I hesitated for a long time, not knowing what this address meant, and even not understanding why Aunt Chen gave me this address.
But finally I decided to take a look.
The next day, my fever was completely gone and the doctor agreed to discharge me from the hospital.
Xia Nuo arrived when Shu Nian went to help me with the discharge procedures. Shu Nian said he would come to visit me, but later Aunt Chen came and talked to me so much that I put the matter behind me.
"The fever has gone down." Xia Nuo said with a smile, "I'm glad you're okay."
"Yeah." I nodded, "Thank you for coming to see me."
"We are friends, no need to say thank you," he said.
Are we friends?
I looked at Shanuo's face. He smiled sincerely. He really treated me as a friend.
I suddenly felt touched. Did I finally make a friend?
"The formalities have been completed. Aunt Chen said she will pay the hospital fees. Let's go." Shu Nian came in from outside and saw Xia Nuo. He nodded slightly at him as a greeting.
"Shu Nian, Xia Nuo, you are all my friends, right? Could you please accompany me somewhere?" I looked at them and asked softly.
I still don't have enough courage to go to that place alone to take a look.
"Okay." Shu Nian said, "It's still early now."
"That's fine with me too," Shano said.
So we followed the address on the paper and found a quiet residential building. There was a small apartment on the fifth floor of this residential building. I took a deep breath, took out the key and opened the door.
I walked in slowly and was stunned.
I couldn't quite believe what I was seeing, it was so unexpected.
"This is..." Xia Nuo looked around and asked in confusion, "Where is this place?"
"This must be a dance studio." I looked at the puppet hanger in the living room with a beautiful ballet skirt hanging on it.
This skirt looks very familiar to me. I have seen a photo of my mother dancing in the photo album. In that photo, my mother was wearing this skirt.
It turns out... that was not the last skirt. The skirt that Luo Yuxin cut was not the last dance skirt left by her mother in the world.
My eyes were a little wet, so I walked over and gently touched the hem of her skirt.
The soft skirt is so beautiful.
Aunt Chen said, how could the daughter left by that man look like me?
Yes, how could I be like this? It turns out that if a person is not good enough, or does not want to be better, it is enough for others to hate him.
"You guys find a place to sit down for a while." I realized that Shu Nian and Xia Nuo were still here, and said quickly, "I want to take a closer look at this place."
"Okay." Shu Nian nodded, didn't ask me anything, and sat down on the sofa.
I walked into the small room, where there were many things. When I saw these things, I couldn't stop crying.
These are my mother's things. I thought that all the things thrown away by Aunt Chen were well kept here . Even my mother's used lipstick and lotion were neatly placed here.
I walked over and pulled out a drawer. There were many books in it, all of which were my mother's favorites. I also found a diary. Could it be that my mother also likes to write a diary like me?
I opened the diary and sat on the ground to read it carefully. It turned out that Aunt Chen did not lie to me. What she said was almost the same as what my mother wrote in the diary.
There is only one thing that is different from what she said.
That was the reason why Mom married Dad, and the real reason why she gave up dancing.
Mom didn’t give up dancing because she married Dad, but she married Dad because she couldn’t dance anymore. She was originally a partner with Aunt Chen, but later in a practice, she sprained her ankle and damaged her ligaments while trying to protect Aunt Chen who almost fell. The doctor told her that she couldn’t dance anymore.
She didn't want to delay Aunt Chen, nor did she want her to blame herself, so she gave up dancing and married Dad, so that Aunt Chen could continue to dance well. But she didn't expect that Aunt Chen would get married quickly and give up dancing before her.
I read the diary for a long time and couldn't calm down. It turns out that loving someone too much can lead to irreversible consequences?
My mother and Aunt Chen clearly had a very good relationship, but because of their good relationship, the hurt was even deeper.
Aunt Chen probably hasn't read this diary, otherwise she wouldn't have hated my mother for so many years. She hated my mother for so many years, but she kept this studio until now. She must still love my mother.
Because she said that she and Shen Xiaoxi had no money for food for a while, but they still wanted to keep this place and did not sell it.
It only takes a look or a word to hate someone, so does it only take a moment to forgive someone?
I think I had forgiven her the moment I opened the door and saw the pure white dance dress.
After coming out of the studio, Shu Nian and Xia Nuo didn't say anything.
"Thank you for coming here with me." I held my mother's diary in my hand, which was the only thing I brought out of that apartment.
"You're welcome." Shanuo said with a smile.
I looked at Xia Nuo's smiling face and felt warm in my heart. This person was once the boy I admired, but now I have changed my mind. I should become a better person than Xia Nuo.
I saw what Auntie Chen did for my mother and was very touched. I think I will forgive her, but I will not accept her. I still hate her, just like she hates me.
This may be the best relationship we can have.
"Sometimes I really envy you." Xia Nuo murmured, "Watching you become better and better, like a caterpillar slowly transforming into a butterfly, you will become a real white butterfly one day."
"Xianuo." I stopped and looked at his back. I suddenly wanted to say something. I said to Shu Nian, "I want to talk to Xia Nuo for a while. Shu Nian, you go back first."
Shu Nian nodded: "Okay."
He walked away, sat down in a small pavilion by the roadside, and looked at me. I smiled. This guy...
"It seems like I've made someone worried." Xia Nuo was a little helpless. "It's not a good feeling to be treated as an imaginary enemy."
"Xia Nuo." I looked into his eyes and asked him slowly, "What did you say to Shen Xiaoxi on the day of the celebration?"
He was stunned for a moment, not expecting me to ask this question: "I don't know. You know, I have no way of knowing what the secondary personality is thinking."
"Xiano!" I interrupted him, "You know, you must know, right?"
" What do you mean?" The smile on his face gradually disappeared.
"At first, I really believed you had a second personality, and I even saw it." I said, "But Shanuo... now I don't believe you have a second personality anymore."
"Why?" He raised his eyebrows, "Why do you think I'm lying to you?"
"Because later I looked up a lot of information, and when I was in the hospital, I also asked a lot of doctors, and they all said that your situation is not a second personality, but just a fantasy." I said, "I don't know what happened to you. Maybe sometimes you escape from that bad self and imagine that it is not yourself, but just a personality. But Shanuo, that doesn't make any sense.
"I once believed your flawed words and your disguise. I even thought you were the boy I admired. I wanted to be like you. But the Xia Nuo I admired was not a pretender, not someone who refused to face himself."
"Xia Nuo, what did you say to Shen Xiaoxi that day? Can you tell me?" I asked him.
He suddenly laughed. Different from that warm smile, this one seemed very ostentatious: "I've really been exposed."
"But as a boy you admire, it seems that if I don't work harder, it would be a mistake." He sighed, "You are so cruel, Bai Xiaodie, digging out the things that others have worked so hard to hide and exposing them to the air."
"But only in this way can we grow and become better, right?" I looked into his eyes and said slowly, "Someone once told me that waiting and escaping can't change anything. If a caterpillar wants to become a butterfly, it has to go through a long period of darkness, but only in this way can it break out of the cocoon and become a butterfly. Shanuo, don't do this again."
"Don't lie anymore?" He was silent for a moment. "Now I don't have the chance to lie because you've said it out loud."
"I told you that I was trafficked once when I was little. There was a lovely girl at that time. She was very kind to me and always secretly gave me food, but those guys broke her legs and threw her on the street to beg. Maybe it was because something I had always cherished was destroyed, so I lost my mind.
"I beat up a lot of people, and when I came to myself, I was already in the police station. I was very scared, and I felt that it couldn't be me, because Shanuo wouldn't hurt anyone, so I avoided admitting that it was me. After that, every time I did something bad, I avoided it and pretended that it wasn't me. Later, even I believed that it wasn't me, but my second personality."
"Maybe I just don't want to face those dark things." He smiled, his smile was warm and bright, "But even you can hold your head up and become a completely different person from the past. Maybe I can also accept the irritable and dark self and become a truly warm person."
"You can definitely do it because you are the one I admire," I said.
"Well, as a reward for exposing my lie, I will tell you what I said to Shen Xiaoxi on the day of the celebration." He winked at me, "That day, she confessed her love to me."
"Huh?" I was surprised that Shen Xiaoxi would confess to Xia Nuo on the day of the celebration.
"Maybe it's because Shen Xiaoxi and I are the same kind in a sense. We are both good at disguising ourselves, so I hate her because I also hate my real self." He said, "What I did that day was no different from what you did to me today. I just tore through her mask and brought out the real her. Then I said to her, Shen Xiaoxi, you are so disgusting. You are not even half as good as Bai Xiaodie."
"That's the thing. I didn't know Shen Xiaoxi was so fragile. Just exposing her made her lose her composure. She couldn't even keep up her disguise at school." Xia Nuo was a little proud. "It seems that I am more successful than her. Okay, Xiaodie, I'm going back. I think I also need time to think about my own affairs."
"Thank you, Shanuo," I said sincerely, "Thank you for telling me this."
"But I don't want to thank you at all." He said with a smile, waved at me, and walked away from me.
I stood there, unable to calm down for a long time. Everyone who is alive is enduring something. Some choose to escape, some choose to wait, and some choose to face it.
So which one am I?
Probably all of them. I have escaped and waited in the past, but finally I chose to face it.
Just because I want to be a better person than I am now.
Shu Nian walked towards me. He didn't ask me what I had just said to Xia Nuo. He just stretched out his hand and said, "Let's go."
"Um."
I nodded and held his hand.
I returned home and saw that the messy living room had been cleaned. I was about to go upstairs when someone came out of the bathroom downstairs with a basin of water. Seeing me come back, she was startled for a moment, then quickly looked away and walked around me with the water.
The person holding the water is Shen Xiaoxi.
I haven't seen her for several days. Her eyes were red, as if she had been crying. She was less arrogant and more calm, which was inconsistent with her.
Did this sudden change also change Shen Xiaoxi a little?
Shanuo told me that he expressed his disgust mercilessly at the celebration and even exposed her disguise.
It must be difficult for a girl like Shen Xiaoxi to accept what Xia Nuo said. She is not as strong as Xia Nuo. She is actually a weakling with bluffing, just like me.
It is not difficult to imagine from Aunt Chen's words that Shen Xiaoxi must have had a hard childhood! If you want to live a better life, you must know how to read other people's faces, or even act cute and please others. Only by getting others' likes can you have the opportunity to have beautiful skirts and delicious food.
So, is Shen Xiaoxi, who lives in my house, also in this mood, trying desperately to grab everything she can?
She once asked me if it was her fault that my father and I had come to this point.
Now that I think about it, maybe it wasn't all Shen Xiaoxi's fault. What was wrong with her? She just wanted to live a more relaxed life. Her experience made her a predator, which was not a big mistake.
And maybe I was wrong from the beginning. It was me who gave in step by step, I did not fight for it, and I gave up on my own initiative, which made it so easy for her to snatch my father away.
I didn't talk to her, and Shen Xiaoxi didn't talk to me either.
Maybe she is going through the most difficult transformation, but no one can help her. I can't help her, and I don't want to help her.
Because I understand her approach, but I cannot forgive her behavior .
Understanding is not the same as forgiveness.
There are some roads that only you can walk through. If you don’t walk that road, how can you see the rainbow after the rain?
Like my self-enclosure, Luo Yuxin's jealous prejudice, Xia Nuo's self-deception, Shen Xiaoxi's bravado, we all have our own extremes to face. Even Shu Nian, who has no interest in insignificant things, also said something like "I will try to see more people" .
The reason why the butterfly is beautiful is that it endures hardships and sufferings that others cannot endure, so it can pass through the darkness and become a beautiful elf.
And I think we, the children in this alley, will definitely be able to fly out from here.
Back in my room, I read my mother's diary again. Love can make people better, but it can also make a good person become hateful.
Aunt Chen is the latter.
I thought about it for a long time and finally decided to put the diary in Aunt Chen's room. I don't know if she will notice this diary or want to read it. I just don't want her to continue to hate her mother, that's all.
Aunt Chen seemed to have just returned at night and fell into a drowsy sleep. The next morning she knocked on my door.
Aunt Chen standing at the door seemed to have a lot to say. Her eyes were red and swollen. She must have cried for a long time. She must have read the diary. Because she read it, she cried.
"Thank you." It took her a long time to say these two words to me.
"Let's go to the hospital to see Dad." I said, "Call Shen Xiaoxi and let's go together."
She was stunned for a moment, a little surprised.
"I've thought about it for a long time and a lot," I said. "I don't want to be hypocritical and say that I forgive you. I understand your feelings, but understanding does not necessarily mean forgiveness. I don't think I will be able to smile at you in the future when we live together."
There was a layer of mist in her eyes. She was a little excited, and her lips trembled: "You..."
"Let's go." I'm not a heartless person. I'm afraid to look at her face and can't help wanting to forgive her. "No one is unforgivable. You are not, Shen Xiaoxi is not, and Dad... is not either."
Aunt Chen was driving the car. Shen Xiaoxi didn't say a word along the way. She sat quietly in the car like a silent child.
I suddenly felt very familiar. Shen Xiaoxi now is just like me in the past. I even understand her feelings a little.
No one spoke during the whole journey. When we arrived at the hospital, we got out of the car and walked to the ward where Dad was. Dad had been transferred from the intensive care unit to the general ward. The damage caused by the car accident was indeed not that serious. His biggest enemy was stomach cancer.
When my father saw us coming in together, he was very surprised. Not only was he surprised, but I also found it incredible.
If these things had not happened, and if I had not known those secrets hidden by time, I probably would not have stepped into this place with them.
"Xiaodie..." Dad called me softly.
"Xiaoxi, let's go get medicine for your Uncle Bai." Aunt Chen took Shen Xiaoxi away and left this ward to me and my father.
I walked over and sat down on the nursing chair. After thinking for a while, I slowly said, "I don't know if I can accept you again in the end, but I am willing to try. You are right. No one is unforgivable. Besides, I am also wrong for us to become like this."
"Xiaodie." He stared at me blankly, his eyes full of satisfaction, "You seem to have grown up overnight."
"People always have to learn to grow up." I tried to smile at him, "I know everything about you, mom, and Aunt Chen. I only have one question, Dad, what kind of mood did you have when you married Aunt Chen?"
Dad was stunned for a moment. He didn't expect me to ask this question, but he smiled and said, "If I have to say something, it's probably guilt."
"Guilt?" I thought he would say "love", but I didn't expect it to be the word "guilt".
"Yes, I feel guilty. I always feel that it is your mother and I who made her life so difficult. I can't do much. When she proposed to marry me, I agreed. This is the only thing I can do for her." He sighed, "I tried to be nice to Xiaoxi and wanted to make it up to your Aunt Chen, but I ignored your feelings."
I listened quietly, and suddenly felt relieved.
"The Chinese New Year is just a few days away." I interrupted him, "Dad, don't buy me the wrong size clothes this year. Don't mix up my size with Shen Xiaoxi's."
He was stunned, then his eyes turned red. I walked out of the ward before his eyes became moist.
On the lawn outside the ward, a lone butterfly flapped its wings and flew over with some difficulty. It was winter, not the season for butterflies to flutter, but there were always butterflies that flew regardless of the severe cold.
"Bai Xiaodie!" Shen Xiaoxi called me from the corridor.
I looked back at her and she shouted at me with bravado: "I really hate you the most!"
I nodded seriously and replied, "Same, Shen Xiaoxi, I hate you the most too."
She smiled, with a hint of warmth in her smile: "You must try hard to make me hate you, my nemesis."
"Okay." I nodded again, "Same to you, my nemesis."
The breeze blowing on my face already has the scent of spring.
Shu Nian, Shen Xiaoxi, Xia Nuo and Bai Xiaodie, will a new road belonging to us also open up with the return of spring?
Definitely!
Because we are all working hard, trying to learn to grow up and become better people, and every day we are working hard to become a better self than yesterday.
When the ice and snow melt, when the trees sprout new buds, and when the eggs grow into caterpillars, the life cycle of a butterfly has just begun.