Mine

I came home late. The day had been ordinary. The streets were crowded. I hung my coat and stood in the kitchen. I opened the fridge. The soy milk carton was still there. I took it out.

My hand remembered the weight of the full one before my eyes found the empty. My hand remembered what I did not. It had known the carton the day I bought it. It knew it still.

It was the brand my mother’s kitchen used. I knew it. I did not know why. My hand knew the tilt, the pour, the glass on the counter. I did not remember the kitchen. My hand did.

The grief was there too. Patient. It asked for nothing. It was the same weight it had been on the day it arrived. I had stopped asking where it came from.

I put the carton back and closed the fridge. The static was already in the room. It had been growing for days. I had stopped trying.

The earbuds were in the drawer. I did not open the drawer. The boy came whether I listened or not. Lately I listened.

I sat on the couch. The light was off. The static swelled until it was the only sound. The city was below. I could not hear it.

He had never tried to say something this big. Before, he gave me pieces. “Fourteen.” “The day I stopped—” “You were born on it.” Tonight he was trying to give me the whole thing.

“You. I made—”

He stopped. The static held. I sat very still. The room waited.

“You were supposed to—”

He could not finish it either. The words were big. They broke before he could say them. He pushed. The static thickened. The words would not come. He wanted it said whole. He could only give pieces.

I waited. He had all of my attention. He knew it.

“Made me,” I said.

The words were true. I had known it for days. I had not wanted to hear them said.

“To run,” the boy said. “So I could go. I’m—”

He tried again. The static dipped. He did not finish. The want was there. The words were not.

The static thinned. I thought the night was over. Then the air changed.

White tiles. Small. Close. A sink. Water running. The wall is there. It is close enough to touch. The water runs and runs.

Then the flat was there again. The couch. The dark. My hands on my knees.

I understood. The wall at the underpass. It was a bathroom wall. I had walked past it for years. The drip ran sideways, so the damp never dried. I had seen it and not seen it. I had known it as the wall with the drip. I had never known what was behind it. Now I did. The sideways drip had been the tap. The water had been running for thirteen years. It had been his water.

He had shown me his wall from inside. It was the only way he could say it. For one second I had been inside it. I did not want to go back.

I sat in the dark. The boy made me to run. I had not known I was running. I had thought I moved here for the job. Maybe I moved here to run.

He was quiet for a long time. I thought he had finished. He had not.

“Give it back,” he said.

I waited.

“The—”

He could not name it. The body. The life. The name. He had no word for any of them.

“Mine,” he said. “It was mine.”

The claim stayed in the room. The static went quiet. The flat was silent. The fridge hummed.

It was the first thing he had claimed. Everything else he had only shown.

I had nothing to give back. I did not know what he wanted. He did not either. He only knew it was his. The rest of it he could not say.

I did not sleep. I did not move until the sky was light.

Wednesday. The last office day before the trip home. The trip was in a few days. It would mean my mother’s kitchen. I had not thought about it.

The alarm went. I got up, showered, dressed, left. The streets were full. Chen Wei said good morning when I came in.

The day passed. We had both been quiet all day.

In the afternoon Chen Wei stood at the window. He stood there a long time. I thought he was watching the street. When he turned, his face was careful.

“Zhang Hao. Are you okay?”

He asked it plainly. I looked up from my phone. “Fine. Long week.”

He nodded. “Get some sleep.”

He went back to the window. That was all. He did not say anything else. He said what he noticed once and let it go. That was Chen Wei.

I looked down at my phone. The screen was dark.

I packed my bag and left with the last of them. The street was emptying. The underpass was on the way home. It was darker than the street. It always was. I walked through it. The wall was there. The drip ran sideways. It was still his water. I knew the other side of it now. I walked on.

Home. The stairs. The door. I unlocked it. The light was off. I stood in the dark. The fridge hummed. The carton was in there. I left it. The static was not there. I listened anyway. He had said his piece. He was waiting.

The calendar was on the wall. The circled date was still there. October 14. It was the only mark on the calendar.

He made me to run. He wants it back — the body, the life, the name. He could not say what he wants. He showed me the wall instead.