First love heartbreak

During high school, while others passed around small notes, we exchanged a pink notebook. In that notebook were snippets of our conversations and stories of our growth shared with each other.

Every night after self-study, either you or I would take that notebook back to the dormitory to write down what we wanted to share with each other that day.

At that time, I loved collecting things. The movie tickets we watched together, the cable car tickets we used, the photo of you raising your right hand in front of the waterfall at Mount Emei… I collected them like stamps. That was the love I cherished.

When we ate hamburgers at KFC, you would give me the chicken in the middle and only eat the bread and vegetables yourself. You said I was too skinny and needed to eat more, but not too much because you didn’t like it. On cold winter days, you would hold my hand and put it in the large pocket of your coat, and I felt the happiest warmth in the world.

During those youthful high school years, I thought I had encountered all the most beautiful things in the world. Even the most tedious and boring study days became interesting and lively because of these moments. All this beauty was summed up in four words: because of love.

However, the beautiful things, those wonderful days, they are gone. Whether I can face it or not, it is a bloody and stark reality.

In the winter break of sophomore year, I went out to get an injection for a cold and saw you with her. I hated myself for going out that day and for being so curious that I tried to enter your email password. Meeting you was inevitable in this lifetime.

I asked if she was prettier than me. You said no. I asked if she loved you more than I did. You said no. Finally, you said she was good to you and that I was someone who could handle setbacks on my own, had many friends, and would never be lonely. But deep down, you and I were not the same kind of people, and neither was she.

So, I understood. Because I was optimistic, strong, and had many friends, I deserved to be deceived and cheated on, right? Do you remember the summer of freshman year when I said on the bus that if we were not 17 but 70 years old, it would be great because I would spend my whole life with you? At that time, I wanted so much to grow old with you overnight to skip all the fighting and hurting.

My world was spinning; that was how I felt then. I had insomnia every day but still had to face the pressure of high school studies. I wished you would disappear from my sight but unconsciously looked at your seat every time I entered the classroom. My eyes were swollen, and I was exhausted, yet I stubbornly told unrelated classmates, “Bae Yong Joon’s drama is really tragic!”

One night during self-study, I asked the teacher for leave to go home but ended up wandering in the dark with my best friend. When we reached the streetlight near my house, I felt so overwhelmed that I stood under the light and cried my heart out.

I was really pathetic then. I hated your ruthlessness, your lack of effort to save our relationship, and your complete departure. You left me alone to struggle in the dark, covered in wounds, while you cared for another girl who seemed a bit lonely in the sunlight.

How long was I sad? I don’t remember, three years or five years? I finally made it to the college entrance exam, and I no longer had to see you every day. After the exam, I traveled to mountains and seas, went to Beijing, studied at the university next to yours, and later went to the UK.

As time passed, those past events that I didn’t want to revisit somehow became clear at some sunset and stayed in the distance. That unforgettable you, in the bumps along life’s road, was finally let go.

Now, there are still nosy people who tell me about you and ask me, “Are you doing well?”

I smile and quickly type, “Haha, very well!” But the life behind “very well” is far from smooth sailing. I have stumbled, stood up again, felt happy again, and sometimes felt sad again. I met new people, had a new life, liked someone again, loved someone again, felt a deep connection with others again, and once again felt my own urgency and panic but no longer with reckless persistence.

You have nothing to do with me anymore. Even the most basic news, I no longer need to know.

This is the mindset after growing up, the life after maturity.

I am no longer who I was. I poured my heart into liking you back then, but now I really like the reckless self from before and am grateful for the growth brought by past pain.

Thank you for reading! ” Sitestorys “