There is silence. It is entirely underwhelming against the clattering of my heart against my ribs, and I knock again, simply because I don't know what else to do. I would wait, I tell myself. I would wait until she opened the door.
The wood felt strange beneath my knuckles; I've never once had to knock before, but the key that once nestled against the pockets of my jacket was long gone, and I was nothing but another stranger.
Still, there is no answer. I know she is home, I ration to myself, because Qianqian rarely ever stepped foot outside anymore. She was satisfied with the life of being a housewife, a lie I told myself over and over again to soothe the guilt in my stomach. It was a lie then, and it was surely a lie now.
I will wait, I promise myself again. This is the least I could do.
It is strange, the way everything looks different and yet the same. The doorframe is just as chipped, but there are flowers growing in pots alongside our windows that I've never seen before. The giant oak tree still lumbers over the yard, but its branches have been trimmed and neatly cut, something that we never had before. If I close my eyes and try hard enough, I'll just be returning from work, just as I did, so many years ago. But, I know that no matter how much I want it, no matter how hard I try, I'll never have that again.
The door creaks open, slower than I've ever heard it. My heart stills.
It's her.
The first thing I think is that she looks the same as I remember her. I can't help but feel a rush of relief – she's not a stranger. I remember the curve of her cheeks and the bow of her lips, and I haven't forgotten her entirely.
There's a gasp, and stupidly, I realize that it's me. I close my mouth, trying to take her appearance in.
She's definitely older. There's a solemn set to her face that I've never seen before. Even in the darkest of times, she's tried her best to keep a smile on her face. Now, she stares at me passively, mouth set in a thin line, eyes gazing at something far away. The only indicator of her emotion is the twitching of her fingers by her side, a habit I noticed since we were teenagers.
Thank god she hasn't changed.
"Qianqian, I-" I start, before the door slams shut in my face.
Confusion sets. Then, panic. Then, anger. Then panic again.
She wasn't supposed to do that. What? Her face was supposed to light up in joy, she was supposed to run over and leap into my arms and I would bury my face in the crook of her neck and everything would be right again.
Maybe she's mad. She probably is, I made her wait, after all.
"Qianqian, wait!" I don't care that I'm yelling, I run to the door, pounding my fist on it.
"Please! Qianqian, let me explain. I'm sorry I've been gone for so long, I'm back now, I promise."
Still, nothing. Desperation is beginning to make my hands shaky, and there's nothing I can do except keep pounding on the door, even as it begins to splinter in my hand.
"I love you, please. Please let me talk to you. I've missed you so much." I'm practically begging at this point, and I'm sure our neighbors can hear me, but I've stopped caring at that point.
Finally, the door opens again, and yet I can feel my stomach drop.
She stares at me, deadpan. Her face is just the one I fell in love with, the house is exactly as I remembered it, smelling of wet rice and something comfortable, but when I look in her eyes, it's as if I'm looking at a stranger.
She's angry now, if she wasn't before. Her eyes drill into my head, and there is nothing except the sound of her breathing, far too methodical to be natural.
"Come in. Keep your shoes on. Do not sit anywhere." She orders, and I feel my intestines twist.
The way she speaks – it's so cold. There's an undercurrent of fury, something simmering and bubbling, and I'm beginning to realize that I may have to do a lot more begging than I realized. Still, I do as she says.
"Before you start," Qianqian cuts me off the moment I open my mouth. "I do not want to hear you say that you love me ever again. I do not want to hear that you missed me. I do not want to hear a single word from you, do you understand?"
Somehow, I fear that speaking is going to increase her wrath, so I just nod. Of course my wife is angry, I've been such a bad husband. But, I can fix this. I know I can.
"I don't want you to come here and lie to my face, all over again." Qianqian continues, voice growing in volume. Her hands tremble at her sides, where they've clenched into fists. I watch the way she digs her fingernails into the palm of her hand, watch how her face twists into something cruel.
She exhales, slow and steady, like she is explaining something simple, something obvious. "I know what you did. I know about Isabelle. I know about your pathetic little dreams of moving to America."
The room is too quiet.
I wonder if I'm going to faint, from the way that I can feel my blood rushing to my head. From the way that suddenly, I feel as if I'm going to throw up.
I open my mouth, but no words come out.
She knew. The whole time. How?
I want to ask her. I want to tell her that it's a lie, that I just got in an accident. That I missed her and that I came back for her. Something tells me that she wouldn't believe me.
"Do you know how long I waited?" She's yelling now. "How long I sat at this stupid dinner table, waiting for you to come back? Do you know how foolish I was, hopelessly waiting night after night, thinking you would come back? I knew the whole time, Taihan, since the beginning. I know about your nights out to see her. I know about your walks with her. I know how you drink at the bar with her."
I don't know what to say. This was not how it was supposed to go.
"Why did you never say anything?" I manage to ask instead, and it comes out garbled, as if I was drowning. Maybe I am, from the way I can't breathe.
"Why did I never say anything?" Qianqian repeats with a hiss, voice turning dry as if she were mocking me. "I didn't think I would have to beg you to not cheat on me. I have more than enough face to do that. If you want to go ruin your future, shatter our family, leave behind everyone who has ever cared for you for some cheap girl that you met, be my guest."
I want to defend myself. Say that I didn't mean it like that. But I can't, not in the face of her anger.
"Bella isn't a cheap girl," I begin to argue, and immediately stop at the anger emanating off of Qianqian.
Then, she begins to cry. It's silent tears that gather at the corner of her eyes before trickling down. First, it's barely any, but then she begins to wipe at her eyes with the corner of her sleeve with enough force to make me wince, and they keep coming.
"This entire time, I wanted to ask you why I wasn't enough." It's spat out, like something vulgar and dirty. Even when she's crying, her words are more than articulated.
"Why I wasn't enough for you to stay. Why I wasn't enough for you to try and fight for us. Why you had to leave. Why you had to give up on us." She keeps going, beginning to pace back and forth.
I begin shaking.
"Taihan, I remember every single thing you said. The first time you asked me to be your girlfriend, you said you wanted to be with me forever. Our wedding vows. Everything."
It feels like a lifetime away, when I said those things. From the look on Qianqian's face, I can tell she knows how I feel.
"You were the one who asked to marry me. You were the one who promised me to stay forever. You were the one who held my hand, you were the one who wiped my tears when I cried in your arms. You were the one who baked me cookies, you were the one who walked across town when I got hurt just to carry me to the hospital. You were the one who said you loved me more than anything else." I can barely understand what she's saying at the end, from how hard she's crying.
They're shoulder-wrenching sobs, ones that she tries her best to contain. She turns away from me, furiously wiping her eyes and sniffling.
"If any of that was true, why did you have to leave? Why did you have to be a liar, Taihan? Why did you have to leave me? If anything that you said was even remotely true, you would never do this to a person you loved."
Instinctively, I step forward to hold a hand out, to try and hug her, because seeing her in this state sends stabbing pains through my chest. All she does is bat my hand away, flinching and backing away.
Her face is filled with a mix of hatred and…terror. Her eyes are runny, crystalline tears reflected against an angry red, but stretched wide open. She's scared.
"Even after all of that, I can't hate you." She spits out, shaking her head. "You know what a weak, spineless person I must be, to have loved you so much that I couldn't even hate you for what you did to me?"
Selfishly, I feel a sense of relief again. She doesn't hate me. She doesn't hate me.
"I hate what you did to me though. You made my worthless life feel like something important. You made my dumb dreams feel like something meaningful. You brought so much color in my life, Taihan. You showed me how good it could be. You know how long I spent, feeling as if everything was pointless. That I would never get anywhere? You know how I felt before I met you, you know that you were the first person that ever stayed in my life. You promised you would stay. And what did you do?" She pauses to take a long, ragged breath.
"You left. You showed me so much color, only to take that all away from me. How dare you love me, how dare you show me how good the world can be, only to leave? Was I not pretty enough for you? Was I not a good wife? Did I not love you enough?" She demands, taking a step towards me.
"I waited so long. I spent so long agonizing over everything. I spent the last month of our time together knowing you were going to leave. Yet stupidly, stupidly hoping that you would've stayed anyway. Because deep down, I want you to be the boy I fell in love with. The boy I loved would have never done this to me. The boy I loved would have never left, the boy I loved would have done anything to stay together."
"I know I messed up," I start, and I can feel tears pooling in my own eyes. The extent of how I've messed up is sinking in, and I was so stupid, thinking that I could've just thrown her away.
"I know you did too. And don't you dare beg for my forgiveness. Don't you dare show your face around here after you left. I don't want to hear whatever idiotic excuse you pull from thin air. I want you to take your stuff, get out of my house, and never talk to me again."
She counts out every demand on her fingers, and even with teary eyes and red nose, she stands tall, glaring at me in a way I could've never expected her to.
Helplessness wracks my bones. I don't know what to do. I can't do anything but stay. I don't have anywhere else.
She stares me dead in my eyes. "Go, before I call the police and tell them there is a stranger in my house who won't leave."
Somehow, I believe her threat.