A belated gift
The international flight flew silently high in the sky. The cabin lights were dim, most passengers were asleep, and the other half were still flipping through movie catalogs or unconsciously scrolling through their screens.
Pan Qiu leaned against the window, her eyes stinging and her legs aching. Maintaining one position for so long had left her almost numb. There was a strange sense of time standing still on the plane, as if everyone had temporarily stepped out of their daily timelines to complete this spatial transfer. She felt suspended in an intermediate zone, just like this time last year—gently enveloped by the excitement of a new beginning, yet tinged with an inexplicable melancholy.
She closed her eyes, and memories slowly unfolded with her weariness.
A year ago, on her twenty-first birthday, she was still wandering the streets of a newly arrived foreign country, unfamiliar with supermarkets and unsure if she could integrate into her new academic world. That evening, she returned home with a birthday cake and fruit-flavored beer, and sat with Zhiwei under a floor lamp, eating longevity noodles together. There were no extravagant rituals, only a feeling of novelty and loneliness, gently diffused by the lamplight.
This year, her twenty-second birthday was celebrated at home in a more "grand" way than she had imagined. That evening, her parents booked a private room at a hotel in the city center and invited several relatives: her uncle's family, her aunt, her maternal grandparents, and a younger cousin she didn't know very well. The "birthday" wasn't just a celebration; it felt more like a "dignified farewell"—joy, pride, reluctance to part, eagerness, and a sense of performance all mingled in one evening. She nodded and smiled at everyone, like a composed and poised child, surrounded by admirers. Amidst laughter, she was pushed to the cake, lit the candles, made a wish, and had her picture taken. The whole process resembled a tightly scheduled ceremony: everyone smiled broadly during the photos. This liveliness was both prepared for her and not prepared for her.
That night, she received a message from Lin Yue:
—"Zhiwei says it's your birthday today. Happy birthday!"
See you at our school in a couple of days.
She hadn't expected this message. Since that confession on the riverboat—when she subtly hinted, "I might not be the one you're looking for"—the two had barely contacted each other. Their message history during the summer vacation was almost blank, as if they had silently tacitly agreed to something. This WeChat message, somewhat abrupt, also carried a cautious, ice-breaking meaning. Especially the phrase "See you at our school," like a gentle knock on the door—no pressure, no regrets. She quickly replied, "Thank you for your blessing. See you at school."
She then sent Ethan an email confirming the start-of-term meeting. She wrote very briefly:
—"Dr. Ellery,"
I'm going back to the city next week, so we can resume our weekly meetings.
Looking forward to meeting you.
"Looking forward to autumn"
The other party replied quickly—in his usual style:
"Welcome back. See you next Wednesday at 3 p.m."
EE”
She stared at the email for a long time. It was brief, clean, and seamless.
Just like she also wants to put that piece of the puzzle of her study abroad life back into place.
As she stood at the end of the third floor of the psychology department building, her heart suddenly raced before she raised her hand to knock on the door. It had been three months since she'd seen Ethan. Although they'd exchanged emails weekly during the summer, standing outside the door now, she still felt an indescribable tension and anticipation.
"Please come in."
The doorknob turned gently, and she pushed the door open, the familiar space immediately enveloping her. The long bookshelf against the wall was still neatly arranged, a few books lay open on the gray round table, and the air was filled with the faint aroma of coffee. The maple tree outside the window was beginning to turn yellow, sunlight filtering through the branches and leaves, casting dappled shadows on the floor through the gaps in the blinds. Time seemed to slow down here, and even Ethan seemed to become a marker of this space.
He stood up from behind his desk, his gaze falling on her face, a faint smile appearing on his lips: "Welcome back, Qiu."
"Thank you." She sat down at the round table and put down her notebook.
How's your jet lag going?
"It's almost back to normal," she smiled.
He nodded, casually pushing a mug aside to make room for her on the table: "This semester, I think we can take a small step forward—a real step."
Pan Qiu was taken aback for a moment, then quickly nodded.
Are you referring to the inner speech project?
“Yes. I’ve been thinking about this all summer, trying to work with you to turn it into a small, practical, and meaningful study. This is your first formal research project, and we’ll take it one step at a time.” As he spoke, he opened his notebook, wrote a few lines, and drew a simple flowchart. “First, conduct a concise literature review to ground the problem in reality. Second, design research tools—a questionnaire, along with a semi-structured interview outline. Then, start recruiting participants—ideally bilingual individuals from different language backgrounds.”
"How many samples do we need?" Panqiu asked.
"Start with twenty interviews and sixty to eighty questionnaires. Don't aim for a huge number, just make sure you can see the patterns. You can participate in designing the coding framework."
She nodded, already feeling a bit excited: "What is the core question we want to answer in our research?"
Ethan continued, “We want to understand the subjective experience of language switching in ‘inner speech’: when it happens, why it happens, and what it feels like when it happens. We often treat inner speech as something neutral, private, and invisible, but it conveys far more identity and emotional information than we imagine.”
These words, like a stream of water, slowly took shape in her mind.
“In other words—get people to notice what would otherwise go unnoticed,” she tried to summarize.
“Well said.” He smiled.
He turned to the next page and wrote down the name of a conference: "If things don't fall apart, I think we should submit the first draft to a conference—'International Conference on Language and Cognition.' In Italy, the deadline is January. That should give us plenty of time."
“…Italy?” she repeated, her voice tinged with excitement.
He laughed too: "Yes, it's a small town in northern Italy, surrounded by mountains and sunshine, ancient and quiet, like a place where time slows down. But don't get distracted, we won't go until the paper is accepted."
"I will do my best." She smiled, looking down, trying to suppress the little bird jumping in her heart.
"I knew you would."
He paused for a moment, then added, "There's one more thing—you'll be my teaching assistant for one of my courses this semester."
Which one?
“PSY 610, Fundamentals of Applied Psychology in Practice”.
She nodded: "I just took it last semester."
"You can help me grade my homework, lead group exercises, and hold Q&A sessions. You can also audit a few classes if you want—I won't name my partner." He joked, a smile playing on his lips.
She smiled too. She did want to sit in on the class, not because she didn't understand, but because she wanted to see how Ethan would teach: how he would talk about boundaries, and how he would guide students to understand "listening."
As the meeting drew to a close, he closed his notebook: "Same time as always—every Wednesday at 3 p.m.?"
"Very good."
He was about to finish when he suddenly looked up and said, "Oh—wait a minute."
He got up and walked to the bookshelf by the window, pulling out a slightly worn hardcover book from a row of gray-blue spines. The cover was worn at the corners, and the pages were slightly yellowed. He walked back and placed the book in front of her: "It's not an academic book, don't worry."
Pan Qiu lowered her eyes to look at the cover: The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone.
“I bought it during my layover at Heathrow,” he said, as if it were a trivial matter. “I was going to a conference in Budapest, and the layover was very long. I watched most of it on the night flight across the Atlantic. Night flights always have such strangely long layovers, you know.”
Seeing her expression, he added, "A few of your pieces reminded me of your way of observation—quiet yet clear-headed."
She was still processing his last words. As if realizing he had said too much, he chuckled softly and softened his tone: "Anyway—a belated birthday present."
He paused, then added, "No need to rush to read it. But hopefully—whenever you open it, it will keep you company for a while."
Pan Qiu paused for a moment. She had never told him her birthday, nor had she posted pictures of cakes on social media.
Ethan clearly noticed her mood and frankly added, "Our work system reminds PhD students of their birthdays. I didn't bother to remember them; I just didn't want to pretend I didn't see them."
Pan Qiu nodded, a smile involuntarily creeping onto her lips. Her inner monologue began to play: Oh, it was Workday—that hardcore system that pays salaries, manages projects, and approves reimbursements—acting like a serious, warm-hearted American woman, popping up to remind her: "Hey! Today is your student's birthday—do something thoughtful!" Ultimately, it wasn't that Ethan had specifically remembered her birthday, but he had clicked on the reminder, remembered it, and then, on an ordinary weekday afternoon, handed her a book he had already read, like handing her a piece of scenery he had seen.
When she got home, it was not yet seven o'clock, and the room was already tinged with a pale yellow by the early autumn sunset. She took a very short shower, as if completing a procedural action, put on her pajamas, combed her hair, and drew the curtains, dividing the room into a small space of time.
The first week of jet lag is the hardest: you force yourself to stay awake during the day, but at night it feels like jet lag has hit you on the back of the head. She lay in bed, her head heavy, her eyes dry, but her body was slowly relaxing. On the bedside table was the book Ethan had given her that afternoon. The pages were stiff, the edges slightly curled, clearly showing signs of reading. She opened the title page and, under the lamplight, saw a line of familiar yet unfamiliar handwriting—clean blue fountain pen script:
—"This is for Panqiu, on her 22nd birthday."
A message for those quiet moments caught between things.
—Ethan Rowan Ellery
She softly repeated the middle name: Rowan.
This was the first time she had learned that he had a middle name.
Ethan Rowan Ellery.
She stared at the line of names for a few seconds.
Rowan...meatballs?
She couldn't help but chuckle softly—very softly, almost as if only the corner of her mouth moved.
How could anyone be named "Rowan"? It's not her fault; her brain is running simultaneously with both Chinese and English.
She turned to another page and saw several lines of fine pencil annotations, written diagonally along the edges of the paragraphs. The handwriting was very faint, as if afraid of disturbing the original text, yet wanting to leave something behind:
"Loneliness is personal, and it is also political. Loneliness is collective; loneliness is a city."
Next to it, he wrote four words: "Private authenticity, public structure".
She stared at those few strokes of the pen for a long time. Suddenly, she seemed to see a version of him she had never seen before: in the dimly lit cabin, the overhead reading light shone on him like a stage spotlight, isolated and softly white. He leaned back in his narrow seat, turning pages and writing in the margins with a pencil. His movements were quiet and focused, as if he were conversing with an unseen audience member. The scene was so clear it was illogical.
The slight emotion that had just begun to rise in her heart was interrupted a second later by her own self-deprecating remark: Okay, Ms. Meatball. She closed the book, suppressed a laugh, and rolled over. The literary atmosphere lasted less than ten seconds before she herself had destroyed it.
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