The last time I saw Zhou Yiheng was at 1:40 AM.
The convenience store looked the same as always, the air conditioning blasting, the smell of oden mixed with coffee, the asphalt outside glistening after the rain.
He sat by the window, wearing the gray shirt I knew so well.
My first thought upon seeing him wasn’t anger.
It was that he had lost weight.
Pathetic, right?
A man who left you half-dead, who hadn’t properly contacted you for three months, who finally asked you out just to break up—and the first thing you think when you sit down is whether he’s been eating properly.
That’s when I realized some relationships are like drugs.
It’s not that you don’t know they’re bad for you.
It’s that you can’t quit.
“What would you like to drink?”
He asked.
I glanced at the fridge.
“I’m fine.”
“You used to always get a latte.”
“Not anymore.”
He paused.
It wasn’t that I didn’t drink lattes anymore. I just suddenly didn’t want one he bought.
People are strange like that. When you love someone, even a twenty-five-dollar coffee feels like tenderness. Once you decide you don’t, even him pulling out a chair feels unnecessary.
Zhou Yiheng kept his head down, hands clasped.
I knew that gesture too well.
He did it every time he didn’t know how to talk to me.
The first time was four years ago.
He told me he wasn’t ready for marriage.
The second time was two years ago.
He told me his ex-girlfriend had come back looking for him.
The third time was last year.
He told me he needed some space.
This time, he was probably finally going to finish the sentence.
I looked at him.
“Go ahead.”
He lifted his head.
“Do you have to be so calm?”
I almost laughed.
What else was I supposed to do?
Cry while hugging his legs in front of the store clerk?
We’re not twenty anymore.
The cruelest part about being an adult is knowing exactly when and where you’re allowed to fall apart.
“You didn’t ask me here just to stare at me, did you?”
He was silent for a while.
“I feel like this isn’t fair to you.”
I couldn’t help but laugh.
Really.
My laugh caught him off guard.
“Zhou Yiheng, did all you guys take the same class?”
“What?”
“When you break up, you all say the same lines—sorry, you deserve better, I don’t want to hold you back.”
He frowned.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?”
He didn’t answer.
I looked out the window.
It had started raining again.
Lightly.
So fine you could barely see it—only thin silver threads under the streetlights.
I had known for a long time.
The saddest thing for a woman in love isn’t being lied to.
It’s knowing the truth and still making excuses for him.
He doesn’t reply because he’s busy with work.
He doesn’t introduce me to his friends because he’s low-key.
He doesn’t talk about the future because his last relationship hurt him.
Time after time he put me last, and I kept telling myself he just needed more time.
Later I realized “needs time” is probably the most effective anesthetic in love.
It won’t kill you outright.
It just lets you stay alive a few more years in a relationship that has no future.
“She’s back, isn’t she?”
I asked.
His expression changed.
Just for a second.
But I saw it.
Four years is long enough to know when a man is lying.
“No.”
“Zhou Yiheng.”
“We’ve only been in touch.”
I nodded.
“Have you slept together?”
He jerked his head up.
“Do you have to say it like that?”
I stared at him.
“Strange—whose actions are more vulgar, yours or my question?”
He stopped talking.
I suddenly felt exhausted.
Not the kind that makes you want to cry.
It was as if a string inside me that had been stretched for years finally snapped.
With a soft sound.
And then everything went quiet.
The old me would have kept asking.
When it started.
How many times they’d met.
What she said.
Whether he still loved her.
What I even was to him.
But that night, I didn’t want to ask a single question.
Because I suddenly understood those answers couldn’t save me.
Knowing where they kissed wouldn’t make it easier to leave.
Knowing who he loved more wouldn’t give me back my four years.
I stood up.
He stood up too.
“Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“We’re not finished.”
I turned to look at him.
“Finished with what?”
“At least let me say what I came to say.”
“Fine.”
I sat back down.
“Go ahead.”
He looked at me for a long time.
“I really did love you.”
In that moment, my eyes almost filled with tears.
Not from being moved.
From anger.
I hated that sentence the most.
“Loved.”
As if once someone has loved you, they’re absolved of everything that came after.
Like leaving a bouquet beside a body after the murder.
And saying, see, I’m not heartless.
“You know what?”
I looked at him.
“I used to think that if I was good enough, you’d eventually choose me.”
His eyes turned red.
But I kept going.
“So when you were busy, I didn’t bother you. When you were in a bad mood, I stayed with you. When you said you were scared of marriage, I told you it was okay, I could wait.”
“I was even careful about getting angry.”
“Because I was afraid that if I wasn’t perfect, you’d leave me.”
He lowered his head.
I suddenly felt like the old me was a stranger.
How terrified that woman must have been of losing a man to shrink herself so small.
I used to think love meant tolerance.
Later I learned that without boundaries, tolerance easily becomes enabling.
And understanding someone doesn’t mean you have to bear every consequence for them.
“Yiheng.”
I called his name.
He looked up.
“I’m not waiting anymore.”
His lips moved.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
I picked up my bag.
This time, he didn’t stop me.
When I walked out of the convenience store, the rain had grown heavier.
I didn’t have an umbrella.
I stood under the awning and called a ride.
Three minutes.
I looked down and saw a message from Zhou Yiheng.
“Text me when you get home.”
I stared at those five words.
The old me would have cried.
Because that was the cruelest part about him.
He was never completely a bad person.
If he had been worse, I probably would have left long ago.
But he would buy medicine when I was sick, remember I didn’t eat cilantro, ask if I had an umbrella when it rained, and go silent exactly when I needed answers the most.
His tenderness was just enough.
Enough to make me stay.
But never enough to make me feel safe.
The car arrived.
I got into the back seat.
The driver asked, “Miss, is the air conditioning too cold?”
I shook my head.
“No.”
The phone lit up again.
Zhou Yiheng was calling.
I watched the name flash for a long time.
I didn’t answer the first time.
Nor the second.
When it rang the third time, I turned the phone off.
Then I cried.
Ugly crying.
Not the pretty tears you see in movies.
I cried and wiped my nose, mascara smudged everywhere. The driver glanced at me twice in the rearview mirror before quietly passing the tissue box to the back seat.
“Thank you.”
I pulled one out.
That night, I admitted something for the first time.
I still loved him.
I loved him very much.
But loving someone and still wanting to be with them are two different things.
I didn’t understand that before.
I thought you could only leave once you stopped loving.
So I kept waiting.
Waiting to be disappointed.
Waiting to give up.
Waiting for the day I could see him and my heart wouldn’t hurt anymore.
Later I realized it wasn’t necessary.
You can love someone and still leave.
You can miss someone and still delete their number.
You can want to call them in the middle of the night and instead flip your phone over and force yourself to sleep.
Quitting someone is never about suddenly stopping love.
It’s about loving them a little less every day.
The first day, don’t text.
The second day, don’t check their social media.
The seventh day, you still think of them when passing that restaurant.
The twentieth day, when a friend mentions their name, you can keep eating.
Two months later, while cleaning the closet, you find his shirt.
You pick it up and smell it.
His scent is already gone.
And strangely, you almost want to laugh.
Even scent is more honest than people.
When it’s gone, it’s gone.
Half a year later, I went back to that convenience store.
Same spot.
Same air conditioning.
I bought a latte and sat by the window.
A song I hadn’t heard in a long time was playing on my phone.
The man sang about trying and failing to quit someone.
I used to find it sad.
That day, I suddenly understood something else.
What’s truly hard to quit isn’t the lover.
It’s the habit.
The dependence.
The belief, after every wound, that next time he’ll be different.
The way you placed someone in your future for so long that when they leave, you can’t even see your own future anymore.
I took a sip of coffee.
It still tasted good.
Outside, someone ran across the street with an umbrella.
A couple was arguing.
Someone scrolled on their phone.
The city didn’t care who had just had their heart broken.
The world kept turning.
And suddenly, that felt like a good thing.
No one’s departure actually stops life.
Not Zhou Yiheng’s.
Not the years I once thought I couldn’t live without him.
The phone vibrated.
An unknown number.
I didn’t know if it was him.
And I didn’t care to find out.
I silenced my phone and kept drinking my coffee.
I used to wait for someone to turn around.
Later I realized what was truly worth waiting for was the version of me who finally turned around to look at herself.