CH 20

The first time I saw her was on the lush pathway of the secondary school, a quiet and collected girl. Her grey cotton sportswear framed an overly white face, her long hair reached her waist, and she was holding a bouquet of lilies in her hands. The early summer breeze blows gently, and the alabaster petals flutter, softly brushing her cheeks.

That night, those petals had sprinkled every corner of his dreams.

He later learned that her name was Jian Anjie, a name that became forever engraved into his heart.

“Xichen, what are you looking at, so lost in thought?” The voice of his best friend beside him interrupts his thoughts.

“Who is he?” he asks.

“Oh, the new kid on the block? His name’s Ye Lin. He’s a good-looking guy who acts out. And the girl next to him is?”

“Gone.” The cold, slow voice sounds surprisingly a little angry.

When she was beside this boy named Ye Lin, she would become amused, angry, blushing, frowning – a myriad of dazzling expressions – and they all made him become confused and annoyed.

“Xichen, are you in love?”

“What?” His friend’s sudden question causes his breath to momentarily hitch.

“You’ve been acting very abnormal lately. I’ve always been curious about what an over-aged, stable, self-disciplined and extremely intelligent person like yourself would be like when he falls in love.

“Now it seems like you’re distracted, unsettled and kind of sinister, heh, a bit different from the norm but not far off from the usual moods love brings. But what I’m more curious about is, which goddess is so capable of making our iceberg prince Xi Xichen fall for her? Hey, there should be quite a few waifs who are about to have their hearts broken, right?”

It was so obvious to outsiders that he had become so utterly confused and was losing control, over a girl. Even he found his behavior a bit strange. So he hid his first heart palpitation into the innermost layers of his heart, along with her name.

After finishing his studies at home he left to study in America, thinking that they would never cross paths again.

Three years later, he returned home to attend Aunt Shen’s wedding, only to meet her again! She was dressed in a small, pure white dress, and was sitting quietly on a wooden chair in the front row of the auditorium, her ethereal eyes as clear as still water.

He thought he had forgotten about her, but the tide of his love showed him that not only had he not forgotten, but the feelings he had kept hidden for so many years had become even more violent and uncontrollable than before.

But as fate would have it, she became his legal cousin. For the next four months he lived in Jian’s house, intruding on her life.

He saw her finish a book of Tagore’s poems in the garden; he saw her utterly unguarded serenity when she first woke up in the morning; he saw her padding around the study, struggling to get a book off the top shelf; he saw her sitting on the balcony with her headphones on, staring into the distance.

He knew her as much as anyone living under the same roof would know her.

And yet they barely ever talked. The few times they passed each other, she acted like a stranger, cold and distant, and he was not very good at breaking that divide.

Until that day. It was a terrible day!

When he heard Auntie Shen’s screams, he rushed out of his room only to see Jian Anjie crouching at the top of the stairs, shaking helplessly, while Auntie Shen was at the bottom of the stairs lying next to a shocking pool of blood.

He had gotten so mad, he didn’t know what came over him.

He’d run over and pulled her up shouting, “What have you done?!”

His hand had struck that pale cheek!

He suddenly saw the pair of vacant, lifeless eyes, with tears dripping from them and the blood beginning to seep from the corners of her mouth.

She had been afraid. She hadn’t meant to do it. She’d needed someone to soothe her, even a little.

He’d felt a sudden, unprecedented wave of fear wash over him, as if a hand of destruction had come out of nowhere to annihilate him, to destroy him, forever.

The next day she had been sent to France.

He’d sat after that in a dimly lit bar drinking a glass of wine strong enough to burn a man.

“Xichen, that’s enough, you’re practically abusing yourself!”

“Really? That’s not so bad then.” His bitter, low voice reflected an inner, all-consuming pain.

“What is wrong with you? Why are you out of control all of a sudden!”

“Punch me in the face.”

“What!?”

“I said, punch me in the face.”

“You’re crazy!” The person beside him couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“Heh, yeah, I think I’m crazy too. You know, I hit her? I can’t believe I hit her!”

He squeezed the glass and it shattered, instantly piercing his skin. A stream of blood ran down his wrist and dripped down, staining the polished ground red.