On the way back, the lights outside the car slid past one by one, stretching into something like a drawn-out timeline.
Yeh leaned into the seat, not checking her phone, not trying to think, yet the details surfaced anyway, piecing themselves together bit by bit.
She replayed everything.
Lin had never once mentioned a partner, never defined anything clearly in any setting; all those assumptions Yeh had taken for granted had never actually been confirmed. And yet, because of that one line—I don't like women in real life—she had drawn the boundary for both of them in advance.
It wasn't a response. It was a precondition.
And suddenly, she understood—what stood between them had never been whether someone else existed. It was that both of them were too good at stepping back, too used to replacing clarity with assumption.
The realization didn't bring relief. There was no sense of so that's it, only a quiet, precise ache—nothing sharp, but constant, as if reminding her that some possibilities hadn't slipped away on their own; she had closed them early, herself.
If Lin really wasn't in any defined relationship, then all of Yeh's restraint—every step back, every moment of distance, every act of control—hadn't been passive at all. They were decisions she had made unilaterally, on the other person's behalf.
The thought almost made her laugh. She had always believed she was rational, measured, in control of boundaries, but in terms of relationship, she had only found a subtler way to end things before they ever began.
The car stopped at a red light. Yeh stared ahead for a moment, then pressed the thought down. She knew herself too well—if she let emotion lead now, if she started to confirm, to test, to move closer, she would fall back into that familiar pattern: once she invested, she would give more without noticing, expect more in return, carry more than her share.
She had been there before. She knew how it ended. She didn't want to go through it again.
So she forced herself to sort through the reality, one piece at a time: whether Lin's feelings matched her own in intensity, or were only a passing closeness; whether crossing that line would disrupt the stability they had already built; and more than anything, whether she would slip again into that role she knew too well—the one who gives more, bears more, and doesn't always receive the same in return.
None of these questions had answers. Even now—even knowing Lin was single, even with the assumption that had held her back now gone—she didn't move.
The car pulled forward, lights continuing to flow past. Yeh drew her gaze back, settling into the seat, as if placing everything back within something she could control.
And quietly, she told herself—
I can want you.
I'm just not sure I'm willing to take on everything that comes with making that real.