When Huang Huibo knocked me down, the sweat on the back of his school uniform was spreading across a dark map. I lowered my head to pick up the books scattered on the floor, and the crooked-necked cat drawn in ink on the canvas shoes met his eyes.
"I'm sorry." I whispered, not recognizing him as the school basketball captain.
His eyes stopped on my finger that was scratched red by the book page: "I am the one who should apologize." Later, all the girls in the school screamed for him on the court, and I was the only one staring at his swollen ankle and frowning. When he lamely stuffed the championship trophy into my arms, sweat dripped down his chin and onto the back of my hand. "Lin Wan, please be my girlfriend." His voice was drowned in the cheers. On the night of his college graduation, he knelt on one knee on the greasy floor of his rental house. When the ring box was opened, I caught a glimpse of the old scar under the collar of his jersey that shielded me from the glass. It turns out that what was knocked down that year was not the book, but the first ripple in my peaceful youth.
