Chapter 5: The Last Meeting（5）
647 Words
I opened my mouth, wanting to say something. I'm sorry. My condolences. I didn't know. The words felt too light, light as feathers, unable to hold something so heavy.
"I didn't know," I said. "No one told me."
Gu Shen looked up at me, the corner of his mouth twitching slightly into something that wasn't quite a smile. "I thought you didn't care anymore."
Those words were like a needle, thin and sharp, accurately piercing the softest place in my heart.
Outside the window, the sky suddenly darkened.
I glanced over. Large, heavy clouds were rolling in from the west, swallowing the sunlight bite by bite. The wind rustled the locust tree leaves violently. Pedestrians on the road quickened their pace. Some started to run.
It was going to rain.
I turned back and saw Gu Shen also looking out the window. His profile was sharply outlined by the café's warm light: high nose bridge, long eyelashes. I suddenly remembered one time in university when it rained and neither of us had an umbrella. He took off his jacket and covered my head with it, getting completely soaked himself. When we got to my dorm, his hair was plastered to his forehead, and he looked like a large, wet dog.
That day, I stood on tiptoe and kissed him.
It was our first kiss.
"Shen Zhi," Gu Shen's voice pulled me back from the memory.
He looked into my eyes with an expression that made my heart flutter with unease. Not sadness, not anger, but a deep, almost overwhelming seriousness.
"In these five years, did you ever hate me?"
The question came so suddenly, so completely unprepared for.
Did I hate him?
I thought of the first month after the breakup. I locked myself in my rented apartment, kept the curtains tightly drawn, and slept without regard for day or night. When I was awake, I cried. When I was tired of crying, I slept again. A cycle, like a broken machine. My friend Lin Wan came to see me, brought a bag of fruit, and nearly called an ambulance when she saw my state. She said, "Shen Zhi, don't be like this. It's just a breakup. Is it really worth it?"
Worth it.
Of course, it was worth it.
I had given all of myself to him in those years. My first smile bloomed for him, my first heartbeat was because of him, my first tear was shed for him. I gave him the best five years of my life, from eighteen to twenty-three, along with my innocence, my pride, all my fantasies about the future, all wrapped up and presented with both hands.
Then he said he didn't want it anymore.
"You asked me to come to your place to get my things. I went. You saw me from the balcony, and then you pulled the curtain." My voice was very soft, so soft I was almost talking to myself. "It rained heavily that day. I didn't have an umbrella."
Gu Shen closed his eyes.
Watching him close his eyes, I continued, "I stood downstairs for forty minutes. I watched your curtain close, the light go off, come on again, go off again. You never came down."
The old song in the café had changed. I didn't know what it was, just a woman's voice singing low, the melody like a winding river, slowly flowing over the faded memories bleached by time.
"I did hate you," I said.
Gu Shen's eyelashes fluttered.
"I hated how easily you let go. Hated that you didn't say a single word to make me stay. Hated that you made me feel like those five years were a joke." My voice started to tremble, but I couldn't stop it. "I hated the moment you pulled the curtain, making me feel like a dog you'd thrown away."
The rain finally started.
- Writer
