"Little eyes, I forgot to tell you something. A while ago, Lao Qi's grandson Xuan Xuan called our house several times, but you were not there. He asked me to tell you to call him."
Before going to bed, I sat in my bedroom thinking about what my father said to me at the dining table. I felt confused and didn't know what to do.
Did that person come to express his sympathy to me because he heard about that from An Xiaoduo, or was it for some other reason?
Have you ever seen someone call you back without giving you their phone number?
My father’s words made me feel ridiculous and sad. When did I fall to the point where I needed him to give me such hypocritical concern?
At this moment, it doesn’t matter at all whether Qixuan really cares about me.
He has his life, and I have mine. In the past ten years, his world didn't need me, and now, my world doesn't need him either. However, even though I said that, I was still a little confused because of his phone call.
I told myself, Jian Lening, don't believe in his rare care. The scars he left behind when he abandoned you still hurt every time I think of it! So don't be moved by him, and don't indulge in his hypocritical care anymore.
I reminded myself again and again, but whenever I thought of the name "Qixuan", my nerves would reflexively tense up and even breathing became difficult.
This depressed mood made me collapse. I jumped out of bed like a fish washed up on the beach, eager to find a way to survive, pushed open the balcony door, and strode out.
I have to breathe hard so that I can have the strength to completely forget the boy who has nothing to do with me.
It was snowing outside, the first snow of the year. The fine white snowflakes fell on my body, slowly melting, and then seeped into my clothes. The sudden coldness gradually drove away the frenzy in my heart. I finally calmed down and began to organize my thoughts.
Do you believe that a child who is still in elementary school understands love?
No, I don't believe it, so I know that my feelings for Qixuan in the past were just liking, it was not love, it was just a little deeper than ordinary liking. Without his care, I can still live freely.
Who can be sure that childhood attachment is love? The only thing that can be confirmed is its immaturity.
After calming down, I was finally able to smile calmly at the slowly falling snowflakes and wipe the moisture from my eyes. Just as I was about to turn around and go back to the bedroom, I saw a familiar figure under the street light in the alley not far downstairs.
The boy seemed to have seen me as well. He raised his head and held the phone tightly against his cheek. Soon I heard the phone that Xu Yan had given me ringing in the bedroom.
The figure was quite far away from me. I could only see the dim light shining on him, but I couldn't see the expression on his face.
Why did he suddenly appear downstairs in my house on such a cold day? Shouldn't he be at his mother's house?
Xu Yan and I had been separated for nearly five hours. I didn’t know that many unexpected things happened during these five hours.
I hurriedly ran into the house to get my cell phone, answered the call and ran to the balcony.
When I heard the sound, I realized that the boy under the street light was crying. I had never seen Xu Yan cry, and I never thought that he would cry to me one day.
I thought he ran to my house and cried helplessly because he was frustrated by his biological mother. I didn't even think about how Xu Yan found my house. I just knew that Xu Yan always brought me surprises.
At that moment, I thought I understood why Xu Yan was crying, and my first reaction was to comfort the boy who looked pitiful squatting under the street light. But before I could open my mouth, Xu Yan started talking to himself.
He said, Jian Lening, I only realized today how much harm my impulse that day had caused you. I am worse than an animal.
He said, how could I do that to you, how could I get along with you as if nothing had happened.
He said, I really find myself cruel, why should I destroy you.
He said, it’s my fault, just hit me and scold me, then I will feel better.
He said, I have only owed one person in my life, and that is you. I am sorry for what happened that night. I have always owed you an apology, although an apology can't make up for anything.
He said, Xiaoyu is dead, I must be crazy to do this to you. I am in great pain. Before I learned about my life experience, I didn't have time to do anything for Xiaoyu and her mother. I finally managed to fulfill my responsibility as a brother to Xiaoyu, but she died. I thought you killed her, I really thought so, so I was so impulsive that day. I'm sorry, please don't forgive me, I can't even forgive myself.
…
I gradually understood what Xu Yan was talking about. The scar in my heart that I had never dared to open was torn open so abruptly, and it hurt so much that I could hardly breathe.
I don't know why Xu Yan suddenly came to my house and told me about this, why he no longer pretended that it never happened and didn't care about it like before, I don't know why he exposed our respective scars and put them in front of us with blood, and why he didn't beg for my forgiveness.
But no matter what, he finally said that he owed me and finally said sorry to me.
My tears burst out, and I covered my mouth tightly, afraid that I would cry out loud, but the deep-seated pain and hatred still burst out with the uncontrollable tears.
It turns out that all I wanted was a sentence like "It's my fault, I owe you, I'm sorry."
I have always hated Xu Yan. I hated him for thinking I owed him something even though he had done something wrong. I hated him for bearing the resentment for others even though I was the one who was hurt the most.
I have always been very unwilling. I hate that it was Qixuan and An Xiaoduo who did something wrong, but I was punished for them; I hate that it was An Xiaoduo who fell down the stairs by herself, but she blamed me; I hate that it was Lin Jiarui who hurt Tong Xingyu, but I had to bear the revenge for him; I hate that it was clearly none of my business, but they insisted that it was my fault.
Finally, Xu Yan told me that it was his fault.
Finally, Xu Yan apologized to me.
Finally, there is someone who makes me no longer feel so unwilling.
The resentment that had been pent up in my heart for a long time was completely released at this moment, and my increasingly vague hatred for Xu Yan finally dissipated with the falling of tears.
I understand his pain, and I can even understand how he felt about hurting me. If I hadn't met him that day, nothing like that would have happened.
Many things are destined to happen and cannot be escaped. Perhaps Xu Yan is the disaster that I cannot escape.
I held my phone in my hand and followed the boy under the streetlight closely. I saw him struggling to stand up, but he didn't stand firmly, and he slid down to the ground, stood up again, and fell down again. I didn't know what he was holding on to. I only saw his stubbornness.
Suddenly, I felt heartbroken, heartbroken for the boy who had hurt me but also cared for me. It was not pity or sympathy, but real heartache.
His stubbornness, the pain hidden in his heart, the sadness he showed at this moment, his regret...all his emotions at this moment made me feel distressed. This sudden heartache made my heart, which had finally calmed down, panic again.
I watched him stand up and fall down again and again, and suddenly I had an urge to run out and pull him up from the ground, just like the last time in the hospital, when he pulled me up when I was desperate and helpless.
We are the same kind of people, why should we poke each other in the face?
But I didn't move, I just stood there in a daze, because I knew that if I rushed out now, it would mean a fact hidden in my heart that I never wanted to face - I care about that person.
Because I care about him, I will be infected by his emotions, feel distressed for him, remember every time he appears, feel heartache because of the hurt he brings me, and become obsessed with the warmth he brings me...
If a person means nothing to me, then my heart will not be affected by him at all.
However, precisely because I knew that Xu Yan was not nothing to me, I did not dare to go any deeper.
He is a different kind of person from ordinary friends and lovers.
I know that if I take one more step forward, there will be no clear distinction between him and me.
The days went by as usual. As the end of the semester approached, the busy studies left me no time to take care of other things. Only occasionally when I had some free time, I would stare at the bare sycamore tree outside the window.
I don’t know what happened that day that made Xu Yan apologize to me, and I don’t know how he managed to avoid me in this not-so-big school.
Since that night, I have never seen Xu Yan again. I used to see him a few times occasionally at school, but now, he avoids me very deliberately, so deliberately that he would never appear in my sight.
The only thing that remains unchanged is that he still frequently transfers money to the bank card he gave me.
I knew he was avoiding me, but I just thought it was all a coincidence. He had no reason to look for me, and I had no reason to look for him. The only contact we had was the money on the bank card that he asked me to help transfer to his biological mother.
Soon, I found out that it was not only Xu Yan who was avoiding me. Ever since I returned to school from home during the holiday, I noticed that Sun Yu had become a little strange.
In the past, Sun Yu would take the initiative to find me and eat with me when we were eating, but now, every morning before I finish cleaning, she is gone. At noon, just after class, I wanted to go with her, but she met Tang Yu who had ignored me for a long time, and the two of us walked out of the classroom together, talking and laughing. During the break, she no longer chatted with me when she was free.
Even if I was careless, I could still tell that she was deliberately distancing herself from me . I could understand why Xu Yan avoided me, maybe because he realized his mistake and couldn't face me, but I really couldn't understand why Sun Yu, who used to get along well with me, suddenly treated me like this.
I originally thought that Tang Yu and the others had said something in front of Sun Yu that made her misunderstand me, so she treated me like this. However, when Sun Yu just started to get close to Tang Yu, I could see that Tang Yu was also surprised.
I thought that Sun Yu's indifference to me had nothing to do with Tang Yu, but I really couldn't figure out what I had done wrong to make her treat me like this.
When I was a child, I was a outspoken person, but as I grew older and so many things happened, I liked to keep things to myself. Even though I had doubts about Sun Yu's changes, I did not take the initiative to ask her the reason.
Because I am a girl with a strong self-esteem, I think I have done nothing wrong. If she suddenly ignores me, I will not go up to her and ask, "Sun Yu, why have you been ignoring me recently?"
I believe that many times, relationships gradually become distant because of this kind of self-esteem.
Sun Yu, the last person in the dormitory who had a good relationship with me, no longer paid attention to me. I didn’t have many friends in the class, mainly because I was always close to Sun Yu and didn’t spend much time with other people, so we were not very familiar with each other.
Sun Yu was no longer by my side, and even Lin Jiarui, who I thought would come back to see me after a while and figure it out, didn't come to see me. I suddenly felt empty inside and as if I had been abandoned.
But I don’t want to go on like this, so I have to devote myself to the final review. Fortunately, I don’t hate studying, otherwise I really don’t know what method to use to relieve the depression in my heart.
I was not used to it at first, but later I gradually got used to going to the cafeteria to eat alone, going to the classroom alone, going back to the dormitory alone, doing homework alone during breaks, or staring out the window in a daze.
When you are alone for a long time, you no longer understand what loneliness is.
Even though everyone hid their emotions very well, every time I returned to the dormitory, the noise inside would stop as soon as I walked in, and the awkward atmosphere made me feel at a loss.
I really want to ask them, what did I do wrong to make them treat me like this?
But I didn’t, because I didn’t want people to see that I’m actually afraid of loneliness and I also need friends.
When I was in junior high school, at least I had many classmates and friends who liked me, but here, there is nothing.
It would be a lie if I said I didn't care about this sudden and huge gap.
I couldn't sleep at night, so I wanted to read books and do exercises because the final exam was coming up, so I wanted to read as much as possible. But when I turned on the desk lamp to read, someone would say, "It's so noisy, can't I sleep?" Even if they didn't mention anyone, I knew who they were talking to.
I feel very aggrieved and don't understand why no one said that to He Yiran when she was reading late at night, no one said anything to Tang Yu when the keypad sound of his mobile phone was so loud, and no one said anything to Sun Yu when she was on the phone until late at night several times. I try to turn the pages of the book as quietly as possible, so why do they still say that to me.
At that moment, I don’t know why, but tears came to my eyes. I sat alone behind the blackout curtain, crying over a closed book.
Watching the crystal clear liquid falling, my nose felt sore, but I didn't dare to sniff, for fear that they would think I was noisy again, and even more afraid that they would know I was crying.
So I turned off the desk lamp, lifted the quilt and lay down in it.
There were still people playing with their cell phones in the dormitory, and the beeping sound never stopped.
I also want to yell, "Aren't you guys noisy like this? Can't I sleep?" But what's the use of yelling? It's just a way of being angry, and it won't make them change their attitude towards me. It will only make the conflict worse.
I couldn't sleep and just stared blankly with my eyes open, but it was easy to cry.
Eager to find something to divert my attention, I picked up the turned-off cell phone next to my pillow. I don't use this phone often, and there are only a few numbers in it: Lin Jiarui's, Xiao Jingjing's, and Xu Yan's.
I felt so suffocated and my nose was blocked and I felt very uncomfortable. I wanted to find someone to talk to, but I didn't know who to talk to.
Looking for Lin Jiarui? He doesn't even pay attention to me, so why should I look for him?
Looking for Xiao Jingjing? She's already asleep by now. She has to work tomorrow and is busy and tired all day long. I don't want her to worry about me all the time. If she knew I was wronged, she would definitely rush to school.
Are you looking for Xu Yan? What should you talk to him about?
What I fear most is looking for him, because I am afraid that he will respond to me, afraid that he will give me warmth again and make me dependent on him and unwilling to let go.
Unable to find anyone to talk to, I had to swallow my tears and pain, wiped away my tears, and curled up in the cold bed to sleep.
I told myself, Jian Lening, it’s okay, the final exams will be here soon, and then it will be winter vacation. Next semester, the classes will be divided into arts and sciences, and the dormitories will be reallocated at that time. You may not live with them. They don’t care about friendship, so why should you care?
I kept telling myself this until I fell asleep with tears in my eyes.
"Call out Sun Yu from your class. Don't think you can ignore us just because you have someone backing you up." The final exams lasted two days. After taking the biology exam on the second day, I was blocked on my way back to the classroom.
The girl who was blocking my way and speaking to me with a fierce expression seemed familiar to me. I searched my memory for a long time before I suddenly remembered that this girl was one of the people who had caused trouble for Sun Yu last time.
Nothing happened for a long time after I was called to the office that time. I even thought that the matter was over. I didn’t know that the trouble was still there, it just didn’t find me.
"What do you want from Sun Yu?" Even though Sun Yu had distanced himself from me for some unknown reason, I still subconsciously asked the girls who blocked me.
"Why, have you forgotten? The matter with Wang Dewei hasn't been settled yet. If you two hadn't complained, would he have been forced to drop out of school? The last time we came to settle accounts with her, Xu Yan from your Class 9 of Grade 1 came out to help her, and Wang Dewei herself said to let it go. That matter should have been over, but I haven't settled accounts with her for beating up my friend in the restaurant last time! My friend is still lying in the hospital. Don't think that we can't do anything to her just because Xu Yan helped her. If she doesn't give me an explanation today, she can't leave the school! Anyway, the exams are over, and we have plenty of time to catch her after the winter vacation."
I didn't know they had ever caused trouble for Sun Yu, nor did I know that Sun Yu and Xu Yan had already been in contact. What was even more unexpected was that the bond between the two of them was beyond my imagination.
I didn’t know the whole story, and the girl named Anxi didn’t explain herself clearly, so my mind was in a mess. I only remember that they mentioned a name - Xu Yan.
"Hey! What are you standing there for? Why don't you go and help us call the person out? Or do you want us to rush into your class and pull Sun Yu out directly?" A few girls next to me were getting a little impatient and reached out their hands to push me hard, saying viciously.
Because I was still standing on the stairs, I was suddenly pushed by someone and fell downstairs. Seeing this, Anxi, who was the leader, hurried to help me with a look of horror on her face, but before her hand touched me, I fell down the stairs and fell at the corner of the corridor. I frowned in pain immediately.
I complained bitterly, wondering why I was so unlucky that such an accident happened so close to the holiday.
The girl named Anxi and her friends also caught up with me, stood beside me and looked at me, with a nervous but somewhat arrogant look on their faces, and asked me coldly: "Hey, are you okay?"
This time it was okay, except for some pain in my butt and some scrapes on the palms of my hands, I didn't sprain my limbs, so I carefully clasped my hands and shook my head at them.
"I'm glad you're okay. Forget about calling for help. We'll go find it ourselves. Also, you fell down by yourself, so don't blame us!"
Seeing me stand up, Anxi raised her eyebrows, hinting that I should not cause trouble for them.
I naturally understood what she meant, and I didn't want to get into trouble. In order to avoid further , I rubbed my sore butt and prepared to go upstairs. However, as soon as I stepped onto the first step, someone grabbed my uninjured hand.
"What's going on? Jian Lening, are those girls giving you trouble?"
Lin Jiarui, whom I hadn't seen for a long time, suddenly appeared in front of me, took my arm, protected me, and stared at Anxi and others who had not left yet with a gloomy face.
I saw the girl who pushed me just now evaded behind Anxi nervously, while Anxi frowned habitually, looking like a big sister, and asked Lin Jiarui with a stern face: "Who are you?"
"Who do you care who I am? I'm asking you, did you bully my friend just now? Why did you push her down? What if she got hurt?"
"Who pushed her? She fell down because she didn't stand firmly, okay? Don't accuse us!" Anxi denied with raised eyebrows.
The girl hiding behind her also stood up because she had someone to back her up, and said confidently: "Which eye of yours saw us push her?"
Such an argument and such chaos made me feel at a loss. I pulled Lin Jiarui, who was about to scold them, and said with a hint of pleading in my tone: "Lin Jiarui, stop arguing. I'm fine. I fell on my own."
I don't know why I have become like this, so timid and afraid of getting into trouble. I just want to spend the next three years here peacefully. This place is not like the junior high school near our shantytown. There are no classmates who support me, no roommates who protect me, and the coldness here far outweighs the warmth.