An Expired Summer

When they first met, Chen Yang borrowed an eraser from Su Nian. Their fingertips brushed, and a current seemed to race through them. Later, they became painting studio partners. He took on her difficult assignments, mixed the perfect Monet purple, walked her home after evening study, and promised to propose once he got into art school. Su Nian tucked those words into her sketchbook, beside a drawing of the mole behind his ear.

Then disaster struck. Chen Yang's father died, leaving behind debts. He skipped class and took to smoking and drinking, and even got surrounded by thugs at a pool hall. In the face of Su Nian's determination, he pushed her away, saying he wasn't good enough for her, then vanished from the studio. Three months later, they ran into each other at the hospital, where he told her to forget him.

Years later, Su Nian saw a painting of a late-summer studio at an art exhibition. She recognized that familiar shade of Monet purple, but the signature was a stranger's. The boy who had said, "Summer may expire, but I won't," ultimately became an expired memory she left behind in her youth, along with the endless sounds of cicadas that summer.