In their first year of high school, Lin Zhixia was the most forgettable girl in class. She was hopeless at physics and so quiet she seemed like a shadow.
Shen Yufeng was the dazzling physics class representative: a top student, handsome, and loved by everyone.
He patiently explained problems to her and secretly slipped her his notes. She thought it was just a classmate being kind.
When they were separated by the subject-track divide, they spent two years in silence.
During an evening study session in their final year, he asked her, his ears red:
"They say I like you. Do you think that's possible?"
Her self-esteem at rock bottom, she blurted out, "How could that be possible?"
Graduation came, the crowd dispersed, and they were separated by a sea of people.
Only later, during a late-night dorm-room chat at university, did someone's words finally make her understand:
It wasn't a joke or teasing. It was the truest, most awkward love he had kept hidden for two whole years.
Only then did she understand:
They didn't need to meet again, and she didn't need to have him.
To have been loved so sincerely by you was the most perfect ending my youth could have had.
The evening breeze brushed past, and at last she understood the feelings that boy had left unspoken all those years ago.
