At the school gate, I met my boy again.
He is handsome and elegant, and standing next to the confident and beautiful Long Xuan, they are a perfect match.
I didn't receive a response from him on the phone, and I knew he didn't want to have too much to do with me. But I was the kind of kid who got stronger with every setback, and the more he ignored me, the more I didn't want to let go.
Unless, he is not my "little stone".
I seemed not to notice the suspicious looks that the people around me cast at me, and I just walked towards him and Long Xuan who were walking side by side in front of me with a smile.
I deliberately brushed past him, then pretended to turn back casually and smiled at him.
I performed the whole series of actions very naturally.
He was originally angry, but when he saw me smiling at him, he was slightly stunned. His delicate eyebrows knitted together, with a hint of impatience and helplessness .
Long Xuan looked at me warily, but there was a smile on his face.
I calmly approached Jian Chen and politely apologized for my "recklessness" just now.
He didn't say anything, just glanced at me calmly, then pulled Long Xuan away. In a trance, I found that the corners of his mouth inadvertently raised slightly.
When I came to my senses again, he had already walked away with Long Xuan, still looking calm and composed.
That smile just now seemed like an illusion.
"You girls just like to read boring novels written by boring authors."
On the way back, Aisi sat in the car, listening to his iPod and mocking me for being so absorbed in reading "Annual Rings".
I looked up at Ai Xi and shook my head, reaching out and flicking his forehead. "Xia Li is not what you call a boring author! Her books are very popular, and her identity is very mysterious. She has a good reputation in the youth literature world. The most important point is that there are things in her books that resonate with me."
"It's just about love and affection! You just like to watch!" Aixi turned his head away with disdain, looking like a cold-hearted little boy.
I sighed helplessly and continued to read "Annual Rings".
This is a novel about the friendship between brothers. One of them is called Nian and the other is called Lun. One is elegant and reserved, the other is sunny and outgoing. They were abandoned by their parents when they were young, and they have supported each other through every spring and summer...
It is obviously a very ordinary story, but the words reveal touching emotions.
This is Xia Li’s story, seemingly monotonous but full of affection.
This day was destined to be an extraordinary day. This premonition crept into my mind like an invisible wind in the dark night when Ai Xi and I walked into the house together in the evening.
There is a pair of men's leather shoes at the entrance. My father has just returned from a business trip in the United States.
The large living room was bright as day, but as quiet as a deserted graveyard , and the atmosphere was indescribably depressing. The nannies all hid in their rooms and stayed inside. The master bedroom on the second floor was lit, and when I looked up, trying to judge the seriousness of the situation from the blurry image on the master bedroom window, a crisp sound broke the silence of the night, followed by my mother's hysterical yelling.
Aixi slowly turned his head towards me, his lips moving, unable to utter a word for a long time. He was frightened. Since he was born, his mother had never spoken a word loudly in front of him, even to the nanny. In his heart, although his mother was mean to others, she was the most gentle and elegant mother, so he was confused by his mother's hysteria at the moment.
Only I knew what would make my mother angry, because I had experienced it many times before Elsie was born.
"Go back to your room, close the door, put on your headphones, and go to sleep." I urged Aisi.
Ai Xi looked at the window of the master bedroom and refused to move: "Sister, Mommy..."
"Children shouldn't ask about adult matters." I turned cold and showed the authority of an eldest sister.
Perhaps he was really frightened, Aixi went back to his room obediently without saying a word. I was worried, so I followed him, found his favorite song "Angels in the Clouds", put the earphones in his ears, watched him close his eyes and sleep obediently, then I left the room, walked to my mother's room and knocked on the door.
The mother was still smashing things. Even through the door, her voice still sounded frighteningly sharp. She was almost yelling, "Ai Yuhua, you've gone too far! How long do you want to keep this secret from me? Do you think I don't know why you were determined to adopt her and why you tried every means to prevent me from sending her away? I've known your dirty secret for a long time..."
It will be very unpleasant to continue. I have heard such rebukes thousands of times. But my angel-like pure brother Aisi cannot hear it. He should have the most gentle and quiet mother in the world. Any dark side of society and human heart should not appear in front of him.
I knocked heavily on the master bedroom door, interrupting my mother's words: "Mom, Aisi is back."
The other side of the door immediately became quiet, as if nothing had happened. This was the only thing that my mother and I maintained a surprisingly consistent attitude about - not letting Aisi see any of the unpleasantness between us.
After everything was quiet, I sat in the dark room, pulled aside the curtains and looked at the moon until my eyes were sore. My mother's words kept playing in my mind, like a spell, over and over again, giving me a splitting headache. But my thoughts were frighteningly clear in the unbearable pain.
Did my father choose to adopt me for some special reason? What was the reason that he had to hide it from my mother and made her so angry? What was the so-called "dirty secret"?
I think about it, but I still don't know. However, I won't ask anyone because it doesn't matter what, who, or why.
I went online because I couldn't fall asleep, and I couldn't fall asleep because I went online. I looked at the avatars of my online friends on QQ, searching over and over again, but I couldn't find anyone I could talk to, and then I thought of Xia Li.
Xia Li's Weibo still hasn't been updated. I left her a message while listening to music. Actually, there's nothing special I want to say, but I stubbornly believe that some unspeakable sadness may be completely erased from my brain by writing it down and then pressing the delete key, just like clearing text in Word.
After writing and deleting, there is only one sentence left:
We are cautious and careful, but it's all because we care too much.
When I woke up in the morning, I found it was a cloudy day, but the blue sky made my mind clear.
I knelt in the yard, using a small shovel to loosen the soil and fertilize my mother's favorite peony. When the sun finally showed its face from the clouds, I heard the faint sound of footsteps on the grass.
You don't need to look to know it's Aisi.
I waited for him to make a weird noise behind me to scare me as usual, and then I turned around to knock his head and joke with him as if nothing had happened. However, I waited for a long time, but he didn't say anything. I even began to doubt my hearing. I turned my head slightly and met Ai Xi's eyes. There was a look in his eyes that I had never seen before, a look of understanding and sadness, and more of it was heartache.
I have a bad feeling.
I scooped up some dirt with my shovel and threw it at him, trying to act as natural as possible: "Hey, don't be so scary so early in the morning."
"Sister!" Aixi sat down next to me and reached out to pull the newly sprouted grass . "I'm sorry."
Did he hear it again last night? No, no, he listened to me so much that he wouldn't take off his headphones.
I held onto a glimmer of hope and continued to play dumb: "Tell me, which CD of mine did you break again?"
"I heard everything last night." Aisi buried her head in her arms, and her voice sounded like she was crying, "Mom, she disappointed me so much."
For a moment , I was speechless and could only keep loosening the soil to relieve the bitterness in my heart. Then I smiled at him from the bottom of my heart and reached out to mess up his neat hair: "She is in a bad mood. No matter what, she is your good mother."
Aisi hit the grass hard with a branch: "A good mother shouldn't say such things."
I laughed: "But I am indeed the adopted daughter of the Ai family."
Ai Xi obviously couldn't accept such an answer, and she stubbornly refuted me: "Ai Banxia, ​​you are lying. As far as I can remember, you have been my sister. How can you be an adopted daughter?"
"Hey!" I stopped smiling and looked into his eyes. "You also said that it was since you can remember."
He lowered his head and murmured: "So, is it true?"
"Yes." I nodded. Seeing that he seemed to be thinking about something, I asked, "Will you no longer consider me your sister because of this?"
"Of course not." Aixi looked up at me with bright eyes.
"So, what does it matter whether she is an adopted daughter or not?" I said, "Mother is not wrong. You can't blame her. Do you understand?"
A trace of gratitude flashed in Aisi's eyes, and her brows immediately frowned again: "Will you hate your mother?"
"No!" I shook my head.
Aixi held my hand tightly and asked, "Have you ever looked for your biological parents?"
"No, and I don't want to. They were the ones who chose to give up on me, so why should I look for them?" I was a little excited. It was only then that I realized that no matter how indifferent I pretended to be, I was still somewhat resentful in my heart. No one can calmly accept the fact that they were abandoned by their parents since childhood.
"Maybe they have their own reasons." My brother is so understanding and he knows how to comfort me in every possible way.
I didn't argue, just gave myself a reason not to hate them. But in fact, I don't think there is such a reason in the world that can make parents abandon their children.
My silence probably made Aisi mistakenly think that I was "sad because of thinking about the past."
He reached out and patted my back and said, "Sister, you will always be my sister. You know that."
Yes, I know, I have always known it. The little boy who cares about me, feels sorry for me, and ignores me when I do something wrong is the one who has always been protecting me and is the angel I have always wanted to protect.
Thick clouds floated over and blocked the sunlight. But my heart was always warm, because there was a small sun beside me, shining on my cloudy life.
In the evening, the wind blew away all the clouds, and a touch of crimson clouds appeared on the horizon. I suddenly thought of Xia Li. I logged into Weibo and unexpectedly received a reply from Xia Li, who was in seclusion. It was also a short sentence.
She said, when we lose something, people will persuade us to give it up, give it up, only by giving it up can we gain. But they don’t understand that all the “gains” after that are not what we want.
Once you have seen the ocean, all other waters are but puddles.
Xia Li seemed to have lost something vital.