Three years after Pei Shiyue broke up, I still couldn't get rid of the habit of secretly seeing him.
Every year on my birthday, he would go alone to the tavern we used to go to, order two glasses of wine, and sit there until closing time. He used a small account to post on Moments, visible only to himself, and wrote some vague words. I saved the screenshots for three years and relied on them to survive every late night I missed him.
I thought he was missing me. I thought he couldn't let it go just like me.
In the fourth year, I mustered up the courage to push open the door and prepare to walk in front of him. Then I saw a girl sitting next to him. He held her hand, intertwined their fingers, and said to her with red eyes: "After your sister left, I came here every year. She likes the plum wine here best."
I froze in place, feeling cold all over.
That sister is my twin sister. The one he had been in love with since high school and died in a car accident when he was twenty years old was the real Shen Nian.
It turns out that the person he loved was never me.
Concept: Loving yourself is the beginning of a lifelong romance. Don't be anyone's shadow, nor be anyone's substitute