What the Lanterns Kept

The letter hadn’t only revealed his fear. It had shown me mine.
“I was scared too,” I said. It was the first time I’d said it out loud. “I kept waiting for you to say something, and when you didn’t I decided that was my answer. I didn’t ask. I just— I let it end.”
Girish was quiet for a moment. The jasmine vendor had moved on. The drum had stopped. In its place came the soft sound of the river and the low voices of people further along the market, and the creak of lanterns moving in the evening breeze.
“We were both very stupid,” he said at last.
Something loosened in my chest. A knot I’d been carrying so long I’d stopped noticing its weight.
“Incredibly stupid,” I agreed.
He picked up the paper bag and held it out. “Sticky rice. It’s still warm. I bought too much.”
I took it. Our fingers didn’t quite touch, and then they did, and neither of us moved away.
The night market stretched on around us — silk and smoke and the amber drift of lantern light on old stone — and I thought: this is what I was afraid of losing. Not just him. The specific feeling of being known by someone and choosing to be known back. The terrifying, necessary act of saying yes, I’m here, I want this, without any guarantee of how it ends.
I’d been so careful for three years. So careful not to want anything I might not get.
“Girish.”
He looked at me.
“Ask me this time,” I said. “Whatever you were going to write next in that letter. Just ask me.”
The lanterns swayed. The river carried its small lights slowly toward the sea.
He asked.

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About the Author

Lila Merrick — a Cambridge graduate writing first love and campus nights full of possibility. She organized foreign exchange students welcome parties for 3 years.

— Lila Merrick

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Categories: Romances, Second Chance

Tags: 10min stories, emotional, found letter, Hoi An, literary romance, night market, second-chance romance, short story, slow burn, travel romance, Vietnam

August 20, 2026

10min-stories