“Two and a half years later, we sit across from each other. How are you? You ask. Well. I say. What I want to say is: I don’t really know what I’m doing here. Or, rather, you haven’t changed a bit. Or, you look exactly the same as on the day you left. I am stuck between keeping my distance and treating you the way I used to. Letting down my guard completely. It is so easy to slip into. But I could never do it if you didn’t do the same. We swap stories; updates. Everything seems so superficial. I don’t dare ask if these days you are happy. Though, I hope that you are. I tell you that I’m moving to a different city next month. You comment on the different colour of my hair. I don’t tell you that sometimes I still think about the way that you left. That it still colours my relationships; that I still worry that some happinesses are too good to be true. You tell me that your parents are getting divorced. You’ve finally realised that love never lasts. I don’t say anything. I have no evidence to the contrary. Yet, after a while, I say I think you’re wrong. You shrug your shoulders and let it fill the silence. Once, we would have argued for hours. As you stand to leave, I realise that I am no longer in love with you. I no longer know you. You are a stranger in a familiar body. And yet I do not recognise your hands. If you touched me now, I do not know whether it would feel like fire or ice. Maybe both. Maybe neither.”
— Sue Zhao // Meeting somebody you loved after a long time
