In the heart, those “many years” that are hidden and left unsaid, after all the talking, really just come down to this one sentence.

So many years.

I wish he were my boyfriend, but he isn’t.

They all once thought he was, but he isn’t.

They’ve all come to believe he really isn’t, but I still wish he was.

Claire Daniels returned to the dorm, packed all the remaining things into her suitcase, then sat on the bed with only wooden boards left, quietly watching the sun set in the west.

Daniel Hughes was busy attending and organizing all kinds of farewell dinners. Anyway, he didn’t live on campus, so he didn’t have the urgency of having to move out like Claire Daniels and the others, so he was fully able to turn graduation into a flowing feast without any talk of parting sorrow.

Claire Daniels opened all the leftover alcohol from last night. The drinks didn’t taste good, but the feeling of being drunk was nice.

She and Zoe Young had barely drunk before; last night was their first attempt at getting drunk—whether Zoe Young got drunk or not, Claire Daniels wasn’t sure, but she knew she did. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have let her send that draft text message.

“Do you like me, Daniel Hughes?”

Claire Daniels raised her glass to the evening sunlight on the dorm’s concrete floor.

Claire Daniels’s extra stories—those unremarkable interactions, that youth fermenting in the same classroom, those tacit understandings that can’t be clearly explained, those habits that will eventually be abandoned.

Others all thought Daniel Hughes must have said something ambiguous to make Claire Daniels misunderstand for so long. But really, there was nothing. Maybe it was precisely because there never was, that Claire Daniels firmly believed there could be.

He’d had one, two, three girlfriends, but she was the only one who had his bank PIN. He never used ambiguous promises to tie her down, so she cherished it all the more.

Claire Daniels used to think others didn’t understand. Later, she realized maybe she was the one who didn’t understand.

Thinking carefully, there actually were some ambiguous moments.

Under the bright moon, she accompanied him by the lake to practice riding a bike. He suddenly got the urge to give her a ride, but she refused no matter what.

“What if you can’t carry me? Someone like you would definitely blame me for being fat.”

“Why are you being so dramatic? In my eyes, you’re neither fat nor thin.”

She was stunned, not knowing how to interpret that sentence. Daniel Hughes quietly looked at her too, not hurriedly taking back his words.

What did it mean? She still asked.

Daniel Hughes suddenly smiled, for the first time in his life, reached out and gently patted her head.

“You’re Claire Daniels, whether you’re fat or thin, you’re still Claire Daniels, I’d never mistake you.”

She didn’t know where she got the nerve, but she plucked up the courage to ask, “Could you pick me out of a crowd at a glance?”

“Yeah, I could spot you at a glance.”

The moonlight in the boy’s eyes was as gentle as water.

Claire Daniels had drunk a bit too much. She stuck her head out the window, looking at the crescent moon outside.

Who the hell’s heart do you represent? Did a dog eat your heart?

Claire Daniels laughed and laughed, then fell asleep on the bed board.

The phone alarm woke her up.

Claire Daniels dragged her suitcase out of the dorm building, and took one last look at the jujube tree blocking the window of their room.

No matter day or night, the square in front of Beijing Railway Station always felt equally frantic and guarded. Claire Daniels stood in the center of the square, looking up at the huge clock tower.

Five thirty. The light at this hour made it impossible for Claire Daniels to tell if it was morning or evening. She closed her eyes, then opened them again, as if she’d gone back to twenty-four hours ago, woken by the sound of cicadas, when Zoe Young clumsily dragged her old suitcase, trying to leave without saying goodbye.

Claire Daniels finally took out her phone.

That text asking if you like me had only one reply so far. Claire Daniels hadn’t looked at it, waiting for the moment of departure.

Her mom was right, those things could just be moved straight into the new employee dorm at the state-owned company, no need to mail them home.

Because she didn’t plan to go.

Another job opportunity was in the south, not as good as the one in Beijing, and it was a strange city.

But there was no Daniel Hughes there, no dependence, no habits.

The decision Claire Daniels had made long ago wavered a little after that text message ran off to Daniel Hughes at midnight—if only he had replied something.

If only he had recognized her at a glance in the crowd at the train station.

Claire Daniels’s hand trembled a little as she opened her inbox.

“Today’s the last day to withdraw from school, right? After today, the campus card won’t work anymore? I might need to go back to campus today to take a friend to the library, but without a campus card, I’m screwed. Give me a definite answer, I’m talking about today, today, after midnight.”

Claire Daniels suddenly laughed.

The “today” Daniel Hughes was talking about after midnight was actually already yesterday.

“I want to be a good teacher, a good mom.”

She repeated it once more.

A solemn promise to some child in the future.

This way, I can give you all the love and respect I never received myself.

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Fiona James Extra: Precocious as a Child

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Fiona James rested her chin on the back of the chair in front of her, staring intently at the two hosts rehearsing on stage.

The other classmates who had also been called by the homeroom teacher to help set up the venue were all taking advantage of the teacher’s absence to gather and chat and mess around. None of the girls noticed she’d already slipped away from the group, sitting alone in the corner, listening with full concentration—no one knew what was so interesting about the affected tones of those two heavily made-up student hosts.

Fiona James’s lips curled into a faint smile, one she couldn’t even explain herself.

The three who just performed the skit always turned their backs to the audience during their scenes, never making eye contact. Taboo.

The girl singing was like a wooden post nailed to the left side of the stage, her glasses reflecting light, her voice trembling.

Taboo.

The two hosts’ voices were too shrill, constantly interrupting each other. The boy fidgeted too much, running his hand through his hair, touching his ears; the girl’s breathing was too loud, Fiona James Extra: before every sentence she had to say “then”… Taboo, taboo, taboo.

She silently critiqued everyone’s performance in her mind, just like her youth palace teacher Benjamin Clark had taught her. But Fiona James was just in the habit of critiquing and picking out mistakes, with not a trace of mockery—these students hadn’t had any professional training, they were just chosen by their classes to represent them at the annual arts festival, and no matter what, they were better than someone like her, drafted to clean the venue and move tables and chairs. Besides, the actors and hosts on stage didn’t really care if their performance was brilliant or not; no matter what, their classmates would always cheer loudly for them.

It took Fiona James a long time to understand that what mattered most on stage wasn’t how you performed, but—who you were, and who came to watch you.

When she was Swallow, everyone she knew and didn’t know would give her a thumbs up, hug her, and look at her with envy.

When someone else was Swallow, only her father still gave her a thumbs up, hugged her, and looked at her with the proudest eyes.

They were watching Swallow on stage, but only he was watching Fiona James offstage.

She remembered in sixth grade, when her mom yelled at her, clutching her math competition score of only 22 points from the affiliated school’s entrance exam, her dad took her out of the house, leaving the curses of “everyone in the Old Jim family is the same, useless from old to young” locked behind the security door, turning into a faint, buzzing tremor.

By then, she was no longer Swallow; the TV station had new Totoro and Bunnykins, a boy and a girl, five or six years old, everything just right. For a long time, Fiona James would feel her stomach twist with fear and shame whenever she saw that silver-gray building of the provincial TV station by the river, pain and nausea.

Good.

She stretched lazily, watching the male and female hosts leave the stage, and the next act, an accordion solo, come on.

To finally be able to face a school performance so calmly—without even realizing it, those wounds had slowly scabbed over and healed, though the scars still felt rough to the touch, reminding the now content and peaceful her that the seemingly faded past was never really a smooth road.