DAY ONE 

Wumi carries the evidence of her pain everywhere she goes. She's forgotten how to live without it. Or perhaps, how to leave it behind. She dons her pain like a cloak when she leaves her house, allowing it to shield her from the world. She's learned that if she pretends hard enough, the world and the pain and the hurt bleed into each other, and then she can live as if she doesn't heft it around everywhere she goes. As if it's not evident in the slump of her back.

It's on one of these days that she meets Cynthia. This day is especially hard for her, you see. She's had another fight with her mother, and the only thing she can think of is escaping. Whenever they have fights like that, there's an air around both of them that feels like it's waiting for a little spark to explode in both their faces. The explosions never end well, so she always runs. She decides that just for today, she could splurge on ice cream without dire consequences. She decides that she deserves it.  The medium cup and a waffle at the recently opened cold stone at British America Junction. She enters the bus from Old Airport to British quite early, and that allows her to sit at the back like she wants. She plugs her ears with her headphones, and suddenly, she's disconnected from the world. Just the way she likes it.

It takes a little time for the bus to fill up and she spends the entire time watching people and cars and animals move around her. She thinks about how the world is so big and so small at the same time. How lives are contained in minds and those minds in bodies that feel compelled to just move through life like… 

Someone taps her on her lap, and all the thoughts combust and run away from her. She turns to look at them, annoyed at whoever it is for interrupting her moment, but the moment her eyes land on their face, all thoughts cease. Her anger bursts into awe that consumes her being. The first thing she thinks is that she's ethereal. Dark skin that gleams when the sun hits it. When Wumi thinks of a perfect face, she conjures smooth, blemish-free skin, but right now, this girl's face with its scars and tiny bumps, is perfect. She wears her hair in a fro, and it's magnificent. Wumi is staring. And she can't stop. 

The girl gestures to her headphones, and she takes them down to hang them on her neck. 

“Sorry if I disturbed you. I just wanted to say your sweater was pretty and ask where you got it from.” Wumi wants to say that if not ever listening to music again was what it was going to take to hear that voice again for the first time, then she'd willingly give it up. But she knows it's a pretty weird thing to say to someone she just met. So she smiles.

“It's from Terminus market, actually. But I picked it from those clothes they pour on the ground so I don't think you could find it again.” The smile on the girl's face falls a little, and Wumi wants to take off the sweater and give it to her. She doesn't. She smiles. 

“Oh. I'm Cynthia, by the way. Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too. I'm Wumi.” 

They don't say anything to each other for the rest of the drive, and when the bus stops, Wumi climbs down. Cynthia follows her. They lock eyes, and for a minute, Wumi thinks about the protagonists in the books she reads and how the attraction between them is described as currents of electricity. She feels a string drawing them closer, but again, the world she lives in doesn't make space for that type of naivety. She looks away and crosses the road. 

Getting ice cream is a fifteen-minute ordeal because she can never choose what she wants. She moves through the flavors and mentally pictures how they'll taste in her mouth and if she wants that particular burst of flavor at that specific moment. 

“I made it a rule to try each flavor till I run out of them and have to start repeats. I've had a few I didn't like but at least I know what not to choose.” Wumi startles and turns to Cynthia. She wonders if this was her actual destination, or if she has just followed Wumi. Wumi hopes it's the latter. She smiles.

“What are today's flavors, then?”

“Cheesecake and french vanilla.” 

Wumi turns them around in her head and decides they sound like good options. Even if they didn't, she knows she would have agreed to have them because Cynthia suggested it. Cynthia smiles and bounces on her feet in excitement, and Wumi is surprised at the intensity of the emotions she's feeling towards this girl she met an hour ago, but she's learned to stop questioning herself. She allows the feelings to flow through her.

They take their ice cream and sit near the window. Cynthia is quiet as she takes hers, and Wumi can't stop watching her for some reason. 

“Wumi, your ice cream is melting o. I know I'm pretty, but like, please eat your money.” Wumi waits for the heat to flush up her face, but it doesn't. She smiles and nods. They're quiet for the length of time it takes them to both finish eating. Wumi notices that when Cynthia is not taking her ice cream, she's fidgeting with a ring on her finger. She notices that it's subconsciously. The question dances on her tongue, but she holds it back. She thinks that there are lines, and she's terrified that crossing them will chase Cynthia away. And she doesn't want her to leave yet. 

After they're done, they walk out, and as the minutes blend into each other, Wumi finds that Cynthia has slipped her hands into hers. She thinks of how nice it feels. She can't remember the last time anyone held her. It feels good, she decides. It feels even better to be held by Cynthia.

DAY THREE

It's been four days since Wumi met Cynthia, and she hasn't stopped thinking about her. She hates that she had forgotten to get her number or some way to contact her. She has scoured all the apps she's active on in search of Cynthia, and her search has yielded no results. 

When she'd gotten home that day, her mother and siblings had looked at her weirdly, and when she'd asked why, her mother smiled.

“You look happy. And there's a smile on your face. I can't remember the last time I saw that.”

Wumi found that she couldn't remember the last time she had been happy either. 

DAY FOUR 

Perhaps the wheels turning the universe are working in her favor. Or something. Wumi doesn't know which it is. But she sees Cynthia again. She went back to the hostel over the weekend, and it's Sunday now. The hostel is half empty, with most of its occupants in churches. And she likes the quiet so she doesn't mind it. Her trash bin is filled up, and she goes to throw it outside when she sees Cynthia coming out of a car. She waves at whoever is in it, and the person drives off. Wumi thinks she sees her shoulders slump down, but she can't be sure. She's staring again. Cynthia turns around, and when her eyes meet Wumi's, a smile lights up on her face. Wumi thinks that she wants to imprint that smile in her mind forever. And she feels no. She wants to be the reason that smiles exist. 

“Oh my god. I never thought I'd see you again. I got home and discovered I didn't get your number and was so sad but I guess fate has some plans for us because here we are.” 

Here they were.

“I felt like that too. I can't tell you how seeing you made me. What are you doing here?” Wumi thinks it's strange that she has never seen her before if she lives in this hostel. Not even once. 

“I came to see my sister. I graduated last year.” Wumi nods. “Well, my room is room 213. In case you want to come over when you're done with your visit.” Cynthia smiles, and it's with teeth this time. And Wumi smiles back. Everything feels right. 

**********

It's been two hours, and she's anxious that Cynthia won't be coming to her room. Who offers their room number to someone like that? She thinks of all the ways she could have said it better. She feels the hate creeping in when someone knocks on her door. She startles, and then she moves to open it. Cynthia is standing there, and for a few seconds, they just stare at each other, their eyes boring into each other's souls. The string between them pulls taut, and Cynthia moves inside and locks the door behind her. And then her lips are colliding with Wumi's. 

She tastes like strawberry, and Wumi decides that she loves strawberries. They fall onto the bed and explore each other's lips with a meticulousness that would put a goldsmith to shame. 

Cynthia detaches for a few seconds to ask if it is okay with Wumi that she kisses her, and Wumi answers her by kissing her. She's thinking that it was worth waiting for. That she wouldn't have any other person give her her first kiss. Time ceases to exist and they don't know how long they keep going for. But they eventually separate, and they fall together on the bed. They're panting hard, and then they're laughing and then they're holding hands. Wumi feels the ring again, and she turns it in her hand.

“It's an engagement ring. I'm getting married in a month.” Wumi sits up and looks at Cynthia. There's a sad smile on her face, and a tear falls down her eyes. Wumi wipes it away, and she feels bad that she thinks Cynthia is breathtaking even when she's sad.

“I know you have questions. It's okay to ask them.”

Wumi only has one.

“Why?”

“I've always known I was lesbian. You know?” Wumi nods because she has too. She has always known that she didn't like men the way the women around her did. That her stomach had only ever flipped for the female protagonists in the movies. So she nods because she knows. “And the way I knew that, I also knew that I would end up marrying a man. My sister expected that I'd fight, that I'd tell our parents that my heart only beats for women. I mean, she was pretty passionate about it. She's the best ally a girl could ever ask for.” She pauses, and Wumi squeezes her hand. 

I'm here with you. You're safe. 

“I told her that I wasn't interested in finding love in places I knew didn't hold them for me. That I would never open myself up like that. I know that I'd never be happy with a man. But I'll be safe. And yeah, she called me a coward. And I admit that she's not wrong. But what's wrong with cowardice? I'm a woman and life is already hard enough for me. I do not wish to carry the burden of being a woman and queer because I know I might not survive it. And I want to live, you know? I want to live something of a safe life and if the price I pay for it is true happiness, then that's okay too.” Wumi doesn't know what to say to that. But she finds that she doesn't have to say anything. She leans down and kisses her. 

“Just for one time. I want to know what joy would have felt like for once.” And Wumi understands what she's asking for. The thing she has discovered herself the past few days is that if Cynthia had asked her to put her hand in a fire, she'd have done it without hesitation. So she gives her her body and her soul and her love. And when they crash, Wumi says the words. 

I love you.

I know.

DAY SEVEN

Home doesn't feel like somewhere she wants to run away from anymore, and Wumi wonders if something has shifted within her or if the world changed when she looked away from it. She knows the death of her father has been a tough pill for them to swallow, but they're surviving it. She thinks that maybe someday, they could live through it. 

She's sitting with her sister, and they're flipping through an old photo book of their father and his students. He had been a great teacher, and his album of photos with his students was their favorite thing to look at. She flips onto a page, and the world pauses around her. She thinks that she's hallucinating and rubs at her eyes, but when she opens it back up, the picture hasn't changed.

Her father is standing beside a student, and they share big smiles. It's Cynthia. She looks no older than sixteen. Her body is slimmer, and her eyes are brighter when she smiles. Below the photograph are random quotes and facts about Cynthia. And the last thing there is a tribute her father wrote for Cynthia. His words feel like a balm for her soul.

“Cynthia knows what I have to say but I'll say it again. She's afraid the world won't be able to handle her if she drops the mask and I do not agree nor disagree. I just want her to know that whatever she chooses in the end will be good and true. It doesn't make her a liar, or a falsifier. It just means she wants to survive. And maybe there's nothing wrong with that.”

Wumi knows that she's crying. And she knows that her sister is looking at her weird. But she cannot explain how she feels. She's been hurting for what feels like eons, and her father has just healed her with his everlasting kindness and wisdom. The words had been for Cynthia, but they might as well have been for her, too. There was nothing wrong with wanting to survive. Wumi intends to do more than survive; she wants to live.

Her mother enters the room, and when she sees her crying, she walks to her and pulls her into her chest. Wumi has missed the warmth of her mother's touch. She has missed the love that they shared before loss tore them apart. But she knows the love is still there. She just has to find it again. “Everything will be just fine. Everything will be just fine.” And for the first time in a very long time, she believes it.