Page 66 of The Other Side of Apart

“What are you doing here?” she asks, her smile shining right on me. “And what happened?” She points to my brace.

With superhuman effort, I haul my voice up from its depths of despair. “Uh, I live here. Now. As of two days ago. But just for now. Just until next semester starts. Hopefully. Looking for a place. I…had surgery.”

Tavah tilts her head. “I thought you were at Stanford.”

The statement punches me—lays my mind out cold. But before I can pick up my brain and slap it back to life, the front door opens again, and a wave of relief that Johnny’s home crashes over me.

But it’s not Johnny. And he didn’t warn me that Lin was included in the “people coming over”.

She flings the door shut and turns around, and when her eyes sweep across me, they crash land on my face. The impact jolts me so hard I bolt for the bathroom, limping and hobbling until I slam the door and ease onto the closed toilet. I lean forward, breathing in and out, and the swell of nausea subsides. I have to get away from girls who aren’t my wife but are too much a part of her. Away from silence that leads to memories. I want the memories, just not with Tavah and a bunch of girls watching me. Not with Lin and all the questions she’ll ask that are so much bigger than the ones I want to ask her. Like if she knows where Mei is.

I’m three blocks from The Clubhouse. My leg is throbbing, my armpits are screaming from the crutches, and I’m breathing like an eighty-year-old lifetime smoker. Or maybe it’s anxiety from being back in Chinatown. I thought being here would freak me out way less than being at Johnny’s, surrounded by girls who aren’t Mei. I was wrong. I’m being violently reminded why I moved to Johnny’s a few days ago.

Dad had called in the middle of my meltdown, and I’d answered. He’d called to catch up and invite me to Sunday dinner, but I told him I wanted to drop by tonight instead. His voice had gone from shock to excitement. I’d gotten out of Johnny’s apartment as fast as I could, telling the gawking girlshanging out in the kitchen that I had an appointment as I’d hobbled past them, Lin on my heels trying to talk to me until I shut the door in her face.

I stop my desperate pilgrimage to The Clubhouse when I round the corner and see Zhang’s. But it’s not Zhang’s anymore; it’s a breakfast place I hadn’t noticed in my post-Indiana, post-Mei, painkiller haze.

I stand on the sidewalk, watching people walk through the door. The croissant sculptures in the window display don’t even know they’ve shoved a part of my life completely out of existence. I wanna limp through the door and yell at someone for not leaving one freaking piece of my life where it belongs, but a voice I wasn’t ready to hear calls to me. I look around and meet a pair of familiar eyes and a smile that squeezes my heart.

“Marcus Miller, I have missed you so, boy.” This woman looks like Guo and sounds like Guo, but it can’t be Guo. It’s a different old woman sitting in a wheelchair outside the shop where there used to be a bamboo chair.

“It seems we are very different than the last time we saw each other,” Guo says, motioning toward my leg. She sets her forearms on the arms of the wheelchair like it’s an old friend.

I can’t find my voice; it took off at the sight of her. Finally, I manage to gather enough of it to form two audible words. “What happened?” I rasp and cautiously move forward to take her hands. “Guo?”

“Ugly Chao happened. Though he wasn’t brave enough to do the job himself, of course, so he sent another ugly man to break my knees. He didn’t get what he wanted and threw a fit about it.” She holds my hand, letting out a long sigh. “But I think you must know what he wanted his ugly men to do because he tried the same on you, yes?” She searches my face, but I look away. “I am so sorry, boy.” She blinks up at me but I’m frozen, informationslamming against me. “Tell me everything. Why you are back. And where is Mei Li?”

What am I supposed to do? Sit and cry to Guo who’s in a wheelchair because of Mei and me? Given the chance, I’d kill Nick for what he did to Guo, then kill him again for what he did to us. I shake my head. Look at the cement, my eyes following the spiderweb of cracks. “She’s fixing her life. Without me. So I’m here. Starting a different one, I guess.”

Guo studies her lap. “Do you know where she is?”

I shake my head. “No. Do you?”

Guo doesn’t answer my question but asks another. “So she is alone somewhere?”

“Yep.” Makes two of us.

“That’s not good.”

“Nope,” I say, barely a whisper. “Guo, I…unless you know where she is, I don’t wanna talk about her.”

She smooths my hand but won’t look at me. “I do not know where she is.”

I want to go back to when I knew—all the way back. Rewind time and walk by this shop, talk to Guo about my day, and steal looks at Mei’s window, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. I want to leave notes for her again and wait for the text telling me she got them and can’t wait to see me after school. I want Guo to tease me and have functioning legs and all the answers like she used to. I could use a whole pot of her tea, laced with everything she’s got that will take me away and make me forget.

“But I do know one thing,” she says.

My head snaps to Guo, my spiraling thoughts suspended on their way down. “What?”

She taps the arm of her wheelchair. “She could never stay away from you.”

My jaw clenches. “She’s done a great job of it. For almost two weeks. No call, no text, nothing. A few vague words scribbled on an envelope saying she was out.”

Guo nods, silence weaving between us when what I want is answers from someone about where Mei is and why. I know I said things. I know my words hurt her, but to leave? I’ve never once considered leaving her, no matter how frustrated or hurt I was.

I turn from Guo so she can’t see the tears in my eyes. I get myself under control and turn back to her, but a woman inside the shop distracts me. For a second, I swear it’s Mei, and my body jerks to a stop. But then the woman turns. Not Mei. Of course not. Mei’s out there somewhere, far away from here and me. Somewhere Nick could find her.

I look away, and all I can see is Guo in her wheelchair and this once-familiar street that feels tilted and empty despite the crowds and cars. My old bedroom window, the invisible trail I wore in the sidewalk between Mei’s apartment and mine, mentally and physically. The only thing I don’t see is Mei, but something inside me builds. The woman in the shop wasn’t her, but Mei’s out there somewhere. She can’t leave me with only a note that says nothing. I wanna ask her why. Talk to her. Apologize. Work things out or make her tell me we’re over to my face.

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