I’ll Let You Forget Me

At twenty-eight, I deleted the wedding invitations, but I kept the vows I’d written for him.

Jiang Yu was the kindest person I’d ever met, and also the cruelest person in the world. He would make me ginger soup at three in the morning, yet the night before I put on my wedding dress, he said, “I’m sorry. I’m not sure I can make you happy.”

It wasn’t that he didn’t love me. He was just too clear-eyed about it. So clear-eyed that even our breakup was as graceful as a farewell ceremony.

I thought that was where our story ended. Until three years later, when we met again in the same hospital ward. He was the attending physician, and I was a patient’s family member. There was a ring on his left ring finger, and a diagnosis in my medical file that he didn’t dare ask about.

This time, what lay between us wasn’t a misunderstanding, but life and death.

But the cruelest thing about fate isn’t making you miss your chance. It’s bringing two people who can no longer say “I love you” so easily back together while the clock is ticking.

“This time, let me be the one to wait for you,” he said.

“But I don’t have much time left,” I replied with a smile.

It turned out the longest confession wasn’t “I love you,” but “I’ll let you forget me.”