Sweet Romance11 min read
He Carried Me Home, Fed Me Porridge, and Stayed
ButterPicks12 views
"The elevator dinged and I froze."
"I—I'm fine," I tried to sound casual, which turned into a whisper.
He smiled like a memory. "Janessa?"
I had a bun in one fist and a paper cup of soy milk in the other. My hair looked like a bird's nest. I wanted the floor to open and swallow me.
"Chase?" I managed. "Chase Beatty?"
He stood tall in a white shirt, like he had never been a teenager. He looked cleaner, calmer. My stomach, which had been thinking only of hot, sour-pork buns, fell somewhere into my socks.
"Long time," he said. He reached out a hand that looked too big for high school ghosts.
I pretended not to see him. I wrapped my scarf higher. "I forgot my keys," I lied, because everything about me felt exposed.
"You okay?" he asked.
I wanted to vanish. Instead I did the one stupid thing I always did when nervy: I stuffed a whole bun into my mouth and chewed like a chipmunk.
He looked like he'd been given a small, private show.
"I—" I swallowed, cheeks full, and mouthed, "Sorry."
He laughed that soft laugh that could have been a sentence in a love story. "I'm Chase. We were in the same class."
"Yeah." I tried to joke. "You haven't changed. Still unbearable."
"Still handsome," he teased.
The elevator opened on the tenth floor. Chase left first. I followed a beat later, and our doors were opposite. I took three steps, then four, then froze.
"Janessa," he said again, softer. "Long time."
My keys were lost to the couch cushions in a house I'd only lived in two days. I had not washed my face. I had not fixed my hair. I had not earned the right to be noticed.
"Uh." I moved like a small animal towards my door. He reached my door at the same time and stopped.
"How have you been?" he asked.
"Good," I lied. "You?"
"Busy." He glanced down like he had something to hide. "I have to go. We should—catch up."
I watched him go. He said, too casually, "Don't rush your food. Don't choke."
Then he closed his door.
I ate the rest of my bun standing in the hallway and felt my face heat with embarrassment.
I called my friend Guadalupe as soon as I could. "I need a ticket to Happy Planet," I said.
"Because?" she drawled sleepily.
"Chase Beatty lives next door. I ate a bun in front of him. I chewed like a starving raccoon."
"Then get comfy on Earth, Janessa. Or let me buy you a plane ticket," Guadalupe said. "Or text him. Ask for his number."
"No." I remembered my scarf, my sleep clothes, my chicken-scratch hair. "No way."
That should have been the end of it. But the world has a way of being inconvenient.
Two days later my tooth started to hurt like a fist. Food was pain. Sleep was pain. I booked a doctor, but the nearest dentist had a three-week wait. I could not sit through three weeks of soup.
I limped to the clinic Chase had told me about. The sign read "Beatty Dental." My throat closed.
I turned to leave. A tall shape in a white jacket caught my eye.
"You're here early," he said when I stepped in.
"It's you," I squeaked. The name on his door said "Dr. Chase Beatty."
"Come in," he said. "Let me look."
I wanted to run. Instead I let him tell me to lie back. He leaned close with a light. The world shrank to his eyes and the bright lamp and the small bright felt of his hands.
"Open," he said.
I opened. He checked for only seconds.
"This needs to come out," Chase said.
"Now?" I whispered.
"Now," he said. "I'll be quick."
He was ever so careful. He talked me through each step. I closed my eyes and listened to the manager—Dr. Beatty—count out instruments. When he put his hand under my shoulders to lift me up, my legs went weak.
"You're light," he murmured, and before I could deny it, he had me in a proper cradle. He put me down on the break-room cot because I looked pale.
"Rest," he said. "I'll make you something. You should not be alone right after this."
He folded a blanket around me. He stood over me like a guard. I fell asleep with the smell of disinfectant and the faint warmth of someone's coat hugging my shoulders.
When I woke, my mouth tasted like metal and cotton, and a warm bowl was set on the side table.
"Eat slowly," he said, voice softer. "I made porridge. It's cool."
He thumbed his phone to life and—so calmly—started to walk me out. A nurse passed and did a double take like we were an odd postcard.
"You're getting some rest in the office?" the nurse whispered to him.
"I'll take her home if she needs," he said. He said it like it was nothing. Like pushing a patient in a wheelchair downtown. Like helping a neighbor.
He carried me to his car like I weighed nothing. I wanted to object. Instead I dozed.
At his apartment he tucked me on his couch and fussed while I drank his porridge. He trimmed the meat into tiny pieces so I could swallow without teeth. He watched as I ate and smiled like a man who had been given a private gift.
"Thank you," I said finally.
"It's nothing," he said. "Neighbors look after neighbors."
He told me he had his own clinic because he wanted control over time. "I don't like big hospitals," he said. "Less hurry."
"Well, your hurry for me is...nice," I said before I could stop myself.
He looked at me as if I had said something rare and true.
We started to talk in short sentences, like people clearing the fog out of a window one breath at a time.
"Do you live right across?" he asked.
"Yes," I said. "Two doors down. Janessa Ash."
"Chase Beatty," he said.
We added each other on "WeChat"—or the local chat, whatever it was called—then he blinked at my username.
"JanessaAshWrites?" he read.
"I write," I said. "Sort of."
"I'll keep it between you and me," Chase said.
He left after dinner and texted me the next morning: I left breakfast. Please take it. He put a boxed meal on my door. Inside: sesame paste and egg roll, a hot porridge. I ate like someone who had been hungry for months.
He started leaving meals, soft things, warm things. I returned the containers, washed. We lived a ping-pong life by door and knock.
Chase's mother, Martha Schuster, eventually came over with a bag of vegetables and a chicken. She pinched my cheek and called me "Ning" like she had known me for years and not a few hours.
"You're a neighbor to my son," she said. "We all help each other here."
She sat with me and scrolled novels on my phone. I almost choked when I saw my own book pop up in her reading list.
"You like this author," I said, heart in my throat.
"This one? Yes. I told my friends," she said, and smiled like she had just found treasure.
My pen name—the shallow mask I used—was safe because I had never told Chase. He saw my food pictures, my selfies, my messy life, but not my writer alter ego. For the time being, that was fine. I wanted him in small steps: a porridge at a door, a bowl of congee, a pair of chopsticks left with care.
Yet I got complicated.
He would look at me in ways that made my heart push inside my ribs. He would make jokes about me stuffing buns whole. He would flirt with something so soft, like a low sun.
One evening I pretended illness to avoid being the only one to cook. He smiled when I said I had plans to meet Guadalupe.
"Go," he said. "Eat. Be loud."
"You sure?" I asked.
"Yes."
The night with Guadalupe turned into fire and chili and laughter. But when I left the restaurant I found Chase there, too.
"What are you doing here?" I asked, blinking.
"I had dinner with friends," he said, and then he looked at me like a man who had just been given an unopened present. "Do you want a ride?"
He drove. He bought me street food I had posted about months ago—oyster cakes from a small stall with a thin paper wrapping and steam rising. He'd remembered a random photo. I ate the first bit and burned my tongue and laughed when he told me to slow down.
"You're careless," he said.
"A little," I admitted.
He watched me like someone cataloguing small treasures. When we reached my door he walked me up the steps.
"Wait," I said. "Thank you."
"You're welcome," he said. "Also—" he paused—"my mom thinks you're lovely."
That night I scrolled my chat feed and saw that Chase's family was the sort that talked, spread rumors, and grew wishes. My phone pinged with gossip messages about "finding a girl" and "maybe having a baby next year." I hid my face in my pillow and laughed until I cried.
We stumbled forward in tiny, real ways: he fixed a leaky cabinet hinge in my apartment; I brought him extra cookies; he brought me medicine when an ache wouldn't stop; I kept his lunch boxes clean and warm.
There were moments that felt small and perfect.
"Do you like spicy?" he asked once, stirring a pot gently.
"Love it," I said. "Bring on the heat."
He only smiled like someone storing an answer for later.
"Do you have someone?" I asked him one night, blunt and careless.
"No," he said.
"You mean it?" My voice shook.
"I mean it," he said, and the way he said it made me want to say more.
"Then why did you say you were waiting for someone?"
He looked at me like I'd asked a question about the weather. "Because I was waiting for someone I liked." His jaw softened. "And then I saw you."
"Me?" I laughed, because some feelings hide behind a bigger laugh.
"Yes," he said. "You."
I wanted to scramble away. I wanted to throw my phone. Instead I sat still and let the sentence find its place in my chest.
He didn't make big declarations. He made small promises: porridge at the right time, a seat beside him on the couch, a hand at the small of my back when stairs made my legs wobble.
But the biggest thing he did was slow down.
"Let's go to a movie this weekend," he said one evening. "Midnight horror. I read it's very effective."
"I hate horror," I said.
"Then it's perfect. You'll be forced to cling to me."
I wanted to tease him. Instead I said, "Okay."
We sat very close in the dark. He let his hand find mine. A jump-scare made me grab his wrist and I held on, not letting go. He didn't say anything then, but later—when the lights came back and we walked under a quiet sky—he kissed my knuckles.
The next month was filled with odd little public moments. His mother came more often with vegetables and knitted scarves. His friend Mason Barber asked questions in jokes. People in the building started to smile when I passed him in the halls. Once, a neighbor whispered to another, "That handsome doctor and the girl who writes books? Cute pair."
I grew bolder. I let him pull me into his kitchen. I let him show me how to cut an onion without crying and then laughed when I did cry anyway.
"You're not a terrible cook," he said one day, tasting a spoonful of my burnt stew with exaggerated solemnity.
"Were you paid to say that?" I asked.
"No." He grinned. "I mean it."
He took my hand, turned me gently, and kissed me for the first time in a doorway between his life and mine—soft, long enough to notice details, like the smell of his soap, the brush of his stubble, the press of his palms.
"Say it," he said, breath against my ear.
"Say what?" I asked, though I had an idea.
"Say you dislike me," he teased.
"I don't," I said, laughing.
"Good," he said. "Because I don't dislike you, either."
The days built into a small, steady rhythm. I returned drafts to my editor, Nicoletta Daley, sent scenes to readers in my group chat, and told small lies when asked if my day was romantic enough to be in a book. I wrote a scene about a man who made porridge and a woman who wore a scarf too high and posted it to a secret folder.
One afternoon, my inbox filled with a message from my editor: your book is being published. We picked your city for a signing. You're either going to yell in delight or faint.
I yelled. I fainted into a cup of tea. Chase hugged me and said, "We'll have a party."
Then the signing was set for the end of the month. My heart did cartwheels. I had never seen a line of people to meet a writer. I had never imagined Chase sitting in the audience, applause in his eyes.
The day of the signing I wanted to hide. I wanted to wear a mask. I wanted to be invisible.
"I'll be there," he said. "Don't worry."
"I'm a mess," I said.
"So what? You'll be my messy author."
He took my hand like a vow.
The signing hall was bright and full. I sat at a table with a stack of my pale-blue covers and my name printed in small letters. People came. They asked questions. They said things like "I loved your pacing" and "Where did you learn to write this?" and "Will there be a sequel?"
I laughed at the right times. I signed names. I smiled. I felt like a woman who had been stitched back together by cups of porridge and stolen kisses.
Then halfway through, a group of strangers started whispering. They circulated their phones and watched us.
"Is he the doctor next door?" one asked.
"He is," another said. "I heard his mother drops by sometimes."
I kept signing. I kept breathing.
Chase slipped through the crowd and sat where he could see me. He caught my eye, and his face said only two things: pride and something like protection.
When the last booklet was signed and the crowd began to thin, a woman from the front row stood up.
"You are Janessa Ash, aren't you?" she said. "Your story feels like home. I think the man behind you would make you a better life."
I nearly fainted. Someone else called out, "We think he's lovely!"
Chase stood then. He crossed the room like a man who had been walking toward me from the first page. He took my hand in the middle of the hall, in front of a dozen strangers and dozens of phones.
"Janessa," he said, voice steady and strong. "I have been waiting to ask you something in a thousand tiny moments. Will you—allow me—be part of your life?"
The room hummed. A woman somewhere gasped. My editor clapped.
I swallowed. A dozen little fears tried to rush me: my messy apartment, my silly usernames, my clumsy kitchen skills. But all the proof I needed to answer was in his hands, in the porridge, in the meals on my doorstep, in the quiet way his thumb had found the scar behind my ear.
"Yes," I said.
He smiled then in a way that melted the fluorescent lights in the room. He bent, kissed my knuckle in front of strangers, and then rested his forehead against mine.
"Good," he said. "Also—" he pulled me closer—"if you'd like, I'll teach you to make oyster cakes like we had on the street. And no more whole-bun bites. At least not in public."
I laughed. "Deal."
He laughed, too, and then he surprised me: he spoke to the room.
"This woman writes about love in a way that reminds me how to be kind," he said. "If I had to wait my whole life, I would wait again."
The audience applauded. I felt my chest fill with a kind of quiet power.
After the signing we stood outside under a gray city sky. The photographer had left. The hall lights were warm behind us.
"Will you come home with me?" he asked.
"Yes," I said.
He took my hand and led me across the street to the small stall that had made my favorite oyster cakes. He ordered, wrapped two warm pieces in paper, and fed me the first bite.
"Thank you," I said.
"For what?" he asked.
"For seeing me when I felt like a mess," I said. "For making porridge, for holding me, for liking my stories."
He kissed my temple, fingers warm around my wrist.
"You made me want to be better," he said. "And I want to see everything you write. I want to read your small and big lines out loud."
"I will write about you," I said, and then felt my face bloom.
"Make sure you spell my name right," he teased.
"I will," I said.
We stood there, midday crowd drifting around us, my book tucked under my arm, a paper-wrapped oyster cake between us, and our hands entwined like a small promise.
I had started the day very afraid of being seen, of being discovered. I had wanted a Happy Planet ticket, to hide. Then a man with a soft laugh and clean hands began leaving hot porridge on my doorstep.
He did not rescue me from everything. He did not fix all my crooked fears. He did not force the world to be gentle. But he kept showing up with small things: medicine arranged on a tray, a bowl of soft rice, a quiet "I'm here."
And I, who had long written about love as a distant thing, found it in his kindness—the steady, ordinary work of someone who liked me enough to stay.
We walked home with the city around us, and I pressed the oyster cake to my lips, tasting the sea and a real, small life.
"Will you let me cook for your books?" he asked.
"Only if you leave the spice rack where I can reach it," I teased.
"Deal," he said.
We had no more spaceship tickets. We had porridge, little wrapped breakfasts, hospital cots, and a stack of my printed books. We had a mother's blessing and a neighbor's nod. We had the simplest promise: to keep showing up.
That night, I wrote a new line into a new chapter. It started with a bowl on a table and ended with a man who would not leave.
"Stay," I wrote, looking up at Chase.
He was there. He smiled. He took my hand.
"I'm not going anywhere," he said.
The End
— Thank you for reading —