How We Met: By Charlie

to be updated (soon?)

How We Met: By Sylvia

Our meeting was simple, even a little cliché, yet it is the luckiest thing in my life. Time has laid a pale gray haze over my memories, yet I still remember the warm amber rings of the campus lights, and the heat of your palm, broad and steady, gathering up the scattered pieces of my heart one by one.

Late at night beneath the dorm, we held each other under the streetlight. You kissed away every tear. Our chests pressed tight, and we borrowed each other’s heartbeat to fill the hollow on the right side of my chest.

On windy days we ran out the school gate with no destination, just walking with the wind. We bought a bag of steaming roasted sweet potatoes, our pockets stuffed with little receipts saved from who knows when; we turned into unfamiliar alleys and watched cats doze beneath the eaves; when we got tired we sat on the steps by the road while you told stories about the silly things you did as a child. In those idle afternoons we talked about everything and also nothing at all, and the world was blown clear.

When the streets were empty, we kissed in the shadows of the streetlights. Far off a bicycle bell sounded softly. Your breath tasted of mint, you always carried mints back then. You told me you loved me, that you would not let me be hurt or disappointed. You kept your promise, and for a long, long time after that you still do.

Life gradually settled into something more ordinary. In our tiny rental in Beijing we ate takeout together; we went downstairs for fruit; we rode the e-bike to class. We argued because I dawdled in the mornings, and in the end it was always you who apologized. The apartment was so cold that we could only hold each other tight.

The gray mist of time has smoothed many edges, yet some details remain vivid. The mints in the side pocket of your backpack, the speckled light slipping through the library blinds, the crisp beep of the card reader when we swiped our campus cards, the first snow of winter when you wrote my name in the snow (and got it wrong, honestly who would believe it), every bouquet you gave me. Those tiny, trivial things stitched life together, thread by thread.

I once did not dare imagine what happiness would look like. Now it has become so ordinary it is almost transparent, like your hand holding mine. I know the days will keep moving forward, sun and rain trading places, the road turning and stretching on. As long as I can turn and see you, I am not afraid to go far.