Where my Heart Lies

His

Liam had become my family. I was so used to him, I had lost all sense of excitement and all those tingling sensations of my first love. He had become my water, plain water, like Sang Sang had to NingXue and what human, what alive human does not desire to have a bowl of spicy noodles? My heart was a traitor, and I might want to go back to the usual feeling of him loving me. He had given me the world I was in today. He had made me whatever I was. I stood here, it was all thanks to him. But in doing so, he always knew the risks. He was a calculating businessman. Of course he knew. The most fickle natured human minds are the riskiest bets. And he had lost it. I was the dice, and was it my fault? People say a game of luck it is, the die games- but in fact a dice is bound to it's own fate, it's own luck. Just like I was. In life, a path is shared by a companion, but can he stay forever? I don't know anymore. Ryan was my first love, and I had loved him far stronger, far more innocently and purely than I had loved Liam. So did it matter if he decided to choose me a little later than I wanted him to? Maybe it did. Maybe I should listen to my heart. But I was listening to my heart. And my heart wanted to be with him. No matter how selfish that was, I truly had wished him to love me back, for once, and for just once. And when he does, I can finally declare myself victorious.

***

Ten years later

Jessica Adams, an unmarried spinster, often found lurking alone in the woods, with no one to look after her, except that one rare call her emotionally distant mother would make to check whether she was alive anymore, lived with a happy smile plastered on her face at all times.

Besides her small apartment that she had rented all the while back when she passed on the responsibilities of her business ventures to someone 'capable', although she was not a fan of this person, she knew only they can handle what she had earned over the years and take good care of it, at the time when she had no purpose remaining in life, her favorite place to spend her remaining days of youth... or a middle aged woman was the railway station of NingYang, the village town city in China she had made home.

She worked as a full time writer now, and to her surprise, a famous one (that is if one were to look up her pen name) since she wrote and spoke in mandarin, so much so she wondered if she would forget english one day.

Since NingYang was a small place with not many people, the trains were mostly used to take the young children of the villagers to distant universities where they were expected to build a career, perhaps the very first generation in their families to achieve such a feat. That was once or twice a year, and not many trains thus stopped at the place. It was safe and friendly, and watching an youngster board a train that would take them to another phase in their lives was what made Jessica content. A little sad, yet intrigued. She would see them and think, "What rare possibility might this Little Yuan come across when she headed to the city?" Little Yuan was one of the kids who she had watched grow up. Being the only foreigner in such a remote, sparesly populated place meant everyone knew someone somehow. Amongst all the kids, Little Yuan was Jessica's closest aide. She resembled her in ways that were hard to comprehend, and so she liked her.

She stood a few steps back from her family as Little Yuan was being send off to college this year, to pursue her dream of becoming a lawyer. Her mother was crying hysterically, and her father patted her back with a proud face. They only had one daughter, and loved her with all they had.

Once she bid goodbye to her mom and dad, Little Yuan boarded the first stair of the train, as the signal had been given and it was time. The girl finally turned to look for Jessica, and waved at her with vigor as she finally moved away with the train.

Such was life, who knew what train they were currently on, and where that train would eventually take them?

Her family waited till the train went out of sight, then headed back for home.

It was late afternoon now, almost 4'o clock in the evening, to be precise. Jessica decided to do the usual and sit at the empty benches at the station, staring at the sky which was now covered in dark, gray clouds. It felt as if it would be foggy this winter night. It was about to rain, as any person with half a brain would tell you.

When the first droplet fell onto the ground, Jessica was brought out of her thoughts which had taken space in her empty mind with silent face. They died as fast as they were born; their graveyard the place they had taken birth in her very head. She got up quickly and looked around in the rising mist and drizzle, to look for the umbrella she had carried along, for it often rained out of context in NingYang.

The evening had almost become nightly, and this mist and rain in the lights of the station made it look like a transition between heaven and hell, or between heaven and the human world. It was nice, Jessica could write a poem perhaps, on what she saw.

But now she had to look for it. The umbrella. Perhaps she did not bring it along at all, she did not remember very clearly.

Out of desperation, she even bent and looked under the bench she was seated on. But no, it was not there. In anguish when she raised her head, her eyes caught a familiar pair.

This person had what she wanted, he stood in the rain with an umbrella. Although he stood under it, the man was already drenched from head to toe, which was strange since any 'person with half a brain' that lived in NingYang could testify, it did not rain that hard. Not till then, at least.

He stood a few meters away. His feet hidden in the mist now fog. But his eyes were clear.

This moment froze.

Like a snapshot.

Like a picture.

It was him.

Ryan.

***

'END'