After coming out of the music classroom, Zhang Man was walking along the corridor connecting the two teaching buildings with her guitar in her arms. A gust of cold wind blew past her. She tightened her school uniform jacket and shivered slightly.
Outside, it was the same as last night, the rain was continuous, neither like the thunderstorms in summer, nor like the spring, even the rain was full of vitality.
The weather was overcast.
When she met Qin Shuai again, she couldn't help but feel a wave in her heart.
In the previous life, Qin Shuai confessed to her, just after she broke up with Li Wei.
At that time, she changed seats, and the seats of the two were very far apart, almost at opposite ends of the classroom, so on weekdays she would not say a word to him. On weekends, she stopped going to his house to make up lessons, and the two had completely cut off contact.
The pain of her first love was buried deep in her heart at such a distance, and she used study or some other things to numb her. As long as I don't think about him, the pain in my heart will feel better.
After a long time, the calmness and tranquility brought by the numbness made her even have the illusion of relief, and she thought she was gradually recovering.
But Li Wei didn't seem to have it. That quiet teenager always blocked her at the door of the classroom or school after school. He seemed to have a lot to ask her.
However, how could Zhang Man at that time be entangled with him again.
She felt that he was simply unreasonable. Since he already had a girlfriend and didn't like her, why should he lie, why bother with her, so she decided to never pay attention to him.
Ignore him, ignore any of his actions, and treat him like air.
This accumulated indifference made the teenager become more and more gloomy and paranoid, and finally broke out one day.
It was a Friday, and she went to the teacher's office before school in the afternoon. Before going home, she saw Chen Feier text her, saying that Li Wei had been standing at the school gate, as if waiting for her.
Zhang Man wanted to make it clear to him for the last time, so he packed up and walked downstairs.
At this moment, she met Qin Shuai on the corridor.
Qin Shuai was one of their seniors, so it stands to reason that there would be no intersection. Zhang Man can't remember where he met her now. But that day, Qin Shuai stopped her, took out two movie tickets from her pocket, and asked her if she could go to a movie with him in a while.
Zhang Man wanted to refuse directly, but unexpectedly thought of Li Wei who was waiting at the door, so he changed his mind and agreed.
She felt that she did not have the ability to use words to make him no longer entangle, so perhaps actions could be more direct.
Besides, she is also selfish.
Sixteen or seventeen-year-olds are always unbalanced because of some things. At that time, Zhang Man was always brooding about Li Wei's lies.
He deceived her and made her have strong doubts and disappointments about herself and the world for a long time before. No matter what you do, as long as you think of him and this unrequited relationship, you will feel uneasy.
Therefore, such a coincidental opportunity made her finalize it before she had time to think about it, and was eager to return the grievance to him.
- As if giving it back to him, she won't feel bad anymore.
So she promised Qin Shuai to go to the movies together and walked out of the school with him.
On a Friday afternoon, there were a lot of people outside the school gate. Some hawkers who sold snacks were pushing trolleys and shouting back and forth. The students gathered around the stalls eating skewers and hot pancakes for a dollar.
Outside the school gate, there are many parents who are standing at the school gate waiting to pick up their children.
The bustling street, the bustling crowd, but she found him at a glance.
In the cold early winter, the teenager wore a thin school uniform and stood under an evergreen camphor tree at the intersection of the street.
With his hands in his pockets, his back against the tree, his cheeks were thin and he didn't look very energetic.
He has lost a lot of weight, and the whole person is so thin that he seems to be integrated with the bleak winter days around him. Even the camphor that has not fallen leaves behind him is richer than him.
The moment she saw him, Zhang Man's heart seemed to be scalded, and the emotions that had been suppressed these days swept over again, making her almost unable to stand.
The boy saw them too.
He squinted his eyes, straightened his back slightly, stood still, but stared at them straight, those dark eyes with an incomprehensible look.
Being stared at like that, Zhang Man suddenly panicked for some unknown reason. She immediately turned to the side, not daring to look at him again.
She squeezed her palm, and the jealousy and grievance that kept overflowing in her heart were screaming. She said to herself: "He lied to you, and he doesn't like you at all. You are right in doing this, at least it can make him Don't dwell on it any longer."
Thinking like this, she deliberately stood closer to Qin Shuai, tried her best to raise her smile, and spoke to him with affection. Qin Shuai was just introducing her to a movie that she was going to watch in a while, and she listened cooperatively, nodding her head and smiling at him from time to time, her expression was so stiff that her palms were sweating.
- She thought to herself that lying is really a hard thing, and I don't know why he can do it so easily.
If they want to go to the cinema, they have to walk through that intersection, so they must pass him.
She said to herself in the bottom of her heart that she passed him by this time, and let this relationship go completely.
But the boy didn't let her do it.
The distance between the three is getting closer and closer, like a slow-motion shot in a movie.
Just as they were talking and laughing as they passed by him, the young man suddenly walked quickly from under the tree and grabbed her wrist, his eyes gloomy as if water were about to drip.
"Zhang Man, where are you going?"
The voice was hoarse and hard like the ice ridges hanging upside down under the eaves in the twelfth lunar month.
Looking at his appearance, she felt very contradictory in her heart, as if there was a sense of revenge, but more of an indescribable panic and discomfort.
The grievances in her heart were haunting her again, giving her the courage to continue.
She tried her best to pretend to be very happy, tried to withdraw her hand, looked at Qin Shuai next to her with a warm smile on her face, and then turned around and said to him extremely coldly: "I want Go to the movies with the seniors."
With such a deliberate distinction, she thought she did a good job.
The boy was silent, but did not let go.
He glanced at her and glanced at Qin Shuai next to her. A strong storm rolled up in his normally unwavering eyes. In just a few seconds, his eyes turned red.
He took a deep breath, as if trying to calm himself down, looked straight at her, and asked softly, "...Can you not go?"
His voice was so low and his tone dropped, Zhang Man even heard a faint pleading.
- At that moment, he let go of all his pride, like the most ordinary teenager, trying to retain his hard-won love.
Zhang Man was almost soft-hearted at the time, but the next second he told himself that he was a habitual offender. So she hardened her heart and mocked: "I'm dating the senior, what's your business?"
After the boy heard her response, he completely lost control.
The blue veins on his forehead bulged, his teeth were clenched, and even his facial expression was a little distorted, as if he had lost his mind for a while. He squeezed her wrist fiercely, no matter how hard she struggled, he would not let go, so strong that Zhang Man couldn't help crying out in pain.
Zhang Man kept telling him to let go, but he kept staring into her eyes and just wouldn't let go.
The whole process was deadlocked for nearly a minute, and her wrist was pinched so badly.
She was panicked by his stare, and murmured with a trembling voice: "let go, I'm still in a hurry..."
Qin Shuai also came to help her, trying to break the fingers that he was holding onto him.
It's a pity that the young man doesn't seem to listen to people. No matter how she and Qin Shuai persuade, they just hold her tightly. That paranoid look is something Zhang Man has never seen before, like a lone wolf in the wild. , suddenly confronting you in the thick night, so frightening.
Many people at the school gate began to look this way.
At that moment, she suddenly remembered the rumors about him, so she was frightened, swayed by boundless fear and grievance, she said with a trembling voice: "Li Wei, are you crazy? You crazy, You let me go, you hurt me!"
She shouted, her voice was already crying, and he was so paranoid and gloomy that she was overwhelmed when she was sixteen or seventeen years old at the time.
The boy's gloomy expression began to shatter when he saw her tears, and the storm that had intensified in his eyes was forced to subside at that moment, becoming an unspeakable pain.
As if burned, he let go of her hand violently, his eyes moving from her face to her wrist.
- He looked at the shocking red marks on her white wrist, and took a staggering step back.
Zhang Man will never forget his expression at that time.
Regret, pain, fear, sadness... His eyes became more and more red, and his beautiful brows seemed to be unable to stretch because of the red mark on her wrist.
After a long while, the teenager clenched his fist in annoyance, as if he wanted to step forward to explain to her, but she took a few steps back in fright.
It was those few steps that blocked all his thoughts and actions.
In the end, the young man didn't say anything, and carefully studied her for a long time, as if he wanted to remember every detail of her face.
Then, he turned and left.
The moment he turned around, the seventeen-year-old Zhang Man heard a broken voice in his heart. She instinctively wanted to raise her hand to grab the corner of his clothes, but stopped abruptly.
…
The movie that day seemed to be a comedy, but after watching the finale, she was already in tears.
After that time, she and Li Wei never spoke again.
The boy slowly turned into what he was before, even worse than before. He hid himself in a corner, stopped interacting with people, and became more depressed every day.
Later, he got the admission qualification of B University, and even started not to come to school.
Until one day before her transfer, he suddenly came to the school, walked over to her seat, and asked her if she had seen what he had put on her desk before.
Zhang Man thought he was asking about the physics book he put on her desk one day, but she didn't turn it over at all and threw it into the drawer.
So he just said coldly: "I see."
After the boy heard the answer she didn't care about, he stood beside her seat for a long time, until her indifference could no longer be maintained, and then he lowered his head and walked away.
This is the last conversation between the two in the previous life.
From then on, the boy who gently hugged her with red ears by the street lamp, the boy who looked at her with stars in his eyes, disappeared after that winter.
…
Time never stops for anyone, but one day after a long time, some blurred truths of old memories will be revealed.
Many, many years later, Zhang Man realized that what he asked at the time was the love letter he had carefully placed in the physics book, the love letter to her.