Chapter Twenty-Three Six O’Clock
Three days after the garden, Jennie sat across from Lin Xing at his kitchen table, two mugs of tea between them, and found that she could no longer carry the uncertainty in silence.
They’d talked about everything else that evening — her childhood, his residency, the funny disaster of the dumplings — skirting carefully around the one subject that mattered most. But something in Jennie had reached its limit.
“Lin,” she said, setting down her mug. “I need to say something. And I need you to actually hear it, not just be kind about it.” He set down his own cup, giving her his full attention. “Go on.”
“I’m a sensitive person,” she said. “I’ve known that about myself my whole life.
These past nine months have been the happiest of my entire life.
Also, if I’m honest, the most confusing.
” He didn’t interrupt. He simply listened, the way he always did.
“I know you asked for time. I gave it to you, and I meant it when I said I would. But I can’t keep living in this — this waiting, indefinitely.
Not because I don’t trust you. Because I don’t think it’s good for either of us.
I’m not asking you to choose me out of guilt, or pressure, or because you feel sorry for how long I’ve cared about you.
” Her voice wavered, but she pushed through it.
“I’m asking for honesty. Whatever the answer is, I’ll respect it.
I promise you that.” She was crying now — properly, unmistakably, tears sliding down faster than she could wipe them away with the heel of her hand, and she kept going anyway, voice breaking and reassembling itself word by word, because she had promised herself she would finish this sentence if it killed her.
He was quiet, watching her, and his hand had moved halfway across the table toward hers before he stopped it.
“Two days,” she said. “That’s what I’m giving you.
Friday and Saturday, I’ll be on leave,” she continued.
“Saturday evening, I'll be at the Tim Hortons on Bloor. If your answer is yes — come find me there. If it’s no—’ her voice cracked slightly, but she held steady, “—don’t call.
Don’t message. Don’t come. I’ll understand. I won’t ask again.”
The silence that followed stretched long enough that Jennie began to wonder if she’d made a terrible mistake — pushed too hard, asked for too much, broken something delicate by demanding it be named too soon.
Then Lin Xing stood, slowly, and came around the table to kneel in front of her chair, taking both her hands in his.
“Jennie,” he said. “Thank you.” “For giving you an ultimatum?” “For trusting me enough to ask for clarity, instead of quietly disappearing the way most people would.” He held her gaze, steady and certain in a way she hadn’t seen from him before.
“I won’t give you an answer tonight. But I promise you this — on Saturday, you will have it.
The real one. No more hedging.” Jennie nodded, blinking back tears.
“Okay.” “Whatever happens,” she added softly, “thank you for making these months so meaningful. Regardless of Saturday.” He didn’t answer that directly.
He simply held her hands a moment longer, something working behind his careful expression that she couldn’t quite read, and then walked her to the door.
“Safe leave, Jennie.” “Goodbye, Lin.” The word came out heavier than she meant it to — not final, but close enough to feel the shape of finality, just in case.
Three floors up, Lin Xing read the message twice, then set his phone down and stood by his window for a long time, looking out at the city.
He thought about a boy named Marcus, and dinosaur facts he’d never corrected.
He thought about a hymn he hadn’t known he still remembered.
He thought about milk boiled on a stove and dumplings ruined on a ceiling and a saree crushed under a seatbelt on the worst-timed emergency of his career.
He thought, mostly, about nine months of a woman who had never once asked him to be anyone other than exactly who he was — and understood, standing there with the whole city spread out gold and grey below him, that his answer had actually been decided a very long time ago.
He’d simply needed the time to trust it.
He picked up his car keys from the table, checked the clock — 5:10 — and allowed himself, for the first time in longer than he could remember, a genuine, unguarded smile.
“I think,” he said quietly, to no one, “my heart has finally caught up.” At the door, he paused with his hand on the handle, the way he always paused at hers — one last second to be certain, out of nine months of careful habit.
But this time there was nothing left to weigh. He simply stood there a moment, letting himself feel the full, uncomplicated shape of being sure, before he opened the door. He wasn’t driving to Tim Hortons because he owed her an answer. He was driving because he already knew it.