Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Bai Yan and I went our separate ways when we entered high school. By the time we met again, it was already senior year.

He came to our class as a transfer student.

The first time I saw him, I blanked out.

He’d changed so much from when we were kids. The outline of his brows and eyes was still familiar, but he was more striking now-sharper, more handsome.

Most of all, it was his presence. Cool, distant, like he kept everyone a thousand miles away.

For a moment, I didn’t even dare to be sure-was this Bai Yan really the Bai Yan I knew?

What made it worse was that after two years apart, I couldn’t be sure he still remembered me.

Then he said, “Youyou, I’m back.”

He was still my Bai Yan.

Later, we got together-right in the most crucial stretch of high school.

Senior year was brutal: too little time, too much to do. We fought for every minute to study, and we stole whatever slivers of time we could to be in love.

We sank into the tart sweetness of first love so deeply that we ignored problems that had always been there.

Like forcing ourselves to give in when we didn’t mean it. Like hiding conflicts that could’ve been resolved.

And when we entered university, all of it detonated.

We argued. We went cold. We drained each other.

In the end, we broke up.

We’d only been in college for three months.

I’d thought we were heading toward a future where we’d weather everything side by side. I never imagined it would end with us drifting apart until we became strangers.

That period was agony. I held out for four months, and then I couldn’t take it anymore-I went to find him.

But downstairs at his dorm, I saw a girl kissing him.

That girl was Xia Zhihuai.

Bai Yan said that a month ago, Xia Zhihuai had suddenly reached out, saying she wanted to see him. He refused.

A week ago, she called again. She said she had cancer-late stage. She was about to die. She wanted to see Bai Yan one last time.

This time, Bai Yan agreed.

His words made me go still. “She…”

Bai Yan’s face sank. “She’s gone.”

Breast cancer. By the time it was discovered, it was already terminal. Even with chemo and surgery, her life couldn’t be extended.

I stood there, frozen, not knowing how to react.

People leave this world every second. Death is almost routine.

But when the one who’s gone is someone you once knew, it hits differently.

There’s a sigh of regret. A sense of pity. A feeling of helpless wonder.

And for me, it was even more complicated.

One part was for Xia Zhihuai’s death.

Another part was for the child she left behind.

Looking at Bai Yan, I said, “I’m sorry she’s gone, but I still want to ask you-why? Why did she have to see you one last time? Why would she leave her child to you? Why does a child who has nothing to do with you have the surname Bai?

“If I remember right, what you told me back then was that you two were never together, and that she went abroad after we got back together.”

Bai Yan saw me. He shoved Xia Zhihuai away and hurried after me.

He said, “Youyou, I can explain.”

But in a burst of spite, I said, “There’s nothing to explain. We’ve already broken up. You’re free to start the next relationship.”

Bai Yan stared at me like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Is that what you really think?”

No.

I didn’t think that at all. I was jealous to the point of suffocating, hurting so badly I could barely breathe.

But my pointless pride still made me nod.

I said yes. That was exactly what I thought.

Bai Yan loosened his grip on my hand. “Then as you can see,” he said, “she’s my girlfriend.”

We both knew we were speaking out of anger.

And yet we still managed to wound each other for real.

We held onto that single breath of stubbornness, neither of us willing to be the one to bow first.

Not until later, when I ended up in the hospital with appendicitis.

Only then did our relationship finally thaw.

And only then did he finally explain Xia Zhihuai.

Xia Zhihuai was one of Bai Yan’s admirers. Unlike the others, she was loud about it-so loud she even boasted that there was no relationship she couldn’t pry apart.

That day, she used some club business as an excuse to go looking for him.

When Bai Yan wasn’t paying attention, she suddenly leaned in and kissed him.

Bai Yan said he tried to push her away immediately-but it just so happened that I showed up at the exact moment he was about to.

He said that after that incident, he made his attitude clear to Xia Zhihuai, and that there was nothing between them afterward.

But looking at it now, things were obviously not that simple.

Did Bai Yan lie to me?

That thought existed in my mind for only one second-and it hurt so much I could hardly stand it.