The mornings were getting colder. Autumn clung to the air like breath on a window, crisp and transparent but hard to shake off. Lian woke up with that heavy feeling again—the one that sat in his chest like a stone. He didn't know if it was school, or home, or the fact that he hadn't been sleeping well.
His mother was already in the kitchen, cooking congee. Steam fogged the small window over the sink. She turned as he entered, smiling softly.
"早上好,莲," she said. Good morning, Lian.
He mumbled back a greeting and sat at the table, watching the rice swirl in the pot.
"你昨天晚上没睡好吗?" she asked. Didn't sleep well?
He shook his head. "梦见蜘蛛了." I dreamt about the spider.
She looked up, startled. "你的爸爸?" Your father?
He nodded.
She didn't say anything else. She just placed the bowl in front of him and gently smoothed his hair. He let her.
At school, the silence between him and his father lingered. No emails. No texts. No random dad jokes, which used to come even when they didn't land well. It wasn't that Lian missed the jokes—it was more that the silence felt like punishment.
Ms. Devon pulled him aside after class.
"Lian, have you thought about submitting your poem to the district showcase?"
He blinked. "I didn't think it was that good."
She smiled. "That's the point. It is good. You don't see it yet. But I do."
He nodded, but his thoughts were somewhere else.
That afternoon, Lian found himself in the park, sitting alone on the swing set. The cold chain bit at his fingers. The wind rattled the leaves like dry bones.
Jamie showed up, holding two paper cups. "You look like someone who needs hot chocolate."
He took it, grateful. "Thanks."
They sat quietly for a while.
"My mom says spiders are lucky," Jamie said eventually. "In some cultures, anyway."
"Not mine," Lian muttered.
"You're still thinking about the meeting?"
He nodded. "I just—he makes me feel like I'm wrong for not trusting him. But then when I do trust him, it's like... I lose a piece of myself."
Jamie sipped her drink. "Sounds like you're trying to carry too much."
"I'm the translator," Lian said. "I don't get to choose what to carry. I have to carry it all."
Jamie looked at him. "Maybe. Or maybe it's time to start putting some of it down."
He stared at his reflection in the chocolate. A swirl of brown, fading steam, and a pale version of himself.
That evening, his father came home late. Lian was at the table, pretending to work on homework.
"You're still up," his father said.
Lian didn't answer.
His father pulled out a chair. Sat down slowly. "I've been thinking. About what you said. About what I said."
Lian glanced at him.
"You're right. I twist things. I try to control everything because I'm scared. Scared that if I don't hold it all together, we'll fall apart."
Lian's throat tightened.
"That's not an excuse. It's just... I want to do better. But I don't know how."
There was a pause. Then Lian said, "Maybe start by listening. Not just with your ears. But with your eyes. Your hands. Your whole self."
His father looked at him, really looked.
"Alright," he said. "I'll try."
Later that night, Lian returned to his sketchbook.
He drew a spider again. But this one was different. It wasn't lurking. It wasn't waiting.
It was dangling from a single thread, its legs curled in—not dead, but resting. Vulnerable.
And next to it, a boy with a candle. Not to burn. But to light the dark.
Lian stared at the page.
Maybe, he thought, even spiders could rest.
Maybe even they needed light.