A Long-Overdue Longing

I used to think you'd always be there behind me.

When I was eighteen, I took your hand and brought you into my world, telling everyone, “This is my little brother.” You nodded obediently, starlight in your eyes that I couldn't understand. From then on, you became the most natural part of my life: warm breakfasts, freshly pressed shirts, and the light that was always on when I worked late.

I dismissed everything you did for me as “habit.”

At twenty-eight, you disappeared without warning. No argument, no goodbye, just a resignation letter and a number that no longer worked. I thought you'd come back, just like every other time you'd gotten upset. Then I found a note you'd left on the empty refrigerator: “Remember to eat.” It was dated three months earlier.

In that moment, my world collapsed.

The person I'd called my “little brother” had long since pulled himself out of my life, roots and all, after one disappointment too many.

Now I'm trying to do for you everything you once did for me: clumsily cook porridge, wrinkle shirts while ironing them, and wait outside your office until three in the morning. But you only look at me calmly, your gaze as distant as if I were a stranger.

“Shen Tinglan,” you say, “what are you chasing, love or the habit you threw away?”

Only then do I understand that some losses can't be undone by getting down on your knees.