Chapter 14: A Wall Between Two Restless Hearts

There was nothing between Adam and Lian except a small screen.

No home that brought them together.

No chance encounter on a street.

No face-to-face conversation.

And yet, their few words had begun to create something neither of them fully understood.

It was strange to feel close to someone you had never even sat across from.

But sometimes, souls did not need to share the same place to understand each other.

Every morning, Lian woke up thinking about Adam's question:

“And you, Lian... have you found your way?”

It wasn't an ordinary question to her.

It felt like a door opened by someone she barely knew.

A door leading toward a part of herself she had neglected for too long.

Adam, meanwhile, found himself waiting for her replies as well.

He wasn't waiting for her love.

Nor was he waiting for a confession.

He knew there was a wall between them far greater than distance.

He knew their families had arranged a marriage.

And that his name was tied to a life he had never chosen.

Yet, he found a strange sense of comfort in talking to her.

She never asked about his family.

Or his money.

Or where he came from.

She asked about his thoughts.

The books he read.

The things he wanted to accomplish.

For the first time since he had left, he felt that someone saw him for who he really was.

But behind that comfort, the wall remained.

At Lian's mansion, the wedding preparations continued.

There were voices everywhere.

People talked about the bride.

The dress.

The ceremony.

But no one talked about her heart.

Far away, Adam continued building his small life.

He worked.

He translated.

He studied.

He was trying to become someone who didn't need his family name to stand on his own.

He knew that returning now would only put him back inside the same cage.

And Lian knew that marrying him might mean entering another cage.

And yet...

Their messages continued.

One night, she wrote to him:

“Sometimes I feel like my life was planned before I ever got to choose it.”

Adam stared at the message for a long time.

Then he replied:

“I used to feel the same way.”

“But I learned that a person can't change every wall around them in a single day...”

“But they can start by opening one small window.”

Lian stared at his words.

Then she put her phone down.

She was still afraid.

But fear was no longer the only thing inside her.

There was curiosity.

Desire.

And a small dream that had begun to grow.

Adam closed his laptop and looked around his room.

He smiled.

He didn't know what would happen when they finally met.

He didn't know whether what existed between them would become a beginning or an ending.

But he knew one thing:

The wall between them had not stopped their words from crossing it.

And perhaps...

one day...

their hearts would find a path their feet could not.

Adam stopped for a long moment in front of the new painting she had posted.

It wasn't her most beautiful painting.

But it was the most honest.

A girl stood before a tall wall. She wasn't trying to tear it down. Instead, her eyes searched for a small crack where the light could pass through.

He stared at it for several minutes.

Then whispered to himself:

“So... you're fighting it too.”

He didn't know who she was.

How old she was.

Or what kind of life she lived.

But he felt that they shared something.

Not love...

But resistance.

He opened her profile again.

He looked through her older paintings.

Each one carried a different kind of sadness.

A woman behind a window.

A bird with a broken wing.

A little girl holding a key that had no door.

These weren't the drawings of someone searching for fame.

They were the drawings of someone suffocating.

Adam smiled sadly.

“I know that feeling.”

He picked up his phone, then hesitated.

Should he write to her?

Did a stranger even have the right to interfere in another stranger's life?

The cursor kept blinking in the message box.

Finally, he typed:

“What caught my attention most about your paintings is that you draw walls more often than you draw people.”

He read the message once.

Then added:

“I don't know if I'm wrong... but I think you don't paint what you see. You paint what you're living.”

He sent it.

A few minutes later, her reply appeared.

“And you... how did you know?”

Adam smiled.

Then typed:

“Because I once stood in front of the same wall.”

He didn't ask her name.

She didn't ask for his real name.

They simply allowed each other to see a reflection of something they were trying to save within themselves.

Adam didn't know...

that the girl he was encouraging to fight her wall...

was the very woman their families wanted him to marry.

And Lian didn't know...

that the man who had given her the courage to search for her dream...

was the groom she had been waiting for for months.

Two days passed.

No new message came from her.

But she posted another painting.

Adam opened it in silence.

The window where the light had once entered was gone.

So was the girl who had been looking toward the road.

In their place stood a golden cage.

Inside it was a white bird. The cage door was open...

Yet the bird made no attempt to fly.

Adam stared at the painting for a long time.

A strange tightness settled in his chest, and he didn't understand why.

He wrote to her:

“Where did the girl who was searching for the light go?”

Her reply came a few minutes later.

“I got tired.”

He read those words several times.

Then typed:

“Or did you give up?”

The silence lasted.

Then her reply appeared.

“Is there a difference?”

His brows drew together.

He typed faster this time.

“Yes. There is a big difference.”

“Tiredness makes a person stop to catch their breath.”

“Giving up means handing your life over to someone else.”

She didn't like his words.

She replied:

“Not everyone can run away like you did.”

Adam stopped.

It was the first time her words had hurt him.

But he didn't get angry.

He replied calmly:

“You think I ran away.”

“But I lost everything before I even took the first step.”

“I didn't run away from my responsibilities... I ran from a life I never chose.”

The typing indicator appeared on her screen, then disappeared.

It happened several times.

Finally, she wrote:

“I didn't choose my life either.”

Adam read the sentence.

Then read it again.

Something inside him cracked.

Because she wasn't complaining.

She was giving up.

And that was what frightened him.

He wrote his final message that night:

“Listen to me...”

“I don't know who you are, and I don't know what you're facing.”

“But I know one thing.”

“If you convince yourself that the cage is your destiny, no one will dare to open its door for you.”

“Fight... even if the only thing you can do today is say no.”

No reply came.

Lian closed her phone.

Then held it against her chest.

She was angry with him.

Angry because he spoke as if fighting was easy.

And even angrier...

because he had touched the truth she had been trying to escape.

Adam closed his laptop and murmured:

“Don't become the person I was afraid I would become.”

He thought he was speaking to a stranger.

In reality...

he was trying to save a reflection of himself in someone else's mirror.