That single line was why I fell for her.
We were both Chinese American, but our hearts had never left China.
I thought we shared that dream.
She'd already let it go. She just never told me.
The only place she wanted to be was wherever Noah Mason was.
That night, she came home late.
I was already in bed. She stood on the balcony, talking on the phone.
"Noah, don't worry."
"Mm, all the paperwork's been submitted…"
"I promise, I'll be there…"
The call went on and on, and her voice had a tenderness I'd never once heard directed at me.
In the middle of the night, she turned over and mumbled something in her sleep.
"Noah… I miss you…"
I smiled bitterly in the dark.
I used to be a heavy sleeper.
Apparently I'd been missing a lot of honest words.
The next morning, Martha left early.
"Don't forget to submit your paperwork."
Her eyes darted, a flicker of guilt, but she didn't linger for even a second.
On the desk sat a stack of immigration documents.
Hers were already gone. Only mine remained.
I gathered the paperwork and went to the consulate.
The visa officer was an elderly Chinese American woman, reading glasses perched on her nose, somewhere past sixty.
She studied my documents, then looked up at me.
"You're going back to China?"
"Yes."
"You're a scientist?"
"Yes."
She was quiet for a moment. Her eyes reddened.
"Thirty years I've been at this window. I've watched so many people leave from here—Canada, Europe, you name it."
Her voice trembled slightly.
"But someone going back to China from the United States… that's rare."
She stamped the page without hesitation.
"Welcome home."
My nose stung.
When I was small, my grandfather used to tell me the same thing.
"No matter how far you go, never forget the road that leads home."
Arthur James had been gone for over a decade now.
His grave was in China, in a small county town in the south.
I hadn't been back to visit him in ten years.
This year, I was going—carrying my dream, carrying everything my research had built, going back to see him.
That evening, Martha came home carrying a bag.
"Theo, I got you a present."
It was a small sculpture of the University of Cambridge, the school crest engraved into the base.
"Look at that—you've always had a connection with the UK. You even landed that Cambridge exchange spot back then. Shame you never got to go."
My fingers slowly curled tight.
Back then, I'd been offered a two-year exchange at Cambridge.
It was the opportunity I'd dreamed of.
Their aerospace engineering program was ranked top three in the world.
My advisor had told me plainly.
"This kind of chance doesn't come twice. Go, and your entire academic horizon changes."
I was thrilled. I started packing.
Then, a month before I was supposed to leave, Martha came down with acute appendicitis. The surgery was minor—three days in the hospital, a month to recover, and she'd be fine.
But she held on to me.
"Don't go. Just—stay here with me."
I hesitated.
"But this chance might not come again…"
"You'll have other chances."
She cut me off, irritation already sharp in her voice.
"I'm sick right now. You're really going to just leave me here?"
In the end, I stayed.
And that rare opportunity went to Noah Mason.
Funny how perfectly it all lined up. Noah needed that spot—so she cleared the way. Noah wanted to be in the UK—so she threw away every dream she ever told me we shared.
