Goodnight, Love That Came Too Late

Li Yunxia has suffered from insomnia for three months. On the day she collapsed, she was rushed to the emergency room at Ningcheng Third Hospital. The doctor who treated her was Zhang Weizhi. She didn't recognize him. He pretended not to recognize her. Nine years ago, on the eve of graduating from high school, she changed her college application and cut off contact. Her uncle hung up when Zhang called. He thought she didn't want him anymore. She thought he hated her. Their becoming roommates was an accident. He became her landlord, grumbling about her while never stopping his acts of care: fixing pipes, changing light bulbs, brewing calming tea, remembering she took her coffee without sugar. When she woke screaming from a night terror, "Don't touch me," he sat by her bed without a word. He had never forgotten the scar on her left shoulder, not in nine years. When she tried to get closer, he pulled away. When she said she liked him, he said she was only dependent on him. When she turned and left, he waited downstairs every night, even when he got sick with a fever from the cold, but never knocked on her door. Only later did she learn that he still had a photo of her from their high school sports meet on his phone, never deleted in nine years. An unsent love letter was hidden in his desk, its final line reading, "I'll wait for you." Her uncle's harassment, her mother's silence, the truth behind her father's death: one thing after another weighed on her. She went to therapy, and he accompanied her to court. She learned not to run away, and he learned not to keep waiting. It took two stubborn people many years to finally say, "Good night." This is a story about insomnia and keeping watch through the night. Some people aren't hard to comfort. They just find it hard to speak up.