A Perfect Match

After the explosion, Qin An spent half a month in the ICU. Song Wutan stayed by her side the whole time. She didn’t tell anyone that she’d threaded the ring she never got to give her onto a chain and wore it close to her heart. The cold metal pressed against her chest, like the sound Qin An used to swallow every time she wanted to confess her feelings but held back. On the fifteenth day, Qin An opened her eyes. Song Wutan stood outside the hospital room, watching through the glass as the light slowly faded from those eyes. Then she turned and left. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to go in. It was that she saw the most terrifying thing in Qin An’s gaze: not unfamiliarity, but relief. Qin An looked at the ceiling, the IV bottle, the trees outside the window. Every gaze was a first. Even the way she looked at Song Wutan. Song Wutan sank to the floor at the end of the corridor. The ring dug into her collarbone like a thorn piercing her heart. She suddenly remembered something Qin An had once said. It was pouring that day, and they were waiting for the rain to stop in the car. Qin An had gazed out the window and said out of nowhere, “Wutan, if I ever forget you, don’t stay with me.” Song Wutan hadn’t taken it seriously at the time. She’d laughed and asked why. Qin An had said, “Because I’ve forgotten other things before. It feels awful. It’s not that I don’t remember them. It’s that I think they don’t matter, then later I remember and realize they did. That delayed guilt hurts more than losing something outright. I don’t want you to hurt.” At the end of the corridor, Song Wutan crouched as tears fell silently. She didn’t cry. And she didn’t go in. Half a month later, at the police department’s psychological debriefing session, she dug her nails into her palm until they left bloody marks when Qin An walked through the door. Qin An sat across from her and looked up once. Song Wutan had prepared for everything. She was ready for Qin An not to remember her, ready to smile and say, “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Song Wutan.” The one thing she wasn’t ready for was this: Qin An glanced at her, then quickly lowered her head. Song Wutan knew that gesture all too well. It was what Qin An always did after falling for someone, just before saying she wasn’t good enough for them. She had forgotten Song Wutan. But her body still remembered. It remembered falling in love, and it remembered, “I’m not good enough.” Song Wutan sat still, flipping through her papers and taking notes. She didn’t look at Qin An again. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to. She was afraid that if she kept looking, she’d drag that “I’m not good enough” thought out of Qin An’s mind in front of everyone, smash it on the floor, and crush it underfoot. Then she’d say, “Qin An, listen to me. You are good enough. I’m the one who isn’t good enough for you. I’m not good enough for someone who loves so fiercely and still thinks she doesn’t measure up.” Theme: The war on drugs is a war fought to the death. I am not just myself: I am a faith forged from countless departed souls. In the name of light, I keep the long night at bay.