When I finally reached the threshold of my tiny apartment, I stopped. Bella's gift was tucked tightly under my arm, and the thought of opening it inside – of facing Qianqian and her quiet, understanding eyes, felt unbearable.
I turned around, swallowed the knot in my throat, and made my way down the narrow, trash-strewn street. My feet carried me without thought until I reached the first motel I could find. It was an old, decaying structure, its faded neon sign flickering weakly in the smoggy night like a dying ember struggling to stay alive. The words "The Golden Lotus" flashed intermittently, a sad imitation of luxury. There was nothing golden about this place – other than its cracked, yellow walls, with paint peeling like old skin.
I pushed open the rusted metal door, warped by years of heat and rain. The lobby was dim, lit only by the soft, sickly glow of a single overhead bulb. The air inside smelled stale, like mildew. The receptionist, an apparition with graying hair and hollow eyes, barely lifted her head as I paid in a few coins.
"Room 134," She mumbled, gesturing to her left.
I nodded and hurried towards it, eager to escape the lobby.
The room was exactly as I expected: a sterile, forgotten corner of the world where nothing had changed in decades. The bed was a sagging, lumpy thing, with a thin, threadbare blanket draped over it like a shroud. The wood of the desk was chipped, its surface scarred by years of abuse, its drawers crooked and stubborn.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, careful not to touch the suspicious-looking spots on the sheets, I held Bella's gift in my hands. My fingers hesitated on the knot before untying it gently, careful not to tear anything. The paper rustled like dry leaves caught in a cold wind as I peeled it back to show a small wooden box.
The lid creaked open, revealing a delicate jade pendant nestled on a bed of faded red velvet. The stone was carved into the shape of a lotus flower, flawless, without the cloudy imperfections that marked the cheaper stones sold in street markets.
I lifted the stone to the light, staring in mesmerization at its clear veins and artful craftsmanship. It was clearly expensive – much too expensive for a mere seamstress to afford, let alone give to a man she had only met once. Not with the wages that came from hemming skirts and mending torn sleeves.
This was something else completely – a gift that didn't belong in this crumbling motel, and most certainly not to me. I swallowed down my guilt. It was wrong, wrong for me to cherish another woman like this.
As I stared at the pendant, a wave of unease flooded over me.
I liked her.
Bella. Not just her appearance, though that would have been bad enough. I had been able to convince myself otherwise before, as she reminded me so much of Qianqian when she was younger. But it wasn't just that, at least, not anymore. No, it was the way she tilted her head when she listened, her easy laughter, and the way she looked at me when I talked to her.
I liked her. My breath caught. I'd only met her a handful of times – less time than it takes to truly know someone. I didn't know her favorite color or her worst fears or how she liked her tea. I didn't know if she hummed when she worked, or if she hated the sound of rain tapping on windows.
And then there was Qianqian. My wife. The woman who knew me better than I knew myself. The woman who stayed, despite my flaws and failures. I had nothing to offer her but past memories of when I was a better man, of promises that were too often broken. Her patience with me, her sacrifices. She was waiting for me, likely even now, her knowing eyes scanning the clock, her trust so complete that it made my heart ache. And here I was, sitting in a dim motel room, miles away from home, clutching a gift from another woman, betraying the one person who had never turned her back on me.
My stomach twisted with guilt and shame.
I lay down on the sagging bed and closed my eyes, determined to forget. Tomorrow, I would go home. I would admit everything to Qianqian. About Bella, about the pendant, about the feelings I couldn't control. She deserved the truth.
But sleep pulled me under faster than I expected before I could steel myself for the morning.
When I opened my eyes, I was no longer in the motel. I was back at my apartment, standing outside the door. The air was heavy with a strange stillness that made my skin prickle. I reached for the doorknob, my hand trembling, and pushed it open.
It was quiet. The kind of quiet that screams.
"Qianqian?" My voice echoed, swallowed by the silence. The smell hit me next, acrid and metallic.
I stepped inside, my feet crunching over something scattered across the floor. Glass? My eyes darted down. No, not glass – porcelain shards, jagged and gleaming. Qianqian's favorite teacup lay shattered in a pool of dark liquid that seeped into the cracks of the floor.
"Qianqian?" I repeated, my voice cracking. I moved further inside, each step more urgent than the last.
The bedroom door was ajar, and I pushed it open.
She was there, sitting on the edge of the bed, her back to me. Her long, dark hair fell loose down her shoulders, but something was wrong – terribly wrong. Her shoulders didn't rise and fall with jagged breaths like they usually did. She turned around, and that's when I saw it – the pendant.
Bella's gift hung from Qianqian's neck, the lotus glowing faintly against her skin. The tendrils of the carving seemed to have spread, snaking around her throat like vines, burrowing into mottled skin.
Her face – oh God, her face. It wasn't Qianqian anymore. Her eyes were hollow, sunken pits of darkness that seemed to devour any light in the room. Her lips parted, and a sound came out, low and guttural.
I scrambled backwards. "Qianqian?" my breath came in ragged gasps. Her hand shot out, grabbing my wrist. The walls seemed to close in, the room shrinking. The air turned bitter and hot, filled with the smell of rotten flesh. My vision blurred and I shut them tight, ready to die.
I opened my eyes, my chest heaving as I gasped for air, my skin clammy with sweat.
My heart raced, the terror still clinging to me. The motel room was dark and still, and I reached over my bed to turn on the light only to realize it wasn't working.
That's fine, I thought, trying to calm myself down. I glanced over at the desk to see the jade pendant where I had left it. Its green surface seemed dulled. I couldn't stop staring at it. I couldn't help but shiver, wondering if the temperature had dropped by a few degrees while I was asleep; the raggy tatters of my pajamas seemed like weak protection against the sting of the cold.
The pendant itself seemed like some kind of terrible omen, one that gave you chills down your spine when you stared too long, strange considering the sheer beauty it possessed on the outside. I tried to ignore my internal worries, telling myself it was just a buildup of anxiety and stress over the past few weeks.
Past few years, more like. I can't remember a single time when I wasn't stressed or working or panicking to meet some deadline. I measured time now not in years, but in the stamping of papers, the shuffling of bills, and the tight lineup of deadline after deadline, and I couldn't help but feel the familiar rise of bitterness when I lingered too long on these thoughts. A random girl from Pennsylvania appeared in my life and found some pitying interest in keeping small talk with me was the most exciting my life could get.
This was the cycle I would be stuck in forever, I realized with no small amount of despair. This small, inconsequential life that would amount to absolutely nothing. When I died, nothing would change except the very earth I would be buried in: the air would be just as trodden and sour, the streets would bustle with the same crowds of people, not a single person noticing I was gone. Even if they did notice, I doubted that they would care. Everyone, myself included, was too apathetic. Apathy was the key to survival, the same way that learning to ignore the chasms of hunger would determine who had enough grit to last another day. I hated this poverty. I hated this meaningless world where I knew that if I died today versus in 20 years, absolutely nothing would change. I was just another gear in the machine, forced to do his job in order to stay alive, working hours upon hours for such meager pay.
It was a measly life, but it was the only one Qianqian and I could afford.
But Bella? Bella wasn't like that. She was different. Bella was beautiful, innocent, capable, quick, smart, funny, and compassionate. She was one of a kind. She was never destined for a place as grisly and gray as this, and I would like to think that the heavens knew it, and that's why her presence here would be as temporary and ephemeral as the sunrises in the sky and the flowers in the spring – beautiful for the very, very, minute times they lasted. She would leave one day, a fact that made my stomach roil with some kind of indescribable grief. Like every other beautiful thing in my life, she would be gone. And the only thing left of her would be the bitter memories and the burn of alcohol down my throat as I drowned those exact same memories down.
She wouldn't be gone, a voice in my head whispered, if –. With a physical shake of my head and incredible disgust at my own psyche for suggesting that, I shot the mere possibility of it down. This wasn't fair to Qianqian.
But my future. Bella was my chance for a new start. A new beginning. She was the closest thing to my dreams that I ever, and probably would get. She was modern and she was talented and she was from the land of opportunities themself.
Another sudden thought appeared in my mind, one that was the closest thing to bringing a semblance of a smile to my face. Since Bella was so generous in getting me a gift, even when the times were difficult for us all – I should get her one as well. Ah, yes. This was safer. This would be a good distraction. Somehow, I knew just how to scrounge up the money.
----------
The crumpled bills burned in my pocket, a reminder of everything I wasn't but could be. That money was meant for emergencies, but wasn't this an emergency of a different sort? Bella deserved something beautiful, something worthy of her presence, something that sparkled in the sunlight the way her laugh did. What kind of man couldn't afford to buy a gift for a woman like her? Not a man at all, I thought bitterly. Just nobody.
The sun wasn't even up yet, but the room was loud, men sitting hunched around wooden tables. This was where dreams came to die – or, for the lucky ones, to be resurrected. I wasn't like the others here, I told myself. I wasn't gambling for survival. I was gambling for something bigger, something better.
The dealer's voice rang out, sharp and indifferent, as he shuffled the cards. "Anyone want to play poker?" A throng of people shuffled towards his table – including me.
Their clothes hung loose and threadbare, faded by too many nights spent under unforgiving streetlights and too many days wrestling with the relentless grind. A man to my left had eyes like burned-out coals, hollow and blackened, his skin stretched taut over a face that spoke of too many meals skipped and too much dignity bartered away. His fingers trembled as he arranged his chips in a neat little tower.
Across the table, a woman in a patched coat leaned forward, her face half-hidden by the shadows cast by the dim bulb above us. Her hands were calloused, the kind of hands that told stories of scrubbing floors. Her eyes, sharp and watchful, flicked to each player in turn, as if calculating their losses before they even began. I noticed her stack of chips – small, almost laughably so. But there was nothing funny about the gnawing hunger in their eyes.
The cards were dealt with mechanical indifference, smoothly gliding across the battered surface until trembling hands that reached out to claim them. I placed my bet, the weight of the coins in my hand leaving my grasp. I didn't hesitate. Hesitation was for men who didn't know what they wanted. And I wanted – no, I needed Bella.
She wouldn't care for the cheap trinkets most women here wore, the kind of jewelry made to look like gold but tarnished after a drop of rain. Bella deserved real gold, a necklace that would lay against her skin like it belonged there. A bracelet that would catch the light as she moved her delicate wrists. She was a woman who deserved to be idoled, not ignored.
Qianqian, bless her heart, had never complained. She never asked for anything beyond the basics, and even then, she always made do with less. But Bella wasn't like that. She had standards. Expectations. And wasn't that what made her so different, so special?
I'd played before, once or twice, enough to know the rules but not enough to be good. Yet, I convinced myself that luck was on my side. It had to be.
I reached up to my neck and touched the pendant, hoping against all odds that it would be good luck.
The dealer passed me two cards. I lifted them and winced. Two of hearts and a seven of spades stared back at me.
Yet, as the first round of betting began, I pushed a stack of chips into the center of the table, grinning, as though I were holding a pair of aces instead of despair.
The other players shifted in their seats, their eyes darting to my pile of chips. Hunger flickered in their eyes. For hope, for a chance to win. It would be so easy for them to fold, I told myself. They had so little to lose, and yet everything to fear.
The next card slid across the table. A queen of diamonds. It might as well have been a blank slate for all the good it did me. Still, I leaned forward, my face a mask of confidence, and slid more chips into the pot. The stack wobbled slightly, but my hands remained steady. I wouldn't give them a reason to doubt my act.
"Raise," I said, my voice even, though my heart was pounding hard enough to drown out the muffled sounds of the room. Across the table, the older man's lips pressed into a thin line. He studied me, his sunken eyes searching for cracks in my facade. I stared back coldly, hoping I could somehow will the lie into truth. After a long moment, he sighed and folded, shaking his head as though he'd just watched a door slam shut on his last shred of hope.
The woman in the patched coat wasn't as easily convinced. She called my bet, her fingers trembling as she pushed a few of her remaining chips she had into the pile. She had nearly nothing left now, just a few chips, the cards in her hand, and the belief that maybe, just maybe, this was her chance.
Next card. A nine of diamonds. Useless. Utterly useless. My cards were still trash, my position precarious at best, but I didn't hesitate. I shoved more chips forward, doubling the bet, despite the panic clawing at my insides.
I felt powerful as I looked around the table.
I saw it in the way they shook, the way their eyes flickered between me and the mountain of chips at the center – they didn't want to risk it, not against someone who seemed so sure, so unshakable.
The man with the hollow eyes cursed under his breath and folded, slamming his cards onto the table. The woman hesitated, her hands grasping each other together so tightly they turned white. For a moment, I thought she would call my bluff, but then she shook her head and pushed her cards away, her face crumpling in defeat.
I exhaled slowly, the pot sliding toward me as the dealer declared me the winner.
My hands shook as I gathered the chips. I had nothing but luckless cards and a gambler's bravado. But I had won.
The next hand came, and for the first time that night, my cards were worth something – a king and an ace. The flop favored me even more, delivering another ace.
One by one, the others bet more, only to fold after I doubled my towering bets. The pot was mine, and as the dealer pushed the mountain of chips toward me, a thrill shot through me like an electric current.
The next hand was even better. A flush by the turn, and this time, the older man tried to bluff his way to victory. I saw through it easily, matching his raises. When I laid my cards on the table, the look of defeat on his face was a prize all its own.
The rhythm of winning carried me, hand after hand, the pile of chips before me growing taller, more vibrant. My head spun with a giddy lightness.
Why hadn't I done this sooner? Why had I wasted so much time scraping by, clutching at crumbs, when this – the thrill, the money, the power – was waiting for me all along? I felt unstoppable, invincible, as if the universe had finally decided to reward me for all the suffering it had thrown on my shoulders.
The necklace around my neck felt warm, almost alive. For the first time in what felt like forever, I was winning, truly winning.
I scooped the chips into my hands, savoring their weight as if they were made of gold instead of cheap plastic. The dealer counted out my winnings, and when the final stack of bills was pushed toward me, my heart leaped in a way I hadn't felt in years. I pocketed the money, tucking it deep into my jacket as if it might sprout wings and fly away.
As I stepped outside, my thoughts immediately turned to Bella. I could already picture her smile, that soft curve of her lips as she saw what I'd brought for her. A fine scarf to wrap around her slender neck, maybe a bracelet to match, the kind of thing a woman like her deserved.
And maybe, just maybe, if there were a few coins left after I was done, I could bring something back for Qianqian. A new pair of shoes, perhaps. Nothing extravagant – just something sturdy to replace the ones she'd worn down to their soles.
It was a new life for me. And I was going to make sure that this time, I did things right.
I smiled at the thought, and then nearly froze at the sun just barely peeking over the horizon. I was incredibly late for work.