1 The green light flashed as I reached the crosswalk. I hesitated while Darcy and Owen dashed across. Red trapped me at the curb. They never looked back. A black car hissed past, mud spattering my pants. I blinked, stunned, then stepped away. I had always been half a beat behind, last to drop my fork and lagging on group walks. In school, they fretted over my grades. One drilled math while the other took notes until their heads bent close, bickering over a geometry line all afternoon. I sat mute beside them. Apartment hunting, they linked arms, comparing commutes and sunlight. Owen swung Darcy’s bag as she laughed. I trailed, watching their backs. Only those in sync caught the same green light. The slow waited alone. The signal changed. I stepped forward. If we could not walk together, I would walk alone. … By the time I reached the apartment, they were already inside, exploring the rooms. Seeing me enter, Darcy’s face tightened with impatience. “What took you so long? Owen and I are almost done looking. If you were any slower, the agent would have gone off work.” Owen poked his head out from the kitchen, quickly walking over to Darcy’s side and gently patting her shoulder. “Stop yelling at Shawn. He’s always walked slow. Can’t you show some patience?” I looked down at the dark mud stains on my trousers. “You guys just walk too fast.” Owen let out a cheerful laugh, pointing toward the open balcony. “Well, at least you’re here now. Look at this balcony; it’s beautiful. Planting some lisianthus flowers here would look amazing, perfect for photos.” Darcy followed his gaze, letting out a soft chuckle. “Lisianthus are incredibly hard to keep alive. With your three-minute attention span, they wouldn’t survive a week. Better to grow mint; at least we can use it for cocktails.” “Who says I can’t keep them alive? I’m going to plant lisianthus!” “Fine. When they wither, don’t expect me to replant them for you.” They bickered back and forth, their voices filled with a comfortable, intimate familiarity, looking exactly like a young couple planning their first home together. But I was the one renting the apartment. I was the one who would be paying the rent. Yet, they had already bypassed me entirely, deciding the fate of the balcony and even assuming I would definitely live here. Looking at the empty concrete floor, a sudden wave of apathy washed over me. I didn’t even want to plant a single blade of grass here anymore. The bitter taste of being ignored crept up my throat. I remembered a time when I had complained to Darcy about how difficult it was for me to join their conversations. She hadn’t even looked up from her phone. “You’re always sitting there like a mute. How is anyone supposed to constantly cater to your quiet moods?” I took a deep breath, stepping forward to bridge the distance between us. “Actually, I think a cactus would be nice too,” I said, trying to keep my voice light and cheerful. “Because when a cactus gets heartbroken, it turns into a round little ball because it cries so hard all its needles fall off.” It was a silly, outdated joke I had read in an old magazine the night before. The moment the words left my mouth, the playful bickering stopped, and the room plunged into an awkward, suffocating silence. Perhaps because I was always slow, even my jokes were hopelessly outdated. Five seconds passed. Owen was the first to react, breaking the silence with a sudden burst of laughter. “Darcy, that was freezing. That joke is even colder than the time you fell into the snowbank in Iceland.” Darcy’s eyes instantly crinkled with warmth at his words. “And whose brilliant idea was it to drag me into the backcountry for skiing? I was the one who had to dig you out of that hole.” “Haha, you were covered in snow from head to toe, looking at least ten years older. If you end up an old maid because of that, don’t expect me to marry you!” They laughed freely, their joy unreserved. I remembered how she had promised to take me to see the Northern Lights once we graduated, then pushed it back to when our careers settled, and then told me to wait until her next vacation. I had waited and waited, only to find out she had already gone with Owen. “Iceland?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper. “When did you go?” The laughter stopped instantly. Darcy’s expression smoothed over into a cool, dismissive mask. “Last winter. You were away on a photography shoot.” Was I away on a shoot, or did they deliberately plan the trip for when I was gone? Owen waved his hand quickly. “It’s in the past, no big deal. Let’s focus on the apartment.” They moved on, their mutual silence closing the topic with perfect coordination. The damp, muddy trousers clung to my skin, making every second I stood there feel like an eternity. “I’m not feeling well. I’m going home. We can look at apartments another time.” As I turned to leave, I heard Darcy’s low, irritated whisper behind me. “Throwing another tantrum. He’s completely spoiled.” I returned to our shared apartment alone. I slipped on my slippers and went into the bathroom, using a wet wipe to gently clean the dried mud from my trousers. The motion-sensor light above flickered on and then died, leaving me in the dark. Only when the water in the sink overflowed, spilling cold droplets onto my bare feet, did my slow brain register the mess and reach out to turn off the faucet. I was always half a beat behind. But it hadn’t always been this way. When I was seven, Darcy had dragged me into a torrential downpour for two hours just to catch a cicada. I had suffered a raging fever for a day and a night, nearly damaging my brain. From that day on, my reflexes were permanently slower than the rest of the world. My older sister, Valerie, had been so furious she wanted to beat Darcy. The young Darcy had knelt by my bedside, her face drenched in tears as she sobbed, “Valerie, you can hit me! It’s all my fault! Just please don’t take Shawn away. I swear, I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to him. I’ll never let him suffer a single day of unhappiness.” I believed her. And my sister believed her too. So, when Valerie took over our family’s international business and moved abroad, she left me to live with Darcy’s family. In the beginning, Darcy had kept her promise. Back when my hair was long, I was too slow and clumsy to hold the heavy blow dryer steady. She would always take it from my hands, her slender fingers gently running through my hair, checking to make sure the air wasn’t too hot. “It’s okay if our Shawn is slow. I have all the time in the world to wait for you.” But now, she had run out of time. A few days ago, under the exact same circumstances, water was dripping from my hair onto the floor. She hadn’t reached for the dryer. Instead, she had simply tossed a dry towel at my chest, her brow furrowed with a deep, unconscious irritation. “Shawn, you’re twenty-three, not three. Can’t you learn to be a bit more independent like Owen? He carried a water jug up six flights of stairs the other day without a single complaint. You can’t cling to me forever. Move out into your own place for a while and learn how to be an adult.” Patience, it seemed, was a resource easily worn away by time. The person who had once sworn to spend her life making things up to me now found me to be nothing but a nuisance. And that was why I had gone to look at apartments today. I dried my hands, walked into the living room, and sat down on the sofa. I pulled my camera from my bag. It was one of the few things I truly owned, and the tool I used for my photography work. I spun the dial, clicking through the playback menu. The screen illuminated my face in the dark room as I slowly scrolled backward, image by image. I was the one who had pressed the shutter on every single one of them. The compositions were steady, the lighting captured beautifully. But the subjects were always the same. Darcy and Owen laughing by the window of a chic cafe. Darcy and Owen clinking their glasses together by a cozy campfire. Owen gently reaching out to brush a stray lock of hair from Darcy’s eyes. There were over three hundred photos stored on the memory card, and I was permanently frozen behind the lens, invisible. In the life that belonged to Darcy, my only role was to record her moments with someone else. I wasn’t in her photos. And naturally, I had no place in her future. Darcy didn’t return until late in the afternoon. She tossed her car keys onto the entryway table, the metal clinking sharply against the wood. “Shawn, what exactly is your problem?” she asked, walking over to stand in front of me with her arms crossed. “Owen spent four afternoons running around, calling in favors just to find a place that suited you. What are you so unhappy about?” “Leaving like that just because you ‘didn’t feel well’… do you have any idea how awkward you made things for him?” “I don’t have a problem with the apartment,” I said slowly. “Then why did you look so miserable? He spent the entire day worrying about you, so guilty he couldn’t even eat dinner.” So Owen hadn’t eaten dinner, and she had rushed back to demand justice on his behalf. Last month, when my acute gastroenteritis had flared up so badly I was curled double on the sofa, she had only sent a brief text: Drink some hot water. I have to play cards with some clients tonight. Order some medicine through a delivery app. I pressed the delete button on my camera, erasing every single photo on the card. “I just felt like… that apartment wasn’t being chosen for me.” She let out a cold scoff. “Shawn, stop being so paranoid and bitter. Do you think everyone is as idle as you, sitting at home all day looking for things to complain about?” “I’ve booked a restaurant for tomorrow lunch. You’re going to come and apologize to him, and we’re going to put this behind us.” I stared at her for a few silent seconds. My girlfriend was furious because I hadn’t managed to protect the feelings of another man. “Darcy, let’s break up.” Darcy’s expression froze. A flash of genuine shock crossed her eyes, quickly replaced by a look of sheer amusement. “Break up?” “Shawn, do you really think you can threaten me with that? With your slow, helpless brain, where would you even go without me?” “I’m not threatening you.” Darcy turned away, tossing her bag onto the sofa. “Fine, stop acting childish. I’ll text you the restaurant address. Make sure you’re on time.” She walked into the bathroom without looking back, and the sound of running water soon filled the apartment, shutting my voice out completely behind the frosted glass door. The next day, I went to the restaurant anyway. Owen really had spent a lot of time helping me look at apartments, and my upbringing dictated that a proper “thank you” was still necessary. When I pushed open the door to the private room, they were already there. They were sitting side-by-side on one side of the long table, their heads close together as they laughed at something on a phone screen. A table set for three always had a cruel geometry. They sat so close their shoulders were practically touching. And I was left to pull out the single chair opposite them, sitting down like an uninvited guest at a private meeting. “Shawn, you’re here!” Owen greeted me with a bright smile. “Darcy said you were throwing a fit and might not show up. No need to apologize, we’re all friends here. It’s no big deal, let’s just move past it.” “Thank you,” I said softly, keeping my eyes on the table. In front of Darcy and Owen sat two tall, condensation-beaded glasses of iced lemon tea. In front of me, there was nothing. In the past, whenever we ate out, she would always make sure a cup of warm tea was waiting for me the moment I sat down, knowing my weak stomach couldn’t handle ice. Now, she couldn’t even remember to order a glass of water for me. “I’ll go grab something to drink,” I said, rising from the table. I walked to the front counter and ordered a hot milk. As I waited for the drink to be prepared, I turned to walk back to the room. Just as I rounded the corner, a waiter carrying a heavy, piping-hot clay pot of soup came rushing toward me. “Watch out!” I heard the warning. But my reflexes were always half a beat behind. By the time my foot took a single inch of a step backward, the boiling liquid had already cascaded down. Most of the scalding soup poured directly onto my shins and the tops of my feet. An agonizing, searing pain instantly ripped through my skin. My brain went entirely blank, and my body froze, locking me in place. The door to the private room opened, and Darcy and Owen stepped out. She didn’t rush forward to help me. Instead, she let out a light laugh. “Shawn, when are you going to fix that slow reaction time? You’re a grown man, how do you not even know how to dodge a waiter?” Owen stood beside her, joining in on her laughter. “Seriously, Shawn, you’re too much. If that were me, I would have leaped out of the way in a second. Your reflexes are slower than a sloth’s.” Darcy chimed in, “If he had even half of your quickness, I wouldn’t have to spend every waking hour worrying about him.” The skin on my legs was already beginning to swell into angry, red blisters, the burning pain radiating deep into my bones. Back in high school, I had tripped on the track, scraping a tiny patch of skin on my knee that barely even bled. Darcy had run faster than the gym teacher to reach me, her face pale as she helped me up, her hands trembling so hard she could barely hold a cotton swab in the nurse’s office. “You can’t even walk straight,” she had scolded me, her voice shaking. “What are you going to do if I’m ever not around?” Owen had also patted my shoulder, promising to keep an eye on me whenever we ran. But now, as they stared at my blistering skin, they only found my clumsy pain amusing. I looked up, meeting her eyes. “Is this funny to you?” The laughter faded slightly from Darcy’s face. “It was just a joke, Shawn. Do you have to take everything so seriously?” Owen chimed in, “Yeah, Shawn, I was just trying to lighten the mood. Don’t be mad. When I burned myself cooking before, I just put some toothpaste on it and was fine. It’s really no big deal.” Darcy let out an impatient sigh. “You heard him. Go to the bathroom and run some cold water over it. Stop standing there making a scene.” I took a taxi to the city hospital by myself. After the doctor had finished cleaning and bandaging my burns, I pulled out my phone and sent a message to my sister. Valerie, is your offer for me to come to Los Angeles to help you still open? Her reply came almost instantly. Of course it is! I’ve kept a room ready for you. Did that girl Darcy do something to you? My throat tightened, and I blinked back tears. I just really, really miss you. I returned to the apartment and began packing my suitcase. As I worked, I noticed that the moisture-proof box I kept in the corner of the closet was empty. Inside was the only keepsake my mother had left me: an extremely rare, out-of-production roll of Kodak film that had inspired my dream of becoming a photographer. The front door opened, and Darcy walked in. Seeing my bandaged leg, her brow furrowed slightly. “What did you do? You look like a mummy.” She knelt down, her fingers gently touching my ankle. “Try to look where you’re going next time. Once this busy season is over, I’ll take you to Iceland to see the Northern Lights, okay? Stop looking so miserable all the time, no one owes you anything.” I pulled my leg back, out of her reach. “Where is my film?” Her hand froze in mid-air. She stood up, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a crushed, bent metal canister. “Since you treasured it so much, Owen and I decided to hide it. We were going to give it back once you got worried, to give you a surprise.” “But the metal was so old. When Owen tried to pull it open to look, he accidentally tore the film.” My hands shook as I took the canister and opened the lid. The delicate film inside had been completely pulled out of its casing, entirely exposed to the light. It was torn clean in two. It was the only remaining memory of my mother, something I would hold and look at on the nights when insomnia gripped me, missing her. My voice shook uncontrollably. “Do you have any idea how important that was to me?” “I know, but he didn’t do it on purpose.” She reached into her shopping bag and pulled out two brand-new, expensive rolls of film, placing them on the table. “No matter how important that old film was, can it really be more important than my relationship with Owen? I went out of my way to buy these rare replacements at a premium for you.” I raised my hand and slapped her hard across the face. The force of the blow turned her head to the side. She froze, completely stunned. When I was seventeen, I had accidentally lost a cheap lens cap worth a few dollars. Darcy had spent three hours with a flashlight in the dark schoolyard grass, searching until she found it. She had told me back then, “Anything that belongs to Shawn, no matter how small, is a treasure.” But now, she had personally helped destroy my most precious memory. Darcy slowly turned her head back, her grip clamping onto my wrist with sudden, terrifying strength. “Shawn, are you out of your mind!” She pulled me roughly into her chest, locking her arms around me. “Let go of me!” I struggled. “Stop acting up!” she commanded, her arms tightening until I could barely breathe. “That film is already in the past! You have to learn to look forward, do you understand?” I stopped struggling, letting my arms hang limp at my sides. My tears slipped silently down, soaking into her collar. Yes, she was right. It was all in the past. Including her. I cried quietly, the silent tears flowing until my eyes felt dry and the sharp ache in my chest finally subsided. Darcy’s hand gently stroked my back. Only when she felt my muscles finally relax did she slowly loosen her grip. “You still have me,” she whispered softly. I didn’t answer her. I turned back to the bedroom to continue packing. Darcy followed me, her voice turning cold. “What are you doing?” “Packing my things.” “Are you playing the run-away-from-home game again?” “You were the one who told me to learn from Owen and be independent. I’m moving into the rental tomorrow.” She opened her mouth to argue, but stopped, remembering that she had indeed been the one to suggest I move out. After a long silence, she spoke quietly. “Let’s sleep in the same bed tonight. Since it’s your last night here.” We hadn’t slept in the same bed for months. She had complained that my slow lifestyle affected her sleep, and that my tossing and turning disturbed her work the next day. She had told me, “Shawn, you need to learn to be independent, not like a child who needs someone to hold him to sleep.” So I had moved into the guest bedroom, and I had stayed there for half a year. I didn’t argue. That night, Darcy wrapped her arms around my waist from behind. In the dark, I kept my eyes wide open, staring at the neon lights of the city glittering through the window. “Darcy, if I truly learn to be independent, will you be happy?” “Of course,” she answered without hesitation, her tone carrying a wave of relief. “I can’t wait.” Yet, the arm wrapped around my waist tightened its grip just a fraction. The next morning, I changed into fresh clothes and rolled my suitcase to the entrance. Darcy put on her coat, reaching out to take the handle of my bag. “I’ll help you move.” Before her hand could touch the metal bar, the phone in her pocket began to ring. It was Owen, his voice bright and excited over the speaker. “Darcy! That new sci-fi movie is premiering today, and I managed to snag two tickets! Come watch it with me!” That was the movie we had promised to see together three months ago. Darcy glanced at me, then accepted his invitation, hanging up the phone and heading for the door in a rush. “Take a cab to move your things first. I’ll go watch the movie with him, and we’ll come find you at your new place later.” “Okay,” I said quietly. Once the door clicked shut behind her, I called a cab and headed straight for the airport. I dialed my sister’s number. “Valerie, make sure you’re there to pick me up.” Her warm, laughing voice came through the line. “Don’t worry, little brother. Have I ever forgotten anything that concerns you?”
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