Chapter Sixteen The Party He Almost Missed
Sunday morning, Jennie’s twenty-sixth birthday arrived quietly, exactly as she’d wanted it to.
No fanfare. No calls at midnight. Just her, in her apartment, humming to herself while she made coffee, half-hoping and half-dreading that today would be the day he noticed.
He didn’t say anything at all when they met in the hallway on their way to church — greeted her the same as any other Sunday, and Jennie told herself, firmly, that this was fine, that she hadn’t wanted a fuss anyway, that the whole point had been letting it happen naturally or not at all.
By the time they walked home from lunch that afternoon, she’d mostly convinced herself.
Sophia: JENNIE. NOW.
Grumbling, she pulled a cardigan over her pajamas and took the elevator down to the small community room on the ground floor of Maple Heights — a space she’d walked past a hundred times and never once seen used for anything besides the building’s book club.
She pushed the door open. The room exploded into sound.
“Surprise!” Fairy lights strung across the ceiling.
A banner — clearly handmade, clearly Emma’s careful lettering — reading HAPPY BIRTH-DAY JENNIE.
Sophia and Emma at the front, both grinning.
A handful of nurses and residents she recognized from the ward.
Balloons in every color she loved. And there, standing quietly near the back, still in the same clothes from that morning, was Lin Xing.
“You—” Jennie pressed a hand to her mouth, tears already threatening.
“You all knew?” “Everyone knew,” Sophia said, delighted.
“You're a terrible secret-keeper, by the way. HR spreadsheets are public information.” “I specifically didn’t want a fuss—” “Too late,” Emma said, pulling her into a hug.
“Happy birthday, sweetheart.” Jennie laughed through unexpected tears, hugging everyone in turn, overwhelmed in the particular, good way that only real surprise could produce.
And then her eyes found Lin Xing again, still hanging back near the wall, watching her with an expression she couldn’t quite read.
She crossed the room to him. “You knew too,” she said.
“This whole time.” “I found out three days ago.” He glanced away, almost sheepish, an expression so unlike him it made her chest ache.
“I wanted to say something this morning. I decided against it. I thought—” He paused, choosing his words with unusual care.
“I thought it might mean more if you were surprised properly. I may have overthought it.” “You didn’t overthink it.
” Her voice came out softer than she meant it to. “It’s perfect.”
He reached into his coat pocket and produced a small, carefully wrapped box. “This is from me. Not the party — I had no part in organizing that, credit belongs entirely to Sophia and Emma. This is separate.”
Jennie opened it carefully. Inside sat a slim silver bookmark, engraved with a delicate line in the shape of a heartbeat, and beneath it, in small, precise letters: To Jennie — may you always find hope in every story you read, and every child you heal.
Her breath caught. “Lin.” “TIT noticed you always dog-ear your pages,” he said, a little quickly, like he needed to fill the silence before it grew too large.
“I thought perhaps a bookmark might be more dignified.” “This is—” She looked up at him, eyes bright.
“This is the nicest gift anyone’s given me in years.
” “I’m glad,” he said, quiet, clearly relieved.
“I wasn’t certain. I searched for a long time and found nothing that felt adequate.
” “This is more than adequate.” She closed her fingers around it. “I’m going to use it every single day.”
The party continued around them — cake, laughter, Sophia loudly insisting on a round of terrible karaoke that nobody agreed to but everyone eventually joined — and at some point, someone put on music with an actual beat, and Sophia dragged Emma and half the nurses’ station into an enthusiastically terrible group dance that had absolutely nothing to do with romance and everything to do with four glasses of punch and Sophia’s total lack of shame.
“Jennie! Get in here!” Jennie let herself be pulled in, laughing too hard to protest, and even managed to drag Lin Xing a few reluctant steps into the fray — not close, not a couple’s dance, just a man standing slightly stiffly among a circle of dancing nurses while Sophia attempted, unsuccessfully, to teach him something resembling rhythm.
“I don’t dance,” he informed the group, with the gravity of a man delivering a diagnosis. “You’re doing it right now,” Emma pointed out. “This is coerced movement. It’s different.”
Sophia cackled and spun Jennie instead, and for a few minutes the whole party dissolved into pure, silly chaos — no pressure, no meaning, just a room full of people who liked each other being ridiculous together, and Jennie, catching Lin Xing’s eye across the circle, thought that this, too, was its own kind of happiness, entirely separate from anything romantic at all.
Somewhere in the middle of it, Lin Xing found her again near the drinks table, both of them slightly removed from the noise, breathless from laughing rather than dancing.
“I owe you an apology,” he said. “For this morning.
Pretending not to know. It felt dishonest, watching you try so hard not to seem disappointed.”
“You don’t owe me anything. It was a good surprise.
The best kind, actually.” She smiled up at him.
“Though — for future reference. Next year, you’re allowed to just tell me you know.
” “Next year,” he repeated, something quiet and pleased crossing his face at the assumption folded into that word — next year, as though there wasn’t a version of this where he wasn’t still standing beside her.
“Next year,” Jennie confirmed, and meant it as more of a promise than either of them said out loud.
Later, after the last of the guests had gone home and Sophia had extracted a solemn oath that they would do this again next birthday with significantly better karaoke selections, Lin Xing walked Jennie the short distance back to their floor.
At her door, she turned to him, the bookmark still clutched in one hand. “Thank you,” she said. “For today.
For the bookmark. For letting Sophia plan an entire surprise party behind your back without ruining it.” “That last part was considerably harder than it sounds.” “I believe you.”
He lingered a moment longer than usual, something building behind his careful expression — the same look she’d caught glimpses of before, on the balcony, in the fitting room, over coffee about hearts noticing things minds hadn’t caught up to yet.
“Jennie,” he said finally. “I want you to know something.” Her heart stuttered.
“Yes?” His hand moved — just slightly, half an inch off his side, like it wanted to reach for her before the rest of him caught up and stopped it.
He opened his mouth — and then, audibly, visibly, decided against whatever he’d been about to say, the old walls rebuilding themselves right in front of her. “Happy birthday,” he said instead.
“I’m glad I was here for it.” He turned toward his own door before she could push further, leaving Jennie standing in the hallway with a bookmark in her hand and the unmistakable, aching certainty that she had just watched Dr. Lin Xing stop himself, at the very last second, from saying something enormous.
She didn’t chase it. Some things, she was learning, arrived faster when you let them come on their own.
They arrived, as it turned out, the very next day — ina hospital corridor, through a door left two inches open, to entirely the wrong set of ears.