Biquge www.xbiquge.bz, the fastest updated silent confession!
Lydia looked down at her plate, which contained her mother's choice of salad, beef cubes, and cheese. The last time she'd spoken to Karen was a year ago, when James drove them home after they'd finished watching One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest that afternoon. At first, Lydia felt proud that, for once, her movie project wasn't just a show for her father: the Cullens had just moved to town, and taking advantage of her new arrival, Lydia suggested they go see a movie. Karen said, "Yeah, sure, why not go." Then, on the way, her dad kept trying to show off how cool he was: "Five siblings, Karen? Like 'The Brady Bunch'! You Have you seen that TV show?" "Dad," Lydia said, "Dad." But he continued, asking Karen what kind of records were popular now, and humming the melody from "Waterloo," which The tune was popular two years ago and is now clearly out of date. Karen just said "yes" and "no" and "I don't know" and then started fiddling with the charms on her earrings. Lydia wished she could turn into a puddle of water and seep into the seat cushion, letting the foam inside block all the sounds in the car. At that moment, all she could think about were the empty eyes of Jack Nicholson's character as he was suffocated by a pillow. Silence began to sweep through the car until they stopped in front of Karen's house.
The following Monday, she stopped at Karen's table at lunch and tried to smile at her. "I'm sorry, my dad..." she said, "Oh my god, he's so embarrassing."
Karen opened the lid of the yogurt box, licked the foil on the back of the lid clean, and shrugged. "It's okay," she said. "That's kind of cute, actually. I mean, he's obviously trying to help you adjust."
Now, Lydia was glaring at her father, and he was smiling at her—for she had so many friends, and he could remember their names. Like dogs, she thought, dogs need to be rewarded.
"They are very good," she said, "They are both very good." From the other side of the table, Marilyn said calmly: "Stop pestering her, James, let her eat." James said a little excitedly: "I Not nagging her about her homework." Hannah poked a piece of burger and put it on her plate. Lydia looked into Nath's eyes. Please, she thought, say something.
Nath took a deep breath. This evening, he had been planning to say something. "Dad, I need you to sign some forms."
"Form?" James asked, "What is it for?"
"What Harvard needs," Nath put down his fork, "is my dormitory application form, and a campus visit application. I can go in April and visit for a week. They will have a student host me." Once he spoke, he The speed of his speech involuntarily increased, and he wanted to finish it in one breath, "I saved enough money to buy a ticket, and I will only miss a few days of classes. I need your permission."
Lost a few days of classes, Lydia thought. Their parents would never allow it.
To her surprise, they nodded.
"That's nice," Marilyn said. "You can experience campus life first. Wait until next year, and you will start real college life." James said, "It's not pleasant to take a long car ride. I think for this special opportunity, we can afford the air tickets." Nath grinned at his sister, filled with the joy of a double victory: They stopped chasing you with questions; they agreed to my request. Lydia stirred the cheese sauce with the tip of her knife and had only one thought: He couldn't wait to leave.
"You know who was in physics class with me?" she said suddenly. "Jack Wolfe, the Jack on the corner." She took a small bite of her burger, anticipating her family's various reactions. Her parents were indifferent to the name, and her mother said, "Lidy, this reminds me, I won't be able to review your notes for you on Saturday, if you don't mind." Her father said, "I haven't seen Karen in a long time. Yes. Why don't you two find time to watch a movie? I'll drive you there." However, Ness, who was sitting opposite, suddenly raised his head, as if he suddenly heard a gunshot. Lydia smiled at her plate. It was then that she decided to be friends with Jack.
At first, this wish seemed unattainable. Jack hadn't come to class for almost a week, and she finally spotted him after wandering near his car. On the first day, he came out of the teaching building, followed by a blond-haired sophomore girl. Lydia didn't recognize her. She crouched behind the bushes and looked out through the gaps in the branches. Jack slipped his hand into the girl's pocket and then into her coat, and when she pretended to be offended and tried to push him away, he picked her up and threatened to throw her into a snowdrift by the roadside. The girl screamed and laughed, pounding Jack's back with her fists. Jack put her down and opened the door of the Beetle. The blonde girl got in and the car drove away, smoke billowing from the exhaust pipe. Lydia knew that they would not come back today. The next day, Jack did not show up, and Lydia, who waited to no avail, had to go home exhausted. The snow was up to people's calves, the lowest temperatures this winter broke records, Lake Erie froze a hundred miles to the north, and snow in Buffalo flooded roofs and swallowed power lines. In Midwood, Ness sat alone on the school bus for the first time. After returning home, he saw Lidya and asked, "What's wrong with you?" Lidya stomped upstairs without answering.
On the third day, Jack walked out of the teaching building alone. Lydia took a deep breath and ran down the sidewalk. As usual, Jack was wearing no coat or gloves, and he was holding a cigarette between two fingers that were red from the cold.
"Do you mind taking me home?" she said.
"Miss Li," Jack kicked a piece of snow off the front wheel, "shouldn't you take the school bus?"
She shrugged and tugged the scarf toward the back of her neck. "Didn't catch the school bus."
"I'm not going home directly."
"I don't mind, it's too cold to walk."
Jack fumbled in his back pocket for a while and took out his keys. "Are you sure your brother wants you to hang out with people like me?" he said, raising an eyebrow.
"He's not my nanny." She said, raising her voice unconsciously. Jack smiled, puffed out a cloud of white smoke, and got into the car. Lydia got into the car with a blush on her face. When Jack came over to lock the passenger door, she almost turned away in embarrassment.
Sitting in the car, she didn't know what to say. Jack started the engine and shifted slightly into gear. The speedometer and fuel gauge illuminated—other than that, there were no other dials on the car. Lydia thought about her parents' car, the indicators and warning lights that would pop up to tell you if the oil was low, if the engine was overheating, if you were driving with the handbrake on, if the doors, trunk and hood were closed. They need to keep an eye on you and remind you what you should and shouldn't do. She'd never been alone with a boy—her mother had forbidden her from going out with him, and she hadn't tried—and she realized she'd never had a proper conversation with Jack. She had only a vague impression of the rumors of what happened in the back seat of Jack's car. She looked at Jack's profile out of the corner of her eye: the light stubble—but darker than his brown hair—extended to his temples and the top of his throat, like a large smoke-stained mark that needed to be wiped clean. .
"Well," she said, twitching her fingers into her coat pocket, "can I have a cigarette?"
Jack smiled. "That's nonsense, you don't smoke." However, he still handed over the cigarette case, and Lydia took out one. She had expected the cigarette to be as heavy and heavy as a pencil, but it felt light in her hand. With his eyes on the road, Jack tossed her his lighter.
"So, you don't think you need your brother to escort you home today."
Lydia couldn't miss the disdain in his voice, and she wasn't sure if Jack was teasing her or Nath, or both of them at the same time. "I'm not a child." She lit the cigarette and stuffed it into her mouth. The smoke burned her lungs and made her dizzy, but then she perked up. Like slicing a finger, she thought, the pain and blood remind you that you're still alive. She exhaled, and a small stream of white smoke swirled out from between her teeth. She handed over the lighter, and Jack waved his hand.
"Put it in the storage box."
Lydia opened the lid and a small blue box fell out and landed on her feet. She froze and Jack laughed.
"What's the matter? Never seen Troy③, Miss Li?"
Lydia's face burned. She scooped up the condoms that had fallen out and stuffed them back into the box. "Of course I have." She put the box and the lighter into the storage box and tried to change the subject. "What did you think of today's physics test?"
Jack snorted. "I don't think you care about physics."
"Are you still failing?"
"And you?"
Lydia hesitated. She followed Jack's example, taking a slow drag on the cigarette, leaning her head back and exhaling the smoke. "I don't care about physics, not at all."
"Nonsense," Jack said, "Then why do you look like you're about to cry every time Mr. Kelly gives you your homework?"
She didn't realize she was showing it so obviously, the blush on her face spread to her neck, the seat under her body creaked, and a spring poked her thigh, like someone was kneeling her.
"Miss Li, who is still young, smokes," Jack said sinisterly, "if your brother finds out, won't he feel sad?"
"He will be even more upset if he finds me sitting in your car." Lydia smiled. Jack acted as if he hadn't heard. He lowered the window, a cold wave came in, and he threw the cigarette butt onto the street.
"He hates me so much?"
"Come on," Lydia said, "everyone knows what happened in this car."
They had just arrived at the lake when Jack suddenly pulled the car to the side of the road. His eyes were cold and calm, like the frozen water behind him. "Maybe it's better for you to get out of the car, since you don't want someone like me to lead you astray and ruin your chances of going to Harvard like your brother."
He must really hate Nath, Lydia thought, as much as Nath hates him. She imagined how they attended class: Nath sitting in the front row, notebook open, one hand rubbing the wrinkles between his brows, his signature move when he was thinking hard. He concentrated on it, completely forgetting himself, and finally came up with the answer. Where's Jack? Jack must be lying in the corner of the back row, with his shirt open and his legs crossed, looking comfortable and complacent, not caring what others think of him. No wonder the two of them don't get along.
"I'm different from him, you know," she said.
Jack looked at her for a long moment, as if deciding whether her words were true. The engine of the Beetle idled under the back seat and roared. The cigarette in Lydia's hand had a long line of ashes, like a gray worm. She said nothing, just breathed a thin line into the cold air and forced herself to meet Jack's suspicious scrutiny.
"Why are your eyes blue?" he finally asked, "Aren't you Chinese?"
Lydia blinked: "My mother is American."
"I thought brown eyes would win." Jack put a hand on the headrest of her seat and leaned in to study her like a jeweler examining a gem. Lydia felt very uncomfortable on the back of her neck. She turned her head and dusted the cigarette into the ashtray.
"Not always, I guess."
"I've never seen a Chinese with blue eyes."
Whenever she looked up, she could see the freckles on Jack's face, lighter now but not gone—and Lydia counted them, as her brother had done so long ago: nine.
"Did you know you're the only girl in this school who's not white?"
"Really? I didn't realize it." She was lying. Despite her blue eyes, she couldn't pretend to be like them.
"You and Nath, you're actually the only Chinese people in Midwood, I bet."
"possible."
Jack leaned back in his seat and rubbed a small dent in the steering wheel. And then after a while he said, "What does that feel like?"
"What does it feel like?" Lydia asked hesitantly. Sometimes you almost forget that you look different from everyone else. When you hear the bell, drop a box of film, or pick out a carton of eggs in a classroom, drugstore, or supermarket, you feel like you're just like everyone else, sometimes without even thinking about it. Other times, you’ll notice that the girl across the corridor is looking at you, the pharmacist is staring at you, the cashier is staring at you, and you realize how out of place you look in their eyes. Their eyes seemed to have hooks. Every time I look at myself from their perspective, I experience that feeling again and am reminded of my own uniqueness. You must have seen the iconic image in the movie "Peking Express" - the Chinese boy carrying a box, wearing a coolie hat, with crooked eyes, protruding teeth, and eating with chopsticks; you have also seen those boys pointing at their classmates on the playground. Point—Chinese—Japanese—look at them; on the street, older children pass you by muttering “ching chong ching chong,” just enough for you to hear. Waitresses, policemen, and bus drivers talk to you slowly, using simple words as much as possible in case you don’t understand. In the group photo, you are the only one with black hair, and your image seems to have been cut from somewhere else and pasted on. You wonder: Wait, why is she there? Another thought, it turns out that "she" is you. You lower your head, thinking about school, space or the future, trying to forget this matter. You can indeed forget it at the time, but there are always people and things that can remind you of it again.
"I don't know," she said. "People judge a book by its cover." She looked at him, suddenly indignant. "Just like you do to me. They think they know you very well, but in fact they don't at all."
Jack stared at the castle logo in the middle of the steering wheel in silence for a long time. They could never be friends now. He hated Nath, and based on what she just said, he would hate her too. He could have kicked her out of the car and walked away. However, Lydia was surprised to see Jack take out the cigarette case from his pocket and hand it over. This is a gift of reconciliation.
Lydia didn't think about where they were going, nor how she was going to explain to her mother why she was home late. She needed an excuse—she smiled triumphantly at the thought—to cover up the fact that she had been with Jack all afternoon. Facts together, for example, she stayed in school to do extra physics problems assigned by the teacher. She didn't even think about how shocked and anxious Nath would be when he found out the truth. Looking at the lake, she had no idea that she would be buried at the bottom of the lake three months later. She took the cigarette from Jack, lit the lighter from him, and put the cigarette butt close to it.
①Confirmation is a Christian ritual that symbolizes the strengthening of the relationship between man and God established through baptism.
②Lydia’s nickname.
③Condom brand.