"You deserve to have beautiful things."
That was the first time anyone had ever said that to Qiao Mian in her eighteen years of life.
At school, she was the invisible girl who always kept her head down. In her mother’s eyes, she had to be a "perfect daughter" who got full marks. To her classmates, she was a freak they could mock without restraint.
Her wrists bore scars no one knew about, and her diary was filled with the despair of wanting to disappear.
Then the transfer student Qi Ye appeared. With a sunshine-bright smile, he stubbornly barged into her bleak world and told her, "I see you."
They promised to attend the same university and be together. He gave her a birthday present every year until graduation, and took her away from her suffocating home to watch the stars from a rooftop.
Just as Qiao Mian began learning to love herself, Qi Ye fell from a tall building, leaving behind only an "I'm sorry" and a room full of presents he'd prepared in advance.
[It turns out what truly hurts isn't never having had the light, but falling into eternal night again after seeing the sun.]
