He Didn't Say

In his sophomore year of high school, Shen Jingchen learned to smoke. Not a good cigarette, cheap and choking. He stood behind the carport and smoked, his back turned to everyone. What he didn't know was that every time he smoked, I was standing behind him. I never asked him when he learned it, why he learned it, and who he learned it from. Just like I never asked why he never came home, why he was getting thinner and thinner, why his eyes were sometimes red. There were so many things I didn't ask. Later he had the key to my house. Later he slept on my bed with his back against my chest. Later, after we graduated, that night by the river, he said, I have something to tell you. Then he said, forget it. What that sentence is, I don't know. I just put away the cigarette he hadn't finished smoking and put it under the pillow. One, and another. Many years. He went south. I stayed where I was. We talked through the screen, talking about the weather, work, and what we ate today. We won't talk about that night, the hug, or the cigarette under my pillow. Later he came back. He stood at the door of my house and said, I have something to tell you. I looked at him, waiting for so many years, and finally waited for this sentence. But he still didn't say anything. ------------------ ——My name is Jiang Huaiyuan, taken from "Melancholy and solitary sails sail all night to see off the moonlight clouds. There is no need for green eyebrows in front of you. Life is like a journey against the odds, and I am also a traveler." Those who cherish the distant future are those who want to travel far away. ——His name is Shen Jingchen, taken from "I am drunk and you are happy again, and we forget our memories together." Those who are in the dust of the mirror, their heart is like a bright mirror, but it has been covered with dust for a long time. Jiang Huaiyuan × Shen Jingchen ---------- Huaiyuan - People who want to travel far away are waiting for a return date all their lives. Mirror dust - the heart is like a bright mirror, but it has been covered with dust for too long, and it cannot be brushed away, nor does it dare to be brushed away. ------- Thinking of travelers from far away places, brushing the dust on the mirror. ------- This is a story about what I didn't ask for. About the carport when I was seventeen, about the riverside on my graduation day, about the two cigarettes under my pillow, and about the look he looked back at the ticket gate. Regarding us, from high school to many years later, there is always a distance between us. Concept: About two cowards, it took them eleven years to finally learn to speak.