Chapter 2

The motel room was a perfect replica of hell. The wallpaper was a sickly yellow, peeling in damp strips near a window that wouldn't quite close. The single bed sagged in the middle, its floral bedspread stained with a history I didn't want to contemplate. It was a world away from the luxury lodge, and a painful echo of a life I' d fought to escape.

This was our punishment. This was supposed to humiliate me, to reinforce the narrative that I was nothing without Nathaniel' s money.

But for me and Ethan, it was something else entirely.

It was a ghost.

The setting triggered a flood of memories from a summer ten years ago. I was Song Dongyi then, a college student working a dead-end waitressing job, renting a tiny, bug-infested room to save money. He was Cheng Ji, a scruffy, 18-year-old runaway with a guitar case and nothing else.

I found him sleeping on a park bench near my apartment, looking half-starved and defiant. Against my better judgment, I took him in. He crashed on my floor, and for one sweltering, secret summer, we shared that tiny room. We shared instant ramen, cheap beer, and dreams that felt impossibly big. We fell into a passionate, desperate kind of love, hidden away from the world in a room numbered 207.

Back in the present, the flickering fluorescent light of the motel room cast long, dancing shadows on the walls. It was the same unsteady, rhythmic flicker as the light in room 207.

My phone buzzed. It was a voice message from Nathaniel. I didn' t want to listen, but the cameras were on me, waiting for a reaction. I pressed play.

"Jocelyn," his voice was a slick, manipulative purr. "I saw the motel. I' m so sorry they' re doing this to you. You don' t belong in a place like that. You belong in a palace, with me. Just say the word, and I' ll get you out of there. I miss you."

It was a performance for the cameras, a way to make himself look like the caring, heartbroken ex. It was disgusting.

Ethan, who had been silently unpacking a small bag in the corner, heard the whole thing. He looked over at me, his expression unreadable.

He held up two plastic-wrapped packages. "He' s offering you a palace. I' m offering you instant ramen. Your choice."

A small, genuine smile touched my lips for the first time in what felt like years.

"Ramen," I said, without hesitation. "Definitely ramen."

The charged atmosphere in the room was thick enough to cut with a knife. The flickering light, the shared meal, the unspoken memories hanging between us. It was too much.

"Why don' t you fix that light?" I asked, my voice tight. "It' s driving me crazy."

Ethan looked up from his noodles, his dark eyes meeting mine. The silence stretched on for a long moment.

"I didn' t fix it on purpose," he finally said, his voice low and soft. "It reminds me of a promise I made a long time ago."

My breath caught in my throat. I remembered. A hot summer night in room 207, the light flickering just like this one. I' d been complaining about it, and he had laughed.

He had taken my face in his hands and said, "Don' t fix it. From now on, every time a light flickers, it means I' m thinking of you."

I stared at him, my heart pounding in my chest. He remembered. After all these years, after everything, he remembered.

The unspoken tension between us was no longer just tension. It was a live wire, sparking in the dim, flickering light of that cheap motel room.