In the autumn of 2008, 13-year-old Ye Tong met Wei Song in Class 1 (2) of Siyuan Experimental Middle School.
That taciturn boy became her deskmate and the quietest concern in her youth.
In junior high school for three years, she watched him solve the most difficult math problems, listened to him play the piano in music class, and witnessed him running on the basketball court. She collected all the little bits and pieces about him - the slight frown in his brows when he wrote, the movement of turning his pen unconsciously when he was thinking, the clear eyes in his eyes when he occasionally looked out the window.
She thought this secret love was destined to be her one-man show.
In 2011, they were admitted to the County No. 1 Middle School together. He is in Class 1 (2) of Senior High School and she is in Class 1 (4) of Senior High School. Even though they were two floors apart, she could still spot him among the crowd.
In the second year of high school, they all chose science. In the spring of her senior year in high school, Wei Song stopped her under the sycamore tree behind the teaching building and said four words that she had never expected: "I like you."
First love comes unexpectedly.
They reviewed together, solved questions together, and walked through the long street lights together after evening self-study. She thought this would be forever - until May 2014, one month before the college entrance examination, Wei Song was hit by an out-of-control car on the way to school.
In the hospital, he opened his eyes, but he no longer recognized her.
"Who are you?" He asked so calmly and so strangely.
Wei Song's mother found Ye Tong, held her hand and cried: "Son, aunt, please don't see him again. The doctor said he needs a new environment..."
After the college entrance examination, Ye Tong was admitted to Tsinghua University. In the winter of her senior year, at the middle school class reunion, she met Wei Song again, who had returned from the United States.
He smiled and greeted everyone. When it was Ye Tong's turn, he nodded politely: "Long time no see."
He still didn't remember her. Standing next to him was a gentle girl who was introduced as his fiancée.
In the spring of 2022, Ye Tong saw Wei Song's wedding photos on the news. In the photo, he is smiling happily, and the bride's white veil is fluttering gently in the wind.
That night, she sorted through her old things and dug out her sketchbook from junior high school. It is filled with sycamore trees, snow, and the young man's quiet profile.
The last page reads: "2008-2022, fourteen years, I still love you."
The sycamore leaves outside the window rustled in the night wind, as if singing an elegy that no one could hear.
This is a story about secret love. It is the fourteen years of one person, the miss of two people, the "I love you" that was never spoken in youth, and finally turned into a sigh deep in the years.
Purpose: On the longevity of first love