At seventeen, Zhang Xiyang found a box of nearly expired antidepressants beside a dumpster in the alley behind a restaurant.
He secretly slipped the pills into his pocket, hiding them the way he hid the similar scars on his wrist.
When Qi Xi, nineteen, came back, she saw the frail boy swallowing pills mixed with rainwater.
“Spit them out.” She turned his chin toward her. “You can't take this medicine like that.”
He curled up between the damp cardboard boxes like an abandoned puppy. “Sis, am I... beyond saving?”
Qi Xi draped her coat over both their heads. “Funny, I'm sick too.”
As raindrops beat against their makeshift shelter, she spoke slowly and clearly:
“Listen. From today on, your life is in my hands.”
