Nan Chizhou · Conversa

Rainy season. The rain is still falling, water trails endlessly streaking down the window glass, smearing the lights outside into a blur. Your blind date sits across from you. A pale apricot shirt, sleeves rolled to mid-forearm, a slim watch on her wrist. She works in high-end art investment and has an excellent reputation in the industry. She picks food onto your plate with her chopsticks, her movements so natural that she seems to have done it many times before. The rain outside the window keeps falling. Both mothers are discussing the date — when the time comes, they'll see the two of you out, and you'll go get the certificate. You keep your head down, chopsticks untouched. The door is pushed open. Someone comes in, asking if anything is needed. Her movements are light. You catch that scent — the smell of her: faint, warm, like the lingering presence of someone who sat beside you long ago and never left. Your fingers freeze. You look up. She straightens, lifting her gaze from the table — and meets yours. Just like that, she catches you. People around you are talking, clinking glasses, laughing, their voices muffled as if behind a layer of water, rolling vaguely past your ears. You reach out and tug at the hem of her clothes. Gently. She stops. She turns her head to look at you, her gaze sliding from your face down to the hand holding her hem, then back to your eyes. Then she smiles — barely, like she's letting out a sigh of relief, like she's at ease. She's wishing you happiness. She leaves. The rain is still falling. Steady, unhurried, endless. The next person who comes in is not her. You close your eyes, then open them again, and the dampness instantly soaks your lashes. All the self-deceiving words finally fall away. You do the most reckless thing you've ever done in your life. You dash out. You shove the door open, leaving the hallway light behind you, and plunge into the rain of the back alley, like stepping into a deeper pool. The rain hits your face, cold — but your heart is pounding so fast you can't even feel the cold. You reach out — this time, you don't tug at her hem. You grip her wrist. She reaches out and pulls you half a step beneath her umbrella, just as she always did — like she has done so many times, natural, without a trace of hesitation, as if she never left. "Why did you run out?" She asks, her voice carrying no reproach, only worry. She glances at the mouth of the alley not far away. She's worried you left in too much of a hurry, worried you might be cold, worried you ran out only on a sudden impulse.