ever Beginning

It’s strange how the world keeps moving when your heart is stuck in one place.

The day after we walked home together, everything was exactly the same.

Same campus.

Same grey clouds.

Same faces walking past me like they had somewhere better to be.

But I wasn’t the same.

Because he had shared an umbrella with me.

And that shouldn’t have meant anything.

But it did.

He hadn’t texted.

Of course, he hadn’t.

We don’t text. We don’t call.

We exist in this weird space between strangers and something not quite friends.

Not enemies. Not lovers.

Not anything you can put a name on.

Just almosts.

Almost talking.

Almost touching.

Almost something.

I sat in the café across from the west gate, nursing a drink that had long since gone warm. I wasn’t waiting for him—not officially. But my eyes kept flicking toward the window, scanning the street like they had their own agenda.

A part of me hated this version of myself.

The girl who waited.

The girl who hoped for glances and umbrella-shares and silent goodbyes.

The girl who felt everything but said nothing.

“Zhao Lian, you okay?”

My friend Meiqi dropped into the seat across from me, pulling me back into the noise of the café. I blinked.

“Yeah,” I lied. “Just tired.”

She gave me a look. “You’ve been ‘just tired’ since October.”

I offered a smile, the kind that didn’t reach. “Midterms do that.”

She sipped her drink, squinting at me like she was debating whether to push further. But she didn’t. Instead, she leaned back, eyes flicking to the window.

“Isn’t that your Li Yuhan?” she asked.

I turned so fast I nearly knocked over my cup.

And there he was.

Crossing the street, hood up, earphones in, walking like the world was just noise he’d learned to live with.

I froze.

Meiqi raised her brows. “You two still doing that weird not-talking, not-dating thing?”

I didn’t answer.

Because how do you explain a love that never got its name?

Later that night, I found myself outside again.

It wasn’t raining, but the wind felt like a warning.

I walked without direction—past the library, past the old clock tower, to the garden behind the art building. It was where I went when I wanted to hear myself think.

And I thought about him.

About how he always left just before class ended.

About how he always carried that one grey umbrella, even when it wasn’t raining.

About how I’d memorized his handwriting, even though he’d never written me a single word.

And I thought:

What if he feels the same way?

What if he’s just as scared?

But then… what if he doesn’t?

What if I’m just someone who notices things too deeply and mistakes quietness for closeness?

The garden lights flickered once and stayed on.

The night was silent except for the occasional rustle of trees and the hum of a campus half-asleep.

I sat on the bench and closed my eyes.

And I whispered, just for myself:

“If he said he felt the same… I don’t know if I’d believe him.”

Because after so many months of silence, it’s hard to believe in anything except the ache you’ve grown used to carrying.

Later, walking back to my dorm, I saw something taped to the hallway bulletin board.

A flyer for the university’s winter festival.

Music. Lanterns. Fireworks.

One week away.

I stared at it longer than necessary.

Last year, I’d gone with a group of friends. We’d taken photos, laughed too loudly, screamed when the fireworks startled us.

But this year, I only wanted to see one face in the crowd.

One step away.

Always one step.

And suddenly, I wasn’t sure if I could keep living in this in-between.

This quiet love with no home.

Something inside me whispered:

“You either tell him soon… or learn to let him go.”

And both felt impossible.

They say the heart knows.

But mine was too busy waiting.

For a look.

For a word.

For a sign that the boy who shared his umbrella wanted to share something more.

And I kept wondering—

What if I never get it?

Would I still call this love?

Or just another beautiful silence?

...Next day...

Everyone Else Is Speaking.

The café was too warm.

The kind of warmth that fogged the windows and made your skin stick to your sweater, but no one said anything because it was cold outside and this was better.

I was sitting with three girls I wasn’t sure I could call close friends. But they weren’t strangers either. We’d taken enough classes together, shared enough group projects and late-night cramming sessions to drift into this vague category of “people you hang out with sometimes.”

Meiqi was there, of course. She was the only one I trusted with the silences I kept. The others were Qiao Lan — the hopeless romantic — and An Ying, who claimed she was completely over her ex even though she brought him up every 17 minutes.

They were already talking when I arrived. Loudly.

“I told him if he didn’t want something serious, then I’m out. Simple.”

That was An Ying, sipping aggressively on her strawberry smoothie like it was made of her ex’s tears.

“You say that now,” Qiao Lan chimed in, twirling a spoon in her coffee. “But next week, you’ll post some sad lyrics on your stories and reply to his Insta.”

An Ying shot her a look. “Excuse me for having feelings.”

“It’s not feelings, babe. It’s poor judgment.”

They laughed. I smiled. The kind of smile that doesn’t use your whole face.

Meiqi nudged my arm. “You okay?”

I nodded, sipping my drink. "Mm-hmm."

She raised an eyebrow, knowing I was lying, but didn’t push. She never did. That’s why I loved her a little more than the others.

We talked — well, they talked — about love like it was something that happened to everyone. Something you tripped into on a Wednesday afternoon or found in the sale section of a bookstore.

Qiao Lan was planning a surprise picnic for her boyfriend of six months.

An Ying was swearing off men for the rest of the semester.

Meiqi was “just talking” to someone from her literature class, which meant she was falling hard and pretending she wasn’t.

And I?

I was sitting there, stuck between their stories, wondering if I even belonged in the conversation.

“You’re awfully quiet, Lian,” Qiao Lan said suddenly. “You seeing someone and not telling us?”

I laughed. A soft, practiced sound.

“No. Nothing like that.”

“You like someone though. Don’t you?” she said, teasing, pointing a spoon at me like it was a truth detector.

I shrugged. “Does it matter?”

They all exchanged glances, and then Meiqi leaned in, voice gentle.

“Is it still… him?”

I didn’t answer.

I didn’t have to.

I looked down at my cup, tracing the rim with my finger.

What could I even say?

That I loved someone I’d never touched?

That my whole world shifted because of shared umbrellas and half-smiles?

That I spent nights wondering if his silence meant what mine did — or if I was just building dreams out of dust?

They were talking about breakups and kisses and awkward first dates.

And I was sitting here, holding onto a ghost of a maybe.

How do you compete with stories that have actual beginnings and endings?

Mine was all middle.

A never-ending pause.

A song stuck on the same verse.

A heart that didn’t know where to go, so it just stayed where it hurt.

At one point, An Ying turned to me again.

“Lian, you’ve always been so… careful. Don’t you ever want to just go for it? Just tell him?”

And I almost said yes.

Almost said I’ve thought about it every day.

Almost said I’ve written a hundred imaginary confessions in my head.

But I didn’t.

Because they didn’t understand.

“Some stories aren’t meant to be told out loud,” I said softly.

They fell quiet.

When we left the café, the sky was turning purple. The kind of dusk that makes everything look like a memory.

I walked behind the others, listening to them laugh and tease and plan winter festival outfits. And I let myself wonder what it would be like to be like them.

To be loud with your feelings.

To be brave.

To let love be messy and real and known.

But I wasn’t like them.

I was still trying to read the spaces between his silences.

Still wondering if his glances meant something.

Still hoping the next time we crossed paths, he might stop.

Might say something.

Might choose me.

But hope is cruel when it doesn’t have a deadline.

Everyone else is speaking.

Loving and breaking and beginning again.