The city lights blinked through the taxi window like stars pretending to care.
Xu Meilin pressed her forehead against the cold glass, watching the blurry world pass her by, a world that had never once waited for her. Cars honked, neon signs flickered, people hurried past one another on sidewalks, their faces glowing blue under the sharp buzz of artificial light. But none of it mattered. None of it ever had.
She was twenty today.
Twenty years of smiling through silence.
Twenty years of being the shadow in every family portrait.
Twenty years of pretending not to notice how her name was always the last one called, if it was called at all.
She checked her phone again. A silly habit. Hope was a cruel, persistent thing.
No missed calls. No new messages.
Not from her mother.
Not from her sisters.
Not even a "how are you?" from the family group chat that only seemed to remember her when they needed someone to blame.
She looked down at the small plastic bag resting on her lap, inside, a cheap strawberry cake from the convenience store beside her part-time job. It had a pink candle already stuck in the center, leaning slightly like even it didn't want to stand.
She had smiled when she bought it. Not because she was happy, but because the girl behind the counter had smiled first. And Xu Meilin always smiled back, like it was a rule. Like she was afraid of what might happen if she ever stopped.
Her laughter in the taxi was quiet. Bitter.
The kind of laugh that came from bruises nobody could see.
The driver glanced at her through the mirror once but said nothing. She was used to that, people looking, people sensing something was wrong, but choosing silence. Silence was easier. Safer.
When she reached her stop, she paid without a word and walked the rest of the way.
Her apartment was on the sixth floor of a crumbling old building with rust-stained walls and flickering hallway lights. The elevator had been broken for weeks. She didn't mind. Climbing stairs in the dark felt like the rest of her life anyway, an endless uphill walk, no handrails, no one waiting at the top.
The lock clicked quietly. She stepped inside.
Cold. Dark. Quiet.
She didn't turn on the lights.
Instead, she slipped off her shoes, placed the cake on the windowsill, and sat down beside it, knees tucked into her chest. Her arms wrapped around herself like a second skin, a habit she had never unlearned.
She lit the candle.
The tiny flame flickered to life, the only warm thing in the entire room.
She stared at it for a while.
"Happy birthday, Meilin," she whispered to herself. Her voice cracked in the middle, but she smiled anyway, because it was her way of surviving.
She thought of her childhood.
Of all the birthdays she spent waiting at the gate after school, clutching her bag while every other child ran off into the arms of smiling parents.
Of her mother, Li Wenhua, who always had a laugh for her friends, a soft tone for her daughters Yueran and Lianyi, but a cold, clipped voice for Meilin. As though Meilin was something she had regretted giving birth to.
Of her father, Xu Zhenkai, who filled the house with silence and hard stares. His eyes would sweep past Meilin like she was wallpaper, something you live with but never see.
Her sisters had been cruel in the way only loved children could be. Confident. Sharp. Careless.
"Why are you wearing that?"
"Are you really coming with us looking like that?"
"No one wants the unwanted one, Meilin. Haven't you figured that out?"
But there had been one person who loved her. Once.
Xu Haoran.
Her older brother. Her first friend. Her only shield.
He had read her stories when she was too scared to sleep.
Snuck her sweets during the Lunar Festival.
Held her hand the first time she cried and said, "Don't cry, Meimei. I'll take you away from this place someday. I promise."
But promises were like candles.
They flicker. They burn.
And one day, they die out.
He was sent overseas at seventeen. "For a better future," her father said. "He needs to be away from distractions," her mother added, looking directly at Meilin.
At first, he wrote to her. Called on weekends. Sent her little charms and keychains from cities she only saw in books.
Then… the silence came.
The letters stopped. The calls became rare. Then nonexistent.
No explanation. No goodbye.
And Xu Meilin was alone again, as if she had always been.
She stared at the candlelight.
How strange, she thought, that something so small could still burn so steadily.
Still shine, even when no one watched.
But even candles die.
Her apartment smelled faintly of rain and dust and forgotten things. She liked it that way. Too much warmth made her uncomfortable. It felt fake. Like wearing someone else's life.
She reached out.
Softly.
One breath.
Flick.
Darkness swallowed the room again.
She didn't cry. There were no tears left, not for this day, not for this year, not for the people who had already taken everything but her smile.
She leaned back against the wall, clutching the empty cake box to her chest, and closed her eyes.
Maybe twenty-one would be quieter.
Maybe she'd finally stop hoping.
Maybe nothing really lasted long.
Not love.
Not promises.
Not even birthdays.