The Empty Bed on the Anniversary

There was a box of strawberries in the fridge, bought three days ago, already starting to soften. She had said strawberries should be eaten fresh, but he always wanted to save them for the anniversary—she loved strawberries most. Later he realized that the only thing left in the entire fridge that belonged to her was this box of strawberries. And later still, even the strawberries were gone.

Lin Shen walked through the door carrying a cake and white roses.

The key turned twice in the lock, a crisp "click." The living room lights were off, the curtains drawn, a narrow trapezoid of light sliced through the crack of the door. His first thought was that Su Wan wasn't home yet—it was Wednesday, and she had an afternoon gig at the café, usually home by six-thirty. It was six-forty now, within normal margin of error.

He set the cake on the entryway cabinet and bent down to untie his shoelaces. When his hand reached under the shoe cabinet to grab his slippers, he stopped. Empty. He felt further inside, his fingertips touching the back panel of the cabinet. Nothing. Those gray-pink plush slippers—worn uneven on one side, the ones Su Wan thought were ugly but refused to replace—were gone.

He walked into the living room barefoot and turned on the light. The living room was still the same living room. Gray fabric sofa, his blueprints and a few scattered pencils on the coffee table. The photo frame on the TV cabinet was facedown. He flipped it over; the glass reflected the ceiling light fixture. Empty. He remembered there was a photo inside, taken last summer on the beach in Qingdao. Su Wan had been splashed with water and was laughing so hard her eyes were squeezed into slits.

The photo was gone.

He put the empty frame back, walked around the living room, his pace quickening. The bookshelf—where were her books? Those sketchbooks covered in her markings, the dog-eared copy of *Classic of Mountains and Seas*, the *The Stranger* with dried flower specimens tucked inside? The bottom shelf had been Su Wan's section; now it held his architectural standards manuals, neatly arranged as if they'd never been moved.

He strode into the bedroom. The double bed was made neatly, the quilt folded the way he always folded it—he had folded it himself this morning. He lifted the corner of the quilt. The sheet on Su Wan's side was smooth and flat, no indentation, no warmth. The pillow was clean to an extreme.

He opened the wardrobe. Left side was his clothes—shirts and suit jackets hanging, arranged by color depth. Right side—he remembered Su Wan's clothes filling half the wardrobe, that oversized gray hoodie, the white cotton skirt, two jackets with tags still on that she couldn't bear to wear. Now the right side was empty, a row of hangers spaced evenly like a department store display.

His hand paused beside the empty hangers, then he pulled open the drawers below. First drawer: his socks and underwear. Second drawer: his T-shirts. Third drawer: empty. Fourth drawer: also empty.

He pulled each drawer open and shut, the sound echoing through the quiet apartment like a pile driver. When he closed the last drawer, his finger got pinched, and he sucked in a sharp breath of pain. He stared at the reddening mark on his finger for about ten seconds.

This pain was real.

But a voice in his head said: Maybe the rest isn't? Maybe she was never real? He pressed the pinched finger into his palm, holding onto the pain. This was his only anchor.

He walked to the bathroom. On the sink sat only one toothbrush, blue, his. The matching couple toothbrush set she had given him should have had two. Her cup had been on the left side of the counter—he remembered it was next to the mouthwash cup. The mouthwash cup was still there, but only his toothbrush remained.

He turned on the faucet and splashed his face. The water was freezing. He looked up at the mirror. The person in the mirror had dark circles under his eyes and chapped lips. He called out to the mirror: "Su Wan?"

No response. He called out again. Still nothing.

He didn't even know why he was calling out to a mirror instead of just calling her. He walked back to the living room, pulled out his phone from his bag, and scrolled through his contacts—he had organized them by group: colleagues, clients, college friends, Su Wan. She was probably third from the bottom.

Not there.

He scrolled through his entire contact list from top to bottom. Three times. His heartbeat began to falter, like a drummer forgetting the next beat. He sat on the sofa, put his phone on the coffee table, picked it up again, opened WeChat.

The first chat on the message list had always been Su Wan, always pinned. It was still pinned, but the profile picture was a gray human silhouette, and the name had changed to three characters: "Deleted."

He tapped on it. The chat history was still there. He scrolled up, line by line, his fingers pressing so hard they turned white on the screen. Her morning message: "There's a sandwich in the fridge. Remember to heat it up. Don't eat cold food again." Ten in the morning: "It's raining outside. Did you bring an umbrella?" Twelve-thirty noon: "The noodle shop by your firm seems to be under renovation. Don't go there today." The last message at three in the afternoon: "I made your favorite sweet and sour ribs. Come home early."

All these messages were there. Her profile picture beside each message was a gray silhouette. He tried replying: "Where are you?"

The message sent. A small gray line popped up: "This user has removed you as a friend. Please send a friend request first."

He turned the phone over and set it face down on the sofa. Then picked it up and looked again. Same prompt. He put the phone down.

He stood up, walked back to the entryway, opened the shoe cabinet. Searched through her shoes—those canvas sneakers, those white skate shoes, those high-heeled sandals she'd never worn. Empty. The shoe cabinet now held only his three pairs of leather shoes, one pair of athletic shoes, and one pair of slippers, the heels worn at the angle of his own gait.

He picked up the spare key card she had given him, walked to the door, and swiped it. A beep, green light. He opened the door and hurried to the elevator lobby. The fluorescent lights were stark white. He pressed the button for the first floor, his fingers trembling. On the first floor, he ran to the community property management office. Inside sat a middle-aged woman, her surname Zhang; he called her Aunt Zhang.

"Aunt Zhang," his voice dry, "do you know Su Wan? The girl who lives with me? Long black hair, a tear mole near her left eye, about this tall—" He gestured with his hand at shoulder height.

Aunt Zhang put down her teacup, looked at him, and then looked at him again. The look was like she was staring at someone suddenly talking nonsense, a mental patient.

"Xiao Lin," she said slowly, "you've lived here alone for almost three years now. What girl?"

Lin Shen watched her mouth move, the words reaching him as if through three layers of glass. He said: "Impossible. Think again. My girlfriend, Su Wan. She greeted you every time she came by. Last Christmas she even gave you cookies."

Aunt Zhang picked up her teacup and took a sip, her eyes watching him over the rim. "Xiao Lin, have you been working too hard lately? You live alone. Every time I've seen you, it's just been you. If you lost your key, just say so. You don't need to make up a story like this."

Lin Shen didn't say another word. He turned and walked out, his legs feeling weak. He leaned against the wall by the elevator for a few seconds. When the elevator doors opened, he stepped in, pressed his floor, and leaned against the cabin wall, the back of his head against the stainless steel. A cold sensation slid all the way down his spine.

Back home. Standing at the door. He took a deep breath before pushing it open—a habit he'd had for two years, since the day he met Su Wan. Today, that habit was still there, but the empty living room that greeted him made him freeze. For the first time, he realized that this habit itself was harder to erase than anything he could imagine.

He looked around the entire room again. Living room, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom. He noticed the wall color was different from before—not that he remembered wrong, it really was different. The bedroom wall, that misty blue color Su Wan had deliberated over for so long, was now plain white. The kitchen fridge, once plastered with little sticky notes in her handwriting, now had only a few blank magnets left, arranged in a crooked row as if something had hastily swept through them. He went over and found one note deep in the fridge that hadn't been completely swept away.

The paper was pale yellow. He recognized her handwriting—light strokes, small curves at the end of each line, as if every stroke were a sketch. "Tomorrow anniversary, going to show you—" The characters after that were so faint they were nearly invisible. He held the note in his hand. The paper was thin; he could see the fiber texture where light passed through. He held it up to the light to make it out.

A few more characters became visible: "—something."

And then nothing. In his hand, the characters on the note continued to fade. The handwriting diminished at a visible rate. First the characters for "something" blurred into a blob. Then the strokes of "going to show you" started breaking apart. The characters for "anniversary" dissolved like paper soaked in water. Finally, only half a character remained on the paper—"Wan."

He stared at this character for a long time. Then he took out his phone and snapped a photo of the note. In the photo, there was only a blank pale yellow sticky note.

He looked at the blank photo for a while, put down his phone, walked to the sofa, and sat down. He sat on the left half, because Su Wan always curled up on the right, knees tucked in, toes shoved under his thighs. This habit had been set since the first week they moved in together.

Suddenly he remembered last night. Nothing special—Su Wan was leaning on the sofa, holding his arm, half-asleep, mumbling something. He asked what she said. She smiled and said, "Nothing. I'll tell you tomorrow."

Tomorrow. Tomorrow was their second anniversary. He remembered clearly. Today he had taken a detour after work to buy the cake and white roses.

The cake was still on the entryway cabinet, the box slightly open at one corner. He walked over, picked up the cake, and opened the complete packaging. The words written on the cream in chocolate sauce were still there: "Happy Second Anniversary."

He stood there, holding the cake, the silence around him like a funeral.

His phone lit up on the coffee table. A message from Gu Yang: "Shen, please confirm the business trip tomorrow."

He didn't reply.

He put the cake back on the table, unwrapped the white roses, and pulled one out. The petals were fresh, still carrying the chill from the refrigerated display. One by one, he tore the rose apart and laid the petals on Su Wan's side of the bedsheet, neatly arranged, like some kind of ritual.

Lying on his own side, turned sideways to look at the petals, the sky outside the window was already pitch black. The lights of passing cars swept across the ceiling every few seconds, regular as a respirator. His right hand lay on the empty half of the bed between them, palm down, waiting for something, as if waiting for nothing at all.

His phone lit up again. He checked the time. Eleven-fifty. In ten minutes, it would be two full years since they got together.

He withdrew his hand from the empty bed and grabbed his own shoulder. Holding himself. Hard. Harder.

Then he let go.

The refrigerator compressor in the living room hummed for a moment and then stopped. The entire room fell into extreme silence. He thought of that half sticky note, of that disappearing character "Wan." He thought of Aunt Zhang's words—"You live alone." He thought of the evenly spaced empty hangers, of the grayed-out WeChat profile picture.

He wondered, when he woke up tomorrow morning, whether he would still remember what happened tonight. Maybe he wouldn't remember a thing.