I’ll Just Kill You in My Memories

As I write these words, I can no longer tell whether this is a novel or a letter that has arrived far too late.

The person in this story was once at the center of my universe for the latter half of my sixteenth and eighteenth years, and most of my nineteenth. Now I feel more like an archaeologist, trying to piece together the shape we once shared from the ruins of memory. Some stones have weathered away; others have grown too smooth from my repeated touch. So let me be honest: what you are about to read is a version revised by memory, time, and regret.

I wrote it to lay a ghost to rest: the girl who lived in summers past, and the awkward boy who loved her.

I also wrote it to finish a conversation, even though the other end may have fallen silent long ago.

If you, too, have left a part of yourself with someone from the past or in some bygone chapter of your life, then perhaps this book was written for you as well. We are all learning how to live peacefully alongside the people and events that shaped us, then eventually left us.

Every memoir is a novel, and every novel is also a memoir.

This book does not try to record “what happened.” That has already evaporated into time with the cicadas’ summer song. It records how events have refracted and settled in one person’s heart over the years. I cannot promise that every detail is perfectly accurate, only that the emotions are true.

Now, come with me as I push open that rusty iron gate. Beyond it lies the summer of 2021. The breeze in Xibei Town carries the heat of the bluestone paving and rushes toward us. You’ll have to decide for yourself how to understand the character Lin Jia, because she can be anyone to anyone.