Claire Daniels suddenly felt sad for herself. She could never find a reason for liking someone, just like back then—a joke from the crowd, a smile from the other person, and she remembered Scott Zack's chubby thighs and white socks; just like that year, the boy, hurt yet proud, said, "You'll know in the future, when a petty person gets a little power."

Scott Zack was terrible, but Daniel Hughes wasn't terrible enough.

Daniel Hughes joined Claire Daniels's class in the first year of high school as a student who bargained for admission, and ranked second in the class on the placement test. From the very first day, Claire Daniels was Daniel Hughes's deskmate. This made her feel both happy and worried. She worried about Daniel Hughes's sharp gaze at the gate of No. 17 High School, but what was she happy about... what exactly was it?

During the placement test, Daniel Hughes even flipped through the test papers aggressively, determined to use the sound of turning the blank pages to shame his deskmate Claire Daniels, who hadn't finished the set of crazy questions after a long time.

When the results came out, Claire Daniels ranked twenty-ninth in the class. Maybe it was the lingering summer heat, but as she looked at her score, her temples throbbed, and she could only keep rubbing them—the more she rubbed, the more it hurt. Meanwhile, for every subject test paper handed out by the class rep, Daniel Hughes never put them away, deliberately tossing them messily on the desk, making Claire Daniels grit her teeth in anger.

"I told you, you'll know in the future. It's just one test, you got cocky too soon. There are still three years to go, so enjoy yourself."

Claire Daniels exploded on the spot.

"What did I ever do to you, that you just assume I'm mocking you?"

"Aren't you?"

Claire Daniels blinked.

"I am."

Daniel Hughes had clearly prepared a whole load of words in his mind to counter Claire Daniels's denial and excuses, but when he heard this, he was stunned instead.

"So I'm sorry. You really are impressive."

Claire Daniels lowered her head and apologized, straightforward and open.

Daniel Hughes didn't say anything. After a while, he gathered up all the test papers on the desk, grabbed his basketball, and left the room, not coming back for the entire class.

Claire Daniels went to the bathroom, and when she came back, there was a bottle of medicated oil on the desk. She looked around, then Claire Daniels applied it to her temples in the extra story.

The whole classroom was filled with that minty scent, cool as it entered her lungs.

Daniel Hughes came back, snatched the medicated oil, stuffed it into his bag, and the two of them never spoke about it again.

Claire Daniels kept recalling—over all these years, had Daniel Hughes ever done anything else? Anything else more memorable, more warm and touching?

Maybe he had, maybe he hadn't.

But it was just this little bit of pride and awkwardness, just this small bottle of medicated oil as a peace offering, that made the Daniel Hughes in Claire Daniels's heart never truly count as terrible.

Even if later, he became again the kind of petty person in Claire Daniels's memory.

Even if later he got a girlfriend, moved in together, broke up because of trust issues, but still told Claire Daniels his bank card and online banking passwords, asking her to help him transfer money and withdraw cash.

"That's all?" Zoe Young hugged a bottle of Bacardi, tilted her head back, and downed half of it.

"Not just that, not only that. He borrowed my test papers to copy, took me home in heavy rain, and sometimes would suddenly say things like, 'I'm going to the Affiliated High School of Normal University because you got in there too.'"

"You're drunk," Zoe Young interrupted her. "He never said 'because' back then. That's just you making things up."

Everything after that, you made up too.

Even drunk, Claire Daniels could guess what Zoe Young had left unsaid.

What was missing in Claire Daniels's life?

She still couldn't understand the carefulness of people like Zoe Young, nor could she understand even a bit of her cousin Alan Carter's burdens. Claire Daniels's life was open and aboveboard; her parents gave her complete love and trust. She was loyal, and even if she sometimes offended people, most people were fair, so she always had friends. Her grades weren't top, but above average; her family was wealthy, her future secure; she looked decent and confident, and had no worries about relationships.

Compared to her peers, each with their own troubles, Claire Daniels had nothing to worry about.

As long as she could let go.

As long as she didn't go to extremes just to get into this university with Daniel Hughes, as long as she didn't stubbornly insist on joining the same state-owned enterprise in Beijing as him.

As long as she shifted her gaze just a little, looked somewhere else, at someone else.

"Tell me, why is it? Why can't I figure him out? What is he really thinking? Is he really just used to me? You know I liked Scott Zack in elementary school, and I admit that was because I didn't understand what liking someone meant. But now? What is it that I don't understand now?"

"You don't understand acceptance." Zoe Young pointed at her phone.

"Daniel Hughes is just an ordinary guy, you're a good girl, he relies on you, trusts your character, but never thought of making you his girlfriend."

"I know you've hated him since elementary school." Claire Daniels laughed.

No matter what Zoe Young said, Claire Daniels still felt something stuck in her chest, unable to be relieved.

"I know, I know you hate him. I also know he probably doesn't like me, but after all these years, does he really have no feelings for me?"

Zoe Young was silent for a long time.

"Jiejie, who among us really understands feelings?" she said.

The laundry room under the girls' dorm had not made the sound of a dozen washing machines rumbling together for days. Claire Daniels ran until she was sweaty, caught her breath at the door, then knocked and went in. The girl behind the counter didn't seem to notice, just buried herself in a romance novel, her eyes red.

"Sorry to bother you, I want to return these dozen or so laundry tickets."

"Oh, it's you!" The laundry girl put her book down and smiled sweetly. She was three years younger than Claire Daniels, started working after middle school, and seemed even more mature than Claire Daniels.

"I haven't seen your boyfriend much these past few months!" The girl gossiped as she counted the tickets, and Claire Daniels was already used to it in the extra story.

Daniel Hughes and two buddies had moved off campus to rent together, but their stingy landlord wouldn't install a washing machine, so Daniel Hughes's clothes still had to be brought back to the laundry rooms under the school dorms. After washing, someone had to remember to pick them up, and then bother to bring them back to Daniel Hughes—doing this once or twice was fine, but after a while, Daniel Hughes's old dorm mates got annoyed, and there were several times when clothes were left in the laundry room buckets until the shirts went moldy.

Eventually, this job naturally fell to Claire Daniels. She would dry and fold them in the girls' dorm, then hand them over to him.

Daniel Hughes would hand in his underwear and stinky socks together to the laundry, and the laundry girl didn't care, just tossed everything into the machine. When Claire Daniels found out, she would pick them out and wash them separately by hand.

Only Zoe Young had ever seen this. Claire Daniels always picked times in the afternoon, around two or three, when the water room was empty, to secretly wash the boys' underwear. After four years, she was finally caught by Zoe Young.

What are you doing this for?

Zoe Young didn't scold her as harshly as Claire Daniels feared. She just stared at the basin for a while, shook her head, and said, "Claire Daniels, what are you doing this for?"

After that, Zoe Young never brought it up again.

Claire Daniels knew that this kind of behavior was enough for her to slap herself a hundred times.

What the hell is this?!

But it was just this kind of thing.

On her twentieth birthday, Zoe Young once gave her a crooked calligraphy scroll.

Four big characters: "Born to be a queen."

In other people's eyes, Claire Daniels was always the big sister type, full of justice and a fiery temper.

She was happy, but still complained loudly, saying it should have been "Born to be a queen"! Zoe Young, right in front of her, secretly mimed the shape of men's underwear at her waist.

Claire Daniels couldn't tell if, in that moment, she was frozen from embarrassment or from wanting to cry.

"What's wrong? I'm asking about your boyfriend." The girl's loud voice snapped Claire Daniels out of it, and she smiled awkwardly.

"He moved, and now has a washing machine at home. He's not my boyfriend, how many times do I have to say it?"

The girl gave her a "yeah, right" look.

Claire Daniels laughed, "I'm serious, I really wish I could admit it to you, but he really isn't."

After saying it, she was stunned herself.

These confessions, too embarrassing to admit no matter what, always slipped out so easily in front of strangers.

It seemed that the stranger in the conversation wasn't the other person, but herself.