Page 42 of Never Thought I'd End Up Here
Our raft lurches off the shore, and I can’t tell if the swooping in my stomach is from the rocking motion of the waters as we drift downstream, or from the way his words settle inside me.
Bamboos lean their bodies out from either side of us, their leaves skimming the surface, and the river is so clear it resembles liquid glass, reflecting all the other rafts up ahead, their shapes merging together at the edges. I can see Oliver and Daisy laughing over something; two of the girls risking everything to snap pictures, shrieking when their fingers slip and their phones almost tumble into the water; Sean leaning against his teammate’s shoulder, both of them staring out at the scenery as if mesmerized.
When joy arrives, it catches me off guard.
It sneaks up slowly through my rib cage like poppies pushing through soil after the rain, and then it’s there, everywhere, warmth beating in my chest, spreading down to my fingertips as I sink back in the sunlight. It’s like I’m thawing. I’ve always been used to happiness in snatches—happiness that felt stolen, happiness that was hard-won, happinessbecause. I was only happy when someone said I was pretty, when I booked a new job, when a stranger approved of me, and then I would go home and feel the happiness seep out again, leaving behind a hollow pit in my chest.
This happiness though—it’s new. It stays without asking for permission. It simply exists, like the water and the sky.
“What are you smiling at?” Cyrus asks me.
Nothing, I want to say.Everything.
I just shake my head, the breeze flowing past me with the river. In my peripheral vision, I can see the sun lighting up wild strands of my hair, turning it a brilliant fire-gold.
When I agreed to the trip, all I’d wanted was to run away: from the threat of the future, from everyone who expected something more from me, from the grave in my backyard where my potential had been buried, from the sadness that had leaked through my bedroom walls.
But this doesn’t feel like I’m escaping—it feels like I’m returning. Like I’m reaching back in time for the person I used to be, before the tears stained my pillow and the blisters split my feet. The little girl who didn’t wince at the sound of her own laughter, who plucked wild daisies and braided them in her hair, who saw a secluded garden and imagined hidden realms, who wore sparkly tiaras and waved around heart-shaped wands, picked out dresses because she loved the color pink and not just because she liked how the material clung to her body. The girl I was, the girl I had forgotten. Not an ignorant foreigner, but someone wandering through new, familiar cities.
I’m here, I think to myself again, yet what I really mean is:I’m home.
***
The longer I stay in this country, the more words I collect.
It happens naturally, as if they’ve been hidden in the corners of my mind this whole time, waiting for me to brush away the dust. I’m staring out at the mountains beyond the city, their highest peaks painted indigo and softening with distance, when I remember the charactershan, followed by the characters forriversandlakes. When a stray dog comes bounding up to us in the streets and I crouch down to stroke the soft, dappled fur on its belly, the wordkeaiforms on my lips, containing within it the same character for love. I learn how to saytao yan, for “annoying,” when Cyrus bumps against my shoulders on the escalator or steals the mango jelly from my bag at lunch, and I say it to him so often that soon it’s as familiar to me as his name. I learn how to pay byzhifu, with a tap of the phone, and how to ask for more space by shoutingrang yi rangin every crowd, and how to ask for more time. I learn the difference betweenhai shui, for “seawater,” andhe shui, for “drinking water,” when I accidentally ask for the former at a restaurant and the waitress offers me nothing but a bewildered look in response. I learn thatshuiitself can be used as an insult, but only if there’s too much of it. I learn plenty of insults and curses, thanks to the boys at the back of the bus. Under Oliver’s unwanted influence, I learn a dozen pickup lines, all of which are so nauseating I do my best to forget them immediately after.
The wordguimi—“best friend”—unfurls in my mind one evening while Daisy and I are making friendship bracelets on the carpeted floor of our hotel room, the shiny beads she’d bought at the market scattered between us. The wordkaixin—“happiness”—trickles sweetly down my throat like the snow pear and rock sugar soup we were given for breakfast during our last day in Anhui.
And the wordmei, for “beautiful,” finds its way to me as we wander deeper and deeper into a bamboo forest. It’s the kind of beautiful that sneaks up on you. One moment we’re batting away leaves from the overgrown shrubbery, grumbling about the wet grass and the mud and the steep, uneven paths, and the next moment I gaze up and my breath catches. The late-afternoon light prickles through the foliage, and thousands of bamboos curve elegantly forward over a lake, their reflections blurred and distorted like watercolor. The lake itself is such a vivid, crystal blue it hardly seems real.
It feels like a scene straight out of the wuxia films my dad loves to watch after work. It wouldn’t even surprise me if someone in billowing robes were to leap out from the clouds right now, sword swishing in hand; this place seems made for assassins and empresses and heroes from legends.
“You’ll each be given an instant camera for the next activity,” Wang Laoshi tells us, speaking at only half his usual volume, like he doesn’t want to disrupt the peace. He sets his duffel bag down on the forest floor and begins unpacking the cameras, passing them from one person to another. “Feel free to wander around and take photos, but don’t walk too far from the group. We’ll all meet back here in …” He glances at his watch. “Let’s say an hour. Once you’re done, you and your teammate will need to pick out five photos to submit to me by tomorrow morning. The team with the best photo will win—and they’ll get to keep their instant cameras as the prize. Got it?”
Quick, eager nods from the group. Compared to all the contests so far, this one actually sounds pretty relaxing—or at least there doesn’t seem to be a significant risk of tumbling off a cliff.
The second Oliver gets his camera, he holds it up and turns it around to take a selfie. There’s a soft whirring sound as the photo rolls out.
“What?” he says when he catches everyone staring at him, our judgment pronounced in the silence. Wang Laoshi appears one impulsive move and forgotten Teacher’s Code of Conduct away from snatching the camera back.
“There must’ve been a gross misunderstanding—I don’t believe the teacher was asking for photos ofyou,” Cyrus says, voice flat. He’s grabbed two cameras, and without a word, he walks over to me and presses one of them into my hand. “It’s meant to be a photography contest. A form of art.”
“My faceisart,” Oliver counters without missing a beat, shaking the photo in the air. “It deserves critical acclaim. Don’t you agree?”
Cyrus’s brows rise. “Well—”
“I wasn’t asking you; I was asking Leah.” Oliver turns to me. “Don’tyouthink my face is art?”
I search between them for the best response, my eyes flicking from Cyrus’s unimpressed scowl to Oliver’s expectant grin. “Art is subjective,” I say diplomatically.
“So: no,” Cyrus tells him.
“So: yes,” Oliver says, and moves closer, his white sneakers crunching over the fallen leaves. When he’s only a foot away, he lowers his head a little and winks at me. “Feel free to take a closer look if you aren’t convinced.”
I hold up my camera to block the space between us. “You’re getting in the way of my shot, Oliver.”
“You wound me.” He presses both hands to his chest and gasps, as if he’s really suffering from a fatal strike to the heart. “Does our love mean nothing to you? Don’t you know how I feel about you?”
