The weekend came wrapped in gray clouds and a hush that made Lian feel like the world was holding its breath.
He sat at the window, sketchbook open on his lap, but his pencil hovered uselessly above the page. The spider was still there—curled and resting in the corner of the paper—but Lian didn't know what to draw next. He had never left a creature unfinished before. Not like this.
His mother called him from the kitchen. "莲,帮我一会儿." Lian, help me for a moment.
He slipped his feet into his worn house slippers and padded into the kitchen. She was folding dumpling wrappers with a bowl of chive and egg filling beside her.
"你可以包这些吗?" Can you wrap these?
He nodded, washing his hands in the sink before sitting down across from her. He watched her fingers move—quick, practiced folds that pinched the dough shut like tiny envelopes. When he tried, his first few wrappers looked like collapsed tents.
She laughed gently and reached over to help reshape one. "慢慢来. You'll get better."
They worked in quiet for a while. The soft slap of dough, the scent of sesame oil. Outside, the wind rattled the branches like brittle bones.
"妈妈," he said suddenly. "你后悔搬到美国吗?" Do you regret moving to America?
She looked up at him, surprised. Then she took a long breath, setting her hands on the table.
"Sometimes," she said in English, carefully. "It's hard."
Lian blinked. She rarely spoke English to him.
"But," she continued, "I came here because I wanted… something better. Not just for me. For you."
He looked down at the lopsided dumpling in his palm.
"I just feel like I don't belong in either place," he murmured. "Not here, not there. Like I'm too much and not enough at the same time."
His mother's gaze softened. She reached out and brushed his dyed bangs from his eyes. "Then make your own place, 莲. Don't wait for others to build it for you."
Later that day, he biked to the library alone. The wind howled, but he pedaled harder, faster, as if speed could outrun the unease curling in his ribs.
In the library's warmth, he settled in a corner with a stack of books. One caught his eye—a collection of Chinese folktales. He flipped through it, landing on a story about a paper tiger.
According to the tale, the tiger looked fierce, all teeth and stripes, but in truth, it was fragile—made of nothing but folded paper and empty threats. The villagers feared it for years until a young girl approached it with ink and drew a smile on its face. When the tiger realized it didn't have to pretend, it turned to the wind and danced away.
Lian read it twice.
He thought of his father. Of Jamie. Of the kids who called him weird behind his back. Of the spider resting in his sketchbook. Maybe he had been surrounded by paper tigers all along.
Back at home, he sat cross-legged on his bed and opened his notebook again.
He added to the spider's thread, making it shimmer like silk. Then he drew a tiger in the corner—not with fangs or claws, but with a lopsided grin and a body made of crumpled paper. It looked like it could blow away any second.
But it also looked like it had stories to tell.
The next day at school, Lian stood outside the front office with a folded poem in his hand. Ms. Devon had convinced him to submit it. His palms were sweating, and for a moment, he thought about walking away.
Then he thought about the girl and the paper tiger.
He stepped inside.