GL love

The rain began that evening. Gu Yao stood at the entrance of the vegetable market, two crucian carp still flapping in the plastic bag in her hand. The sky hung low over the small town, and the rain swept in sideways. She stepped back half a pace under the eaves and looked up — there, across the way, was the free-clinic tent. A corner of a white coat lifted in the wind. The figure inside was bent over an elderly man, stethoscope pressed to his chest, profile lit by the tungsten lamp. It was Lin Zhao. Gu Yao stood where she was for a long time — long enough for the fish in her bag to stop moving. She didn't walk over. Lin Zhao didn't look up. The rain fell between them like a silent wall, and neither of them crossed it. — That rain had begun the year they met. It had never stopped. ✦ ✦ ✦ Six years earlier, on a day just like this one. Gu Yao was thirty-one, a Chinese teacher at the county's top high school. She had been teaching for nine years, and her life ran as neatly as a graded essay. Her mother, Chen Xiulan, had arranged a blind date for her — with the son of the county education director. She sat in the noodle shop, listening to the rain, and suddenly wanted to run. So she did. She paid the bill and walked out — no umbrella. Head down, she plunged into the rain and collided with someone. The woman staggered back a step, but her hand came out first to steady her. "Are you all right?" The voice was steady. Gu Yao looked up and saw a face wet with rain, eyes so bright they seemed like the only lamp in the storm. It was Lin Zhao — an emergency doctor from the city's No. 1 Hospital, in the county for a six-month support assignment at the county hospital. Later, Gu Yao often thought that meeting her was the one time in her life she hadn't followed her mother's arrangements. Lin Zhao lived in the building next door. When the emergency phone rang at night, Gu Yao could hear her throw back the covers and get out of bed through the wall. Once, at two in the morning, Gu Yao spotted her waiting for a cab downstairs — pajamas under her white coat, hair not even combed. She called out, "Dr. Lin!" Lin Zhao looked up and smiled. "Teacher Gu, still up at this hour?" "Preparing lessons." "What a coincidence. I'm on duty." Two people who couldn't sleep, five floors apart through a curtain of rain, trading a line that meant nothing. Back in her room, Gu Yao realized she had been smiling for a long time. They began having late-night snacks together — Lin Zhao coming off the night shift, Gu Yao just out of evening study hall, at the county's only wonton stand under its plastic canopy, rain drumming on the roof. Lin Zhao ate fast. Gu Yao teased her: "Used to grabbing food in the ER?" "Habit," Lin Zhao mumbled around a mouthful. "Ten minutes to finish — I can be called away any second." Sure enough, half a bowl still left, her phone rang. Lin Zhao set down her chopsticks, pulled a fifty-yuan note from her pocket, and tucked it under the bowl. "Teacher Gu, next time it's on me." Gu Yao watched her run off into the rain, her back soon swallowed by the streetlights. She suddenly felt that this county town wasn't as small as it used to be. The day they made it official, it rained too. Lin Zhao had been on duty until dawn, but instead of going home, she waited at the gate of Gu Yao's school. When Gu Yao came out after class, she found her squatting by the flower bed, two cups of soy milk in her hands, half her hair soaked by the rain. "Why didn't you wait inside?" "I didn't want to make trouble for you." Lin Zhao stood up and handed her the soy milk, eyes curving into crescents. "Teacher Gu... may I court you?" She opened her mouth — the words we're both women pressed against the tip of her tongue. In the end, all she asked was: "Aren't you afraid?" "Afraid of what?" Lin Zhao thought it over. "That you'll say no." They got together. Gu Yao brought her home to meet Chen Xiulan. She didn't dare call her her girlfriend — she only said, "Dr. Lin from the hospital. She's helped me a lot." Chen Xiulan looked Lin Zhao up and down and nodded with satisfaction. "A doctor. Good. Respectable." Then she added, "Yaoyao, the director's son is coming back from the provincial capital next month. You two should meet." Lin Zhao's chopsticks paused. Under the table, Gu Yao touched her hand — very lightly, as if to say it's all right. But how could it be all right? They loved each other carefully for half a year. Gu Yao wrote her into a diary and locked it in a drawer; Lin Zhao hid her photos in the deepest folder of her phone. They never dared hold hands crossing the street — they only walked the riverbank late at night when no one was around, their shadows overlapping, and counted that as an embrace. One day, Chen Xiulan's keys fell outside Gu Yao's door. She bent down to pick them up — and on the way, pushed open the half-closed drawer. The diary lay open, a photograph tucked between its pages. Two women by the river, standing close, smiling like they had stolen something precious. Chen Xiulan said nothing. She put the photograph back, picked up her keys, walked out the door, and called Gu Yao's school. That afternoon, the principal called Gu Yao into his office, hesitating over his words: "Teacher Gu... do you happen to know Dr. Lin from the city hospital? Your mother said the two of you have a... relationship..." Gu Yao's head was ringing. "Teacher Gu, you teach the graduating class. The county has high hopes for you." The principal sighed. "Your mother said that if you don't... she'll report it to the education bureau. You know how it is — if word gets out..." Gu Yao never knew how she made it home. Chen Xiulan was sitting in the living room, eyes red and swollen, the diary on the coffee table. "Yaoyao." Chen Xiulan's voice shook badly. "In this life, your mother asks you for only this one thing. Your father left early; I raised you on my own, hoping you'd live a decent life. You, a woman teacher — and a woman doctor... How am I supposed to hold my head up in this county?" "Mom, there's nothing indecent about us." Gu Yao heard her own voice trembling. "Have you no shame at all!" Chen Xiulan hurled the diary to the floor. The photograph flew out and drifted to Gu Yao's feet. "I'm telling you — if you don't break it off with her, your mother will throw herself off this building today! If your father were still alive, you'd have angered him to death too!" It rained all that night. Gu Yao sat on the balcony, watching the lights in the next building go on, then off. Lin Zhao texted her: "I'm off tomorrow. Want to walk by the river?" Gu Yao's fingers trembled over the keyboard for a long time. At last she replied: "Lin Zhao. Let's... call it off." She sent the message, then turned the phone face-down on her knee. The rain was loud. She couldn't tell whether she was crying. The next day, Lin Zhao came. She stood downstairs, rain soaking through her white coat, head tilted up as she shouted: "Gu Yao! Come down! Explain it to me!" Gu Yao hid behind the curtain, watching her, tears streaming — and didn't open the door. On the third day, Lin Zhao stopped shouting. She stood downstairs for a long, long time — long enough for the rain to stop and start again — and finally turned and left. Gu Yao watched her back disappear, then suddenly ran downstairs, chasing her two blocks through the rain. She reached the intersection — Lin Zhao was already gone. She squatted at the intersection, hugging her knees, crying until she couldn't speak. Only later did Gu Yao learn that before she left that day, Lin Zhao had gone to see Chen Xiulan. No one knows what they said to each other. All anyone heard was that after Lin Zhao left, Chen Xiulan sat at home and didn't speak for a whole day. Lin Zhao applied to end her assignment early and returned to the city hospital. When she left, she didn't say goodbye to anyone. Later, Gu Yao quit her job. She couldn't face that office anymore, or that street, or those wontons. The year her mother threatened to die, she married the education director's son. It rained on the wedding day too. Under the red umbrella, she smiled properly, the way every respectable bride did. Two years later, holding her child as she shopped at the vegetable market, she ran into Lin Zhao at the free clinic. She didn't walk over. Lin Zhao didn't look up. The rain was still falling. Gu Yao looked down at the fish in the plastic bag and suddenly remembered what Lin Zhao had said — "Afraid of what? That you'll say no." She hadn't dared to refuse the rain. But she had refused the lamp. People came and went at the market entrance. The hem of a white coat flashed once through the rain, then turned into an alley. Gu Yao, holding her child, walked the other way. In the end, the rain never stopped.