London is the perfect place for goodbyes.
At least that’s what I thought later.
The city’s winter always brings early darkness. By four in the afternoon, the sky already looks like an old letter read too many times—gray with no room left for anything else. Streetlights flicker on one by one, the wet asphalt reflecting the red taillights of double-decker buses. Pedestrians hunch their shoulders as the cold wind scatters them from Piccadilly Circus onward.
Everyone is rushing somewhere.
Only those who are leaving feel time move especially slowly.
The day she left was at the end of November.
Heathrow was crowded.
The sound of suitcase wheels scraping the floor came in waves. The announcements kept repeating flight information. I stood in front of her, hands in my coat pockets. There were so many things I wanted to say, but in the end I only asked:
“You have your passport, right?”
She looked up at me.
“Yes.”
“Charger?”
“Yes.”
“Message me when you land.”
She was quiet for a few seconds.
Then she smiled.
“You always only say things like this.”
I smiled too.
I knew what she was waiting for.
I also knew that one more step forward and I could have held her.
One more sentence and I could have asked her to stay.
But I didn’t.
Sometimes people aren’t lacking courage.
They simply understand too well how much one sentence can change once it’s spoken.
She had already accepted the job in Singapore.
I still had to stay in London for my PhD.
She had asked if I wanted to go with her.
I had asked if she wanted to stay.
Neither of us had ever truly pushed the other.
In the end, love didn’t lose to a third person or because someone stopped loving.
It simply lost to two lives stretching in different directions.
Just before she went through security, she suddenly turned back.
I stood outside.
Glass between us.
She walked back and pressed her palm against it.
I reached out too.
Our hands overlapped through the cold glass.
Her lips moved.
“I’m going.”
I nodded.
In that moment I desperately wanted to kiss her.
But I couldn’t.
In the end, all I could do was watch her smile with red eyes through the glass.
This was probably the most helpless goodbye of my life.
Not even our last kiss ever truly touched her.
After she turned away, I stood there for a long time.
Until I couldn’t see her anymore.
Only then did I realize how quiet such a huge airport in London could become—until all that remained was the sound of my own breathing.
We met in London.
I was twenty-four that year.
She was twenty-three.
I studied economics; she studied architecture.
Our first meeting was at a small café near UCL.
It was raining outside.
London rain is different from Taipei’s.
It doesn’t pour all at once; it feels like someone sprinkling fine needles over the city all day.
She didn’t have an umbrella and stood at the entrance brushing water off her coat.
She had a shoulder-length bob and was carrying a large roll of drawings.
I held the door that was about to close for her.
She looked up and said, “Thanks.”
Later we discovered we were both Taiwanese.
She asked where nearby she could buy cheap household items.
I said Tottenham Court Road had some.
She said, “Can you take me there?”
I agreed.
And that’s how it began.
Only later did I realize that many important things in life often start in the most ordinary ways.
We rode the Northern Line together.
Changed trains at King’s Cross together.
Studied which milk was cheapest at Tesco together.
On winter evenings she often stood under the bus stop rubbing her hands; I would tuck them into my pockets.
She laughed and scolded me for having cold hands too.
I said then we’d be cold together.
When we were at our poorest, we only went to the supermarket once a week.
She calculated our food expenses while I carried the heaviest shopping bags.
On weekends when we had no money, we walked.
From Westminster all the way to South Bank.
Past the London Eye, past the little secondhand book stalls by the river, and finally sat by the Thames eating a box of cold chips.
She loved the Thames.
She said the most romantic part of London wasn’t the beautiful buildings, but standing on the bridge at eleven at night, watching the lights shatter across the water.
I didn’t understand.
“What’s so beautiful about something breaking?”
She rolled her eyes at me.
“You really have no sense of romance.”
Later I stood on that bridge countless times.
Only then did I finally understand what she meant.
Sometimes broken things aren’t ugly.
They just hurt when you look at them too long.
We watched many movies too.
Tickets at Leicester Square cinemas were too expensive, so we often went to smaller independent theaters.
She liked sitting in the back row.
Halfway through the film she would secretly rest her head on my shoulder.
I asked if she was even watching.
She said yes.
“Then what did the male lead just say?”
She couldn’t answer.
So she simply kissed me.
Back then I thought London was full of us.
Camden Market held the silver ring she bought after failing to haggle.
Notting Hill had the secondhand bookstore she loved.
Borough Market had the cheese she complained was too expensive but still bought.
Under an ordinary tree in Hyde Park, I first told her I loved her.
She laughed for a long time.
“Did you practice?” she asked.
I said no.
Actually, I had.
Practiced three times in the dorm.
After she left, I realized the hardest part wasn’t loneliness.
It was that the memories had nowhere to go.
The whole city knew her.
But I could no longer mention her.
Once after class, I saw a girl in a camel coat at Oxford Circus.
Her back looked just like hers.
I followed her for two blocks.
When she turned around, I realized it wasn’t her.
Standing in the crowd, I suddenly found myself ridiculous.
So many people on the street.
Everyone going somewhere.
Only I was still standing in place, looking for someone who had already left.
Two weeks after she left, I received her first message.
“Singapore is so hot.”
I smiled at my phone.
London that day was two degrees.
I replied:
“That’s good.”
She asked:
“How about you?”
I typed a lot.
I miss you so much.
I passed the bakery you loved yesterday.
Your cup is still at my place.
I haven’t been sleeping well since you left.
I even wake up in the middle of the night thinking you’re still beside me.
In the end I deleted everything.
And only replied:
“I’m okay.”
After a while she replied.
“That’s good.”
I stared at those three words for a long time.
Only later did I understand that some breakups don’t mean we stop caring.
They mean we start learning to pretend we’re fine.
What I feared most wasn’t that I missed her.
It was that she missed me too.
Once a mutual friend told me she got drunk.
Sat crying on her apartment floor in the middle of the night.
Kept saying “London.”
After hearing that, I said nothing.
When I got home I sat alone in the kitchen.
The heating was half broken.
The windows were fogged.
I opened my phone, wanting to call her.
The number was already dialed.
But I didn’t press call.
Because I suddenly didn’t know if I wanted to comfort her or simply confirm that she still loved me.
If it was the latter, that would be too selfish.
So I put the phone down.
London was very cold that night.
The wind kept blowing outside the window.
I suddenly thought: if she happened to be awake too, I hoped she wouldn’t think of me.
Hoped she had someone with her.
Hoped she could fall asleep when she was tired.
Hoped loneliness would pass her door without knocking.
Because I knew how much it hurt to miss someone you can’t return to.
As for me.
It’s fine.
I can handle it.
I’ve always been good at pretending nothing’s wrong.
Daytime: classes.
Meetings.
Editing papers.
Drinking with classmates.
Taking the tube.
Crushed in the crowd.
At night, slowly thinking of her all over again.
When spring came, London finally wasn’t so cold.
Cherry blossoms bloomed.
People started lying on the grass in the parks, sunbathing.
She sent a photo.
A cup of coffee.
No words.
But I knew what she wanted to say.
It was the kind we used to buy every morning.
I replied:
“Still drinking this?”
She replied:
“Old habits.”
I typed:
“Some habits aren’t good.”
She asked:
“Like?”
I looked at that sentence.
For a long time.
In the end I didn’t answer.
Because I was afraid of what I might say.
Like me.
In June I went to Brighton.
Alone.
We had talked about going together.
But we never had the time.
The wind by the sea was strong.
The sky was so blue it didn’t feel like England.
I sat on the pebble beach watching a couple arguing ahead.
The girl turned and walked away.
The guy chased after her.
Suddenly reached out and grabbed her.
They hugged.
I watched them.
And felt a strange envy.
We never argued like that.
We were too rational.
Too sensible.
Too respectful of each other.
So in the end, neither of us really held on to the other.
That night on the way back to London, I got off at Victoria Station.
The crowd was thick.
Some people carried flowers.
Some dragged luggage.
Some kissed.
Some cried.
I suddenly thought of the day she left.
The glass between us.
The kiss that never happened.
I finally admitted it.
I hadn’t let go.
I had simply turned love into a way of not disturbing her.
A year later, she came back to London for work.
We met at South Bank.
She had cut her hair short.
Wearing a coat I’d never seen.
The moment I saw her, my heart still skipped hard.
She walked over.
Smiling, she said:
“Long time no see.”
I said:
“Long time no see.”
We walked along the Thames.
Just like before.
Except neither of us touched the other.
When we reached the bridge, she suddenly stopped.
“How have you been?”
I said fine.
She nodded.
“That’s good.”
I asked her, “How about you?”
She also said fine.
I gave a small smile.
“Really?”
She didn’t answer.
The wind messed up her hair.
She looked down at the river.
After a long time she said:
“There was a while when I missed you a lot.”
My chest suddenly ached.
But I only asked:
“And now?”
She smiled.
“Much better.”
I nodded.
“That’s good.”
Really good.
I wasn’t being polite.
Nor was I forcing myself.
I genuinely hoped she would stop thinking about me.
Hoped she would meet someone more suitable.
Hoped that on every chilly night from now on, someone would close the window for her, make her tea, and talk with her.
Hoped loneliness would never come looking for her again.
As for me.
We reached the middle of the bridge.
She stopped and looked at me.
“Do you have any regrets?”
I knew what she was asking.
I thought for a long time.
“Yes.”
She looked at me.
“What do you regret?”
I said:
“I regret not kissing you at the airport that day.”
She froze for a moment.
Then her eyes turned red.
I smiled and said:
“But it’s fine.”
The Thames flowed slowly beneath us.
City lights came on one by one.
Big Ben’s chimes drifted over from afar.
London was still crowded.
The tube was still packed.
The cinemas still played other people’s love stories every day.
The streets we once walked hadn’t changed because someone left.
It turns out the world never stops for the brokenhearted.
In the end she gave me a hug.
Light.
Brief.
Yet far more real than the glass at the airport.
She said:
“Goodbye.”
I said:
“Goodbye.”
This time it was real.
After she walked away, I didn’t chase her.
I just stood on the bridge for a while.
I suddenly felt that the final thing you can do when you love someone might not be keeping them.
But even while you still think of them at night, still stop on some street because of a familiar back, still remember she never carried an umbrella when it rained in London—
you still hope she never loses sleep because of you again.
If only one of us can remember in the end,
then let that person be me.