The handlebars feel warm under her palms, smooth but worn like old memories. Elena tightens her grip, her gaze tracing the cracked lines along the riverbank as the twilight deepens into violet. The world has blurred itself again. Or is it her that blurs the world? Sometimes it’s hard to tell.

“You always overthink,” Liam says absently, walking beside her. His voice has that soft gravel tone, like the easy crumble of biscuits dipped in tea. His dark hair spills lazily into his eyes, and Elena resists the urge to mention it—again. Instead, she swings her leg over the seat, the old bike—一个简单的bike—toeing forward on the cobbled path that seems endless today.

“You think too little,” she finally fires back, but her voice is missing its usual spark of mischief. That absence doesn’t escape him. He studies her for a second too long, and Elena knows he’s doing it again: picking her shadow apart with invisible strings until he finds the corners she left folded for herself.

“I think just fine.” He quirks a crooked smile, jogging a little to catch up as she starts pedaling slowly, their pace meandering like a conversation neither wants to finish. The present folds and unfolds, each turn of the wheels like a fragment spooling into her mind.

Their arguments from last week echo faintly: his voice rising like the improbable flight of a bird, hers snapping low and flat, shattering even the hope of apology. Then, quieter moments, unspoken things—silhouettes on the grass that didn’t touch, words almost said. In the stream of her consciousness, Elena finds herself tangled not only in what was said but in what wasn’t.

The narrow path curves sharply, disappearing into the amber gold of tall reeds. She sees Liam pause and pull back slightly, his instinct protective. But she presses forward.

Here, in the labyrinth of reeds, the world suddenly softens. The grass whispers in the wind, telling secrets neither of them understand. She hears her own voice break through unexpectedly: “Liam, why did you come today?”

His foot kicks absentmindedly at a root. “I told you. You owe me a beer.”

“Right…” She looks over her shoulder at him, sharp as glass but weary. “That’s why you biked all the way here?”

“Walked, actually.”

“Still.”

He leans on a nearby tree, his dark jacket blending into the shadows. Something about him shifts, his normally teasing face flickering like tape fluttering on a windy fence. “You didn’t answer my message,” he says. The quiet weight in his voice makes the steady rhythm of her pedaling falter.

“I didn’t know what to say.”

“You could’ve just said what you meant.” His tone is disarmingly simple, almost too steady, yet every syllable digs in.

Elena hops off the simple bike now, her steps tracing uneven circles in the dust. Her hands fumble over her hair, her wrists—as though wiping unseen traces. “I … what does it matter?” The reeds part around her movements, framing her unease.

“You always do this,” he says, a thin thread of frustration unraveling in his words. “You push away what’s good before it can get bad.”

Something catches in her chest—a laugh, a sob, or both. “That’s because it always gets bad.”

He doesn’t chase her voice. Instead, he stands quietly, his shadow floating ahead of him. When he finally speaks, the softness is raw. “Not everything does.”

Elena turns towards him sharply. The twilight is slipping into night now, and his face is more silhouette than expression. She feels something in her heart reel back impulsively, afraid to show itself though it wants to. “You wouldn’t understand,” she whispers.

“Try me.”

Her gaze falls to the bike, this simple bike that carried her through summers of easier love, through bitter breakups and autumns of missed beginnings. Liam was always there—in the edges of the frame but never at the center. Until now.

She hesitates, then suddenly laughs, short and bitter: “What’s the point? People like me aren’t meant for people like you.”

And here the story loops—just as the arguments have circled endlessly, just as her heart seems to spin forever back to this one fear. But Liam leans too close this time, his hand brushing the rusted handlebars. His voice lands on her like an unexpected note—gentle but firm.

“I think you’ve got people wrong.”

The reeds don’t whisper anymore. The silence comes not like a void but like a promise. He nudges the bike toward her again and says, “Let’s go home.” She looks at him for a long moment, studying for the first time instead of deflecting. Then she swings her leg over the seat once more—and for once, she pedals forward with someone walking steadfastly beside her.