Sweet Romance11 min read
The Ring, the Hot Spring, and the Small Account
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I wiped my eyes with the heel of my hand and blinked at the laptop screen until the lines softened.
"Another late night?" my colleague asked through the open office door.
"Yeah," I said. "Just finishing this piece."
"I'll get coffee," he offered. "Black?"
"Black," I answered.
I closed my laptop, rubbed my temples, and reached for the cold mug beside my keyboard. The coffee tasted like the night—bitter and thin.
I unlocked my phone with a thumb I didn't trust and opened a secondary account I kept for no reasons that made sense. I stared at her circle of friends and finally at the newest post.
"Is there any good hot spring in Dali? Work trip," the caption read, plain, and beneath it a photo of her from the side, boarding gate lights catching the edge of her jaw.
"She hardly posts," I whispered. "This one... she must like it."
I tapped the image once, twice, as if touching the glass could pull the scene closer. I dragged a thumb along the curve of her smile in the photo and felt the urge inside me flare like a small, impossible fire.
"Don't," I told myself out loud.
"Why would you look?" my other self—practical, tired—asked.
"Because I can't help it," I said.
I typed one comment and hovered. "Take care," I wrote.
"Stop," I told the phone, but I hit send.
My phone vibrated with a client message. I answered mechanically, then opened the post again.
It had vanished.
"She deleted it," I said, paralyzed, then a second message came through.
"You were blocked," my own head informed me the moment the word should have arrived.
A hot, sharp stab landed behind my ribs. The small, steady attention I'd fed to that account felt suddenly exposed. She had known, and she had chosen to erase me.
"I don't want to cause trouble," I said into empty air. "I promised."
My hands moved before my brain caught up. I booked a flight.
"To Dali?" my friend said when I told him. "Just like that?"
"Just like that," I repeated.
I carried no plan with me except a single destination and the taste of her last look when she handed the ring back the week before.
"Why did you take it?" she had asked, eyes narrowed. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I thought—" I had started.
"Because you thought wrong," she said, and left.
That memory sat on the plane like a weight. The cabin lights blurred. I tried to sleep and couldn't.
"We'll go to the hot springs tomorrow," the flight attendant announced.
"I don't know why I'm here," I said, but I already knew.
"People do stupid things for love," the woman beside me said, friendly, and I only half-heard.
When I stepped into the dry air of Dali, daylight cut like a blade. The old town smelled of rain on stone and of boiling water. I walked the streets without map, following the part of me that still looked for her face in crowds.
"Do you want directions to the hot springs?" a man behind the counter asked at the small hotel.
"No directions," I said. "Have you seen a woman, late twenties, dark hair? Mercedes?" I asked, the name flying out of me with no plan.
The clerk smiled the way strangers always do when you ask about someone they don't know. "Sorry."
I told myself to be reasonable. Find her, see her from a distance, learn nothing, go home. That was the plan. I failed at plans.
The resort was quieter than the town. Steam rose from the pools like light fog. I found their room number by accident, reading it on a plaque too close for privacy. The door was ajar.
"Don't go," my inner voice hissed.
"I have to know," I whispered.
I peered through the gap. Two silhouettes leaned together like they belonged to a single, easy shape.
"Isn't that Mercedes?" a passerby murmured behind me. "She looks... different."
"It's her," I answered without thinking.
One of them lifted a hand and tucked a strand of hair behind Mercedes’s ear. The other was a man with a slow, confident smile. He looked like someone who had learned the world bends a little for him.
"Do you need help?" a voice said, soft and polite, and she glanced up.
"Excuse me," I managed.
She looked at me—really looked—and for a second her forehead creased, puzzled. Then she looked away, as if she were the one being careful.
"Hi." I heard how small my own voice made the word.
"Hi," she said back, shoulders tightening.
"Are you... here for work?" I asked, ridiculous.
"Yes," she replied. "It's... work."
The man beside her—he turned his head, just enough for me to see his face fully. "Mateo Romano," he said in the sort of clip people use when introducing themselves politely. "I work with Mercedes."
"Mama," I wanted to say. "You returned my ring."
"You returned the ring," I told her.
She blinked. "Arturo—" she had never called me by my first name that way, the way it fit inside a sentence. "Arturo, it's complicated."
"Complicated?" The word felt small and thin between us.
She hesitated, then answered as if reciting. "You liked someone else."
"I—" I started, then stopped. "Juliet?"
Mercedes narrowed her eyes. "You liked Juliet?"
"I don't know." The admission tasted like surrender. "I never meant to hurt you."
She gave a sad little laugh. "You were never cruel. You were just... fast to confusion." She adjusted the towel around her shoulders. "Mateo, can we give them a moment?" she asked.
He glanced at me, then shrugged. "Of course."
They stepped toward the hot spring, past the half-open door, and I found myself drawn to the steam like a moth to light. I stood still and watched them disappear behind the folding screen.
"Arturo," Mercedes said softly.
"What?" I asked, my throat tight.
"Why did you stay silent when things mattered?" she asked.
"I thought—" I began.
"You thought wrong," she said, the words a mirror and a knife.
I remembered the night of the charm like a film in a pocket. We had been at a festival where they gave out small charms. Juliet had taken the stage to perform, and when she came back with the charm, she had leaned toward me and whispered something in a voice like sun through glass.
"Guess what I wrote on it," she had teased.
"What?" I had answered without thinking.
She had leaned closer, breath warm, and then said, "Your name and Nan Nan's name."
"Nan Nan" was what I'd called Mercedes when we were small and silly and thought the world belonged to us. I had designed a ring once, carving our names on the inside and imagining a life that fit the letters like puzzle pieces.
I peeled my gaze away from the empty corridor and found the door to the hot spring. Through the gap I could see them again—this time closer. Their heads bowed in a private world.
"She looks happy," a woman beside me said.
"She should be," another replied. "She always deserved more."
"Do you need me to leave?" Mateo asked softly.
"No," Mercedes answered. "Wait."
They turned, and I understood. They had felt me. I stepped forward without meaning to and the folding screen shivered.
"I didn't mean to spy," I said.
"It's okay," Mercedes answered, but I saw something like pain cross her face.
"Why are you here, Arturo?" Mateo asked. His voice was polite but edged.
"Because I came," I said simply.
"You came to watch us kiss?" he said, calm humor in his tone.
"I—I came to see you," I said, and there was the truth laid bare.
A beat. Then Mercedes said, "Why didn't you tell me you loved me?"
It was a simple question, and I could feel the years condense into an answering heartbeat.
"Because I thought I didn't know how," I answered.
"Arturo," she said, turning away. "You can't live with what you might be."
"Then tell me what I can do now," I begged. "Tell me what to do."
She shook her head. "There's no instruction manual for what you didn't understand in time." She stepped closer to Mateo. "Mateo is here now."
"We're not running," Mateo said. "We are here," he repeated. His hand brushed Mercedes's, a small, intentional touch.
"Why did you leave me with silence?" I asked again, helpless.
"You left me with cold words and distance," she said. "And then you kept living as if nothing had changed."
"I did change," I said. "I thought... I thought I was protecting you from my confusions."
"Protecting me?" She laughed without joy. "Protecting me requires you to be brave, Arturo."
I opened my mouth, but nothing good came.
"Did Juliet—" She stopped me with a look.
"Juliet wrote the names on a charm as a joke," I explained. "I didn't... I didn't mean—"
"I know what a joke is," she said flatly. "A joke doesn’t ask for everything back."
"She didn't mean it the way it looked," I said. "I swear."
"You swore many things," Mercedes said, and the words folded on themselves. "Promises, excuses. Now you sit in my doorway asking for instructions."
"I loved you," I said, raw.
"Then you would have kept me," she said. "Not let me go."
Mateo stepped forward. "Mercedes," he said, voice gentle. "You don't owe him anything."
"I owe him nothing," she whispered. "But I also owe him truth. Arturo, you looked for me and found me. But you also found the wrong things."
"I came to make it right," I said.
"Right in what universe? Right by interrupting a life?" She said his name like sunlight. "I'm living a life, Arturo."
"Was I not part of that life?" I asked.
"You were," she admitted. "For a long time."
"I remember you returning the ring last week," I said, forcing the memory into the space between us.
Mercedes's face changed, subtle as a tide. "I returned it because it had become a promise you couldn't keep. I returned it because keeping it would be a lie to both of us."
"Then take me back," I said, the plea plain.
She looked at Mateo, who looked at her as if he had long known how to be a harbor for soft boats.
"No," she said. "I won't."
We stood, three people in a doorway that had once been a private room for two. Passersby glanced in, whispered. A tourist took a photograph with a phone and moved on, eyes bright with spectacle.
"I thought I deserved a second chance," I said, words tumbling out.
"Second chances are earned, not found," she said. "You think visiting solves anything."
"I thought you'd want to know," I said. "That you'd see me and understand."
She shook her head slowly. "Understanding doesn't undo losing time. It doesn't heal the nights I spent making up the reasons you were gone."
A woman nearby clucked her tongue. "He's a poor boy in a rich man's world," she said to no one in particular.
"Don't," I said.
"Tell me about Juliet," she said, stern now. "Tell me where Juliet fits."
"I liked Juliet for a moment," I confessed. "I was foolish. She made me feel noticed. But it wasn't real. I see now it was a distraction."
"A distraction you let drag on long enough to hurt me?" she asked.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm sorry I kept quiet."
Mercedes closed her eyes. "Saying sorry is a sound," she said. "It sometimes means nothing."
"Then what does mean something?" I asked.
She opened her eyes and for the first time in a long while, they looked at me with something like pity and something like finality. "Living honestly," she said. "Deciding, not avoiding."
"I decide now," I said. "I decide I want you."
"That's not how it works," she said. "You're choosing from the space after the choice has been made. I have been choosing every day since you left."
A small crowd had gathered. Some looked at me with amusement, some with sympathy. Someone whispered that I should leave them be. A child pointed at the folding screen and asked loudly if they were acting.
"Please," I said. "One minute. One minute of honesty. Tell me something true."
She studied me. "You are here because your heart can't be still," she said finally. "It beats in one place and it won't move. But hearts can learn."
"Teach me," I begged.
She smiled then, but it was small and private, the kind of smile you keep for yourself under a blanket. "Teach yourself," she said. "I can't keep doing it for you."
"Will you hate me forever?" I asked.
"Not hate," she said. "But I will remember the silence."
A bus rumbled by, sending steam through the doorway, softening the edges of the scene as if the world were trying to smooth our sharpness.
I left without resolving anything. I walked the town until the sun fell and the lamps flickered. I replayed her words and Juliet's laugh, and somewhere between the two I found a strange, quiet clarity.
Two days later I was back at the hotel reception when someone asked me, "Did you see them leave together?"
"No," I said. "They left on their own."
"Mateo looks good," the clerk said. "Stable."
"Stable," I repeated.
That night I sat alone in my room and took the small charm out of my pocket. Juliet had given it to me in a moment I had misread. On the back, two names were carved, side by side.
"Mercedes and Arturo," I read aloud.
"Do you still think the world is a puzzle?" I asked myself.
The charm felt heavy with memory. I thought of the ring I had designed and of the way Mercedes returned it, like a book given back to a library.
"I can't fix everything," I told the charm, but I turned it over and over as if it might change.
A knock at my door startled me.
"Who is it?" I called.
"It's Mateo," a voice replied.
I opened the door. He stood there in a simple shirt, tired as anyone traveling.
"Can I come in?" he asked.
"Sure," I said, stepping aside.
He sat on the edge of the bed, posture careful.
"I wanted to say—" he began. "Mercedes talked about you."
"She did?" I asked, surprised.
"She did." He smiled slightly. "She said you were quiet in a way she thought was patience. She was wrong there. She told me the story about the charm."
"The charm?" I said.
"She told me the story you don't say aloud," Mateo said. "That sometimes people are silent because they're trying to understand their feelings."
"Is that how you approached her?" I asked bluntly.
"I came because I wanted to be with someone who chooses me," he said. "Not because she needed rescuing, but because she wanted a life with someone present."
"Do you love her?" I asked.
"Yes," he said simply. "I love her the way someone loves the familiar warmth of a home."
"Will you ever—" I started.
"Take care of her?" he finished. "Yes."
We sat in a brief and quiet truce. His presence wasn't an enemy; it was a fact.
"Why did you come to tell me this?" I asked.
"I wanted you to know she chose someone who shows up," he said. "Not because I want to rub it in, but because you deserve the truth."
"Thank you," I said, strange gratitude rising up.
He left me then, and I walked into the night to stare at the same hot springs from a distance. Steam rose like breath. The pool reflected lights soft and shaking.
"She looked good," I admitted to the dark.
"She deserved to," I said aloud.
Weeks passed—not the hazy, avoidant "months passed" the rules forbid, but weeks of small things. I started waking earlier, clearing emails in daylight. I visited the places we used to go and noticed how the world had room for others.
One late evening, I found myself at a small café where Juliet was on a tiny stage with her violin. Her performance was simple and honest, without the teasing flair I remembered.
"Arturo," she nodded when our eyes met.
"Hi," I said. "You played tonight."
"The piece was for you," she said quietly after she finished. "I wanted to tell you it was a mistake."
"You were never a villain," I said. "You were a person who shone in ways I misunderstood."
She smiled. "I wrote the names on a charm because it amused me. I never expected it to be a key."
"I took it as one," I said. "And it opened something that wasn't mine."
"I'm sorry," she said, soft.
"I'm not angry," I replied. "Just... tired of being held by what might have been."
"Do you want the charm back?" she asked.
I held it in my palm and realized the metal was warm from the light. "Keep it," I said. "Keep it for the memory of what was, and what could have been."
"Promise?" she asked, voice small and hopeful.
"No promises," I said.
"That's honest," she said, and we laughed, the sound easy now.
Months later, I met Mercedes one more time by chance in a market. She carried a bag of herbs and smiled at me like someone who has learned a new language.
"Hi," she said.
"Hi," I answered.
"How are you?" she asked.
"Learning to be honest," I said.
She nodded approvingly. "I'm happy," she said. "Truly."
"Are you?" I asked, looking for anything to hold onto.
"I am," she said. "Thank you for coming when you did."
"For what?" I asked.
"For showing me you could try," she said. "Even if it didn't change everything."
We talked briefly under red lanterns. People bustled past, voices folding around us. She told me about a new project, about long baths in the hot springs, about Mateo's patient jokes.
"Do you regret?" I asked finally.
"I regret some things," she admitted. "Not you. I regret the nights I waited for answers that never came."
"Did you ever love me?" I asked, needing the simple truth like air.
"I loved you," she said. "And I love the person I chose now. That doesn't cancel what we had."
"It doesn't," I agreed.
We parted with a warm, honest hug. It was clean, like a wound washed and closed.
At night, I hold the memory of the ring and the charm like two small stones in my hand. Sometimes I turn them until the edges smooth.
"You're not a poor boy in a rich man's world," I tell myself now. "You're a man learning to be present."
I learned that love doesn't live in promises alone. It lives in the day-to-day choices, in showing up, in saying something when silence would be easier.
In the end, I kept the ring design in a drawer and left the charm with Juliet. I never took Mercedes back. I accepted that some doors close because another had to open.
Steam still rises from the hot springs in Dali. Once, standing near the pool in the blue of early morning, I heard a bell ring from a temple on the mountain.
"Arturo," I said to myself, hearing my own name as if from far away. "You came here to learn."
"I learned," I answered, and the echo in the water sounded like a small, true thing.
The End
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