When she was seven years old, Xiao Yu squatted outside the door frame and watched her mother lock a red skirt into a drawer. The skirt was later given away, but she never wore it. It took her many years to understand that there is a limit to love. Her younger brother took most of it, and her uncle's family took the rest. When it was her turn, only the word "sensible" was left.
She learned to wait, for her mother to look back at her, for her father to have one less drink, and for her uncle to stop coming to borrow money. In the winter when she was fifteen years old, she suddenly understood - you can walk past things you can't wait for.
She was admitted to the County No. 1 Middle School and got on the car leaving the town. Her mother stood at the alley and did not chase her out, but later she discovered that her mother began to answer her phone calls, began to ask her "does she have enough money to spend", and began to say "no" when her uncle asked her to drop out of school and work. The woman who locked the drawers when she was seven years old is opening the doors one by one in her own way.
It was also in County No. 1 Middle School that she met Yan Qian. His back was straight and he didn't like to talk. The whole school knew about him - he was an illegitimate son who had no mother, a disowned father, and grew up surrounded by rumors. He is used to being pointed out, used to doing everything by himself. In the autumn when she was sixteen, he drew an auxiliary line on her draft paper, and she drew a flower on the back and gave it back to him. He slipped it into a book and kept it for many years.
Later, they went to Yanjing together. When the ginkgo leaves were turning yellow, she held his hand. In the evening when the apricot trees were ripe, she spoke out the words she had been holding back for nineteen years.
She didn't put on that red dress, but she wore it all spring
