Summer in Your Name - 56

After about half a lap, they reached a windy spot. The breeze lifted the hem of his shirt, and Sheng Xia noticed for the first time that he was wearing a light color tonight.  

The sleeves of his blue shirt were rolled up, revealing strong, slender forearms. 

In the dim night, that touch of light blue stood out as sharply as the dividing line on the track.

It turned out he looked good in light colors too.  

“Cold?” Zhang Shu asked.

Sheng Xia, bundled in her spring school uniform, zipper pulled tight, shook her head. “Not cold.”

Zhang Shu: “Hmm.”  

Sheng Xia: …

Never before had they shared such a back-and-forth, yet strangely awkward conversation. 

The wind wove through the night air. 

"You..." Zhang Shu's voice broke the silence, tinged with hesitation, low in pitch. “Are you applying to the University of Pennsylvania?”

Sheng Xia froze, answering instinctively, “How did you know?”

She stopped in her tracks, falling two steps behind him.

Zhang Shu paused too, turning back. The night was thick, yet strangely, her face remained vivid and clear to him.

But then, he thought, what was so strange about that? Even if she wasn’t standing right in front of him, with just the slightest thought of her, every smile and frown of hers would vividly imprint itself in his mind.

With a low, self-deprecating chuckle, he said, “How did I know? I’d like to ask why I didn’t hear it from you.” 

Sheng Xia stood stunned, murmuring, “Because… because I don’t want to go…”

She looked up at him, but the night was too dark to make out his expression, "I wanted to wait until I was sure I didn’t have to go before saying anything.”

"Wait until you're sure I didn’t have to go before saying anything? What’s the point of that? Only sharing good news, not the bad? Don’t you know hearing this from someone else hurts even more?”

His voice carried a restrained edge, but his words were sharp, like embroidery needles, pricking Sheng Xia’s heart with fine, dense stabs.

But she also had her own grievances.

She spoke up: “So you found out about this and just didn’t go to the bookstore? You didn’t even ask me, you just didn’t go? Do you know how much I…

That day, she had prepared so carefully, thought everything through, her heart full of anticipation…

Her voice was like a hook—entangling, piercing.  

He couldn’t bear to meet her eyes, those lakes brimming with water. 

Zhang Shu shifted his gaze uncomfortably, his voice heavy, "I went."

"Huh?" Sheng Xia looked at him in confusion.

"I went," he repeated, sighing softly, like he was defending himself or letting go of something. "I saw everything you did that day... I was across the street, watching you. I saw you arrive at the bookstore, leave, come back, sit down, put on a hair clip, order food, read all afternoon... I only left when you did."

Sheng Xia’s heart quivered. "Then why didn’t you come to me?"

“Because I was afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“I’d been drinking that day. I was afraid I couldn’t control myself, afraid I’d press you for answers, afraid you’d cry.”

Even now, he was afraid she’d cry.

So every word, every sentence, he weighed carefully, thinking thrice before speaking.

But he was on the verge of exploding. 

He wanted to grab her shoulders and demand: Why didn’t you tell me? Why did I have to hear this from Lu Youze? Why leave me so clueless? Why let me start hoping, only to leave me with this ending?

But he couldn't. 

It would scare her.

After speaking, Zhang Shu turned and walked ahead, as if he couldn’t bear to meet her eyes again.

Sheng Xia stood frozen. He went? Across a pane of glass, a street away, watching her every emotion unfold?

Her heart ached, and she wasn’t sure if it was for herself or for him.

She jogged a few steps to catch up. “Was it… Lu Youze who told you?” 

It was the only explanation. The dinner he’d mentioned must have been with the Lu family.

“Mm,” he replied curtly.

He slowed his pace, as if waiting for her. She trailed a step behind, her eyes dropping to the hem of his shirt fluttering in the wind.

The night was too quiet.

Their footsteps made no sound on the rubber track.

A gust passed, not cold, but enough to send a shiver through her.

"So, have you decided?" he broke the silence, his tone deceptively casual.

Sheng Xia’s thoughts were a tangled mess, unable to find a thread to follow. His sudden question caught her off guard. She only caught part of what he said, "What?"

He stopped again, turning to face her. Sheng Xia, caught unaware, nearly stumbled into his arms. She instinctively stepped back and looked up.

Zhang Shu’s gaze bore straight into her, so close, towering over her with an overwhelming presence. “Now, have you decided? Are you going or not?” 

She didn't know.

This question—she didn’t know the answer to it either.

She’d planned to play along while secretly resisting, but now it was clear she didn’t have the leverage to pull it off. She knew her foundation wasn’t strong. No matter how she burned the midnight oil or pushed herself to the brink, there was a ceiling to what she could achieve. Maintaining her current grades was already a struggle. How many more points could she realistically climb?

Without the independent enrollment path, she had no confidence.

Her future wasn't something to gamble with.

She knew that if she couldn’t get into Heqing University or Haiyan University, no other school would do.

Other top-tier universities in Heyan? To Wang Lianhua, it is better to stay in Nanli. To Sheng Mingfeng, it is better to go abroad.

Originally, Sheng Xia didn’t want to go abroad simply because she didn’t want to.

But now, she wasn’t so sure. Was her stubbornness, her insistence on staying, partly because of the person standing in front of her?

At this moment, when she found it hard to speak, she finally realized—yes, and maybe his weight in her heart was far greater than she’d ever admitted.

Her mind flashed back to the night they watched videos, their fingers interlaced. He’d asked, Want to go to Heyan together?

That single question had tethered her heart to Heyan. 

Because of him, she wanted to stay in this country. 

Because of him, she yearned for that city called Heyan.

But the reality was, she couldn’t reach it.

In the silence, Zhang Shu already knew her answer.

In truth, he’d known since he left the hotel that night.

Compared to the uncertainty that was the college entrance exam, who would choose to give up an Ivy League school?

With Sheng Xia’s qualifications, even if it wasn’t Penn, she could aim for universities ranked higher than Heqing or Haiyan.

This much was certain.

Even if she wanted to give up, he wouldn’t allow it.

"I..." She hesitated.

"You’re running out of time. If you keep going like this, you’ll end up with nothing," he cut in, saying what she couldn’t bring herself to voice.

His words carried double meanings.

Time was running out for her to fight for her goals. Time was running out for her to say goodbye.

She mumbled, "I know."

Precisely because she knew, when she learned today that independent admission was no longer an option, what collapsed in that moment wasn't just her hopes, but her entire world.

The world she’d built in her mind, one with him in it.

Zhang Shu tilted his head back, looking at the sky, letting out a sigh through his nose. He lowered his gaze and asked, “When did you start preparing?”

Sheng Xia chose her words carefully,"My family suggested it. I haven’t started preparing yet.”

"When did they suggest it?"

"After the second monthly exam."

Zhang Shu fell silent.

After the second monthly exam? That was early. Things were worse than he’d thought.  

And what had he been doing during that time? 

Worried she was stressed about her grades, he took her to the riverside to relax, spouting self-righteous advice about grit and hard work. He’d scoured Affiliated High School for past exam papers, squeezing every spare moment to go over problems with her.

What was he even doing?

Fooling himself with his own sentimentality?

 

Lu Youze was right. She could have better options. She deserved better options. They were in completely different worlds. 

What he thought she needed was only essential in his world, not hers. She didn’t need it at all.

Zhang Shu: "When are you going to start preparing?”

 

His voice was cold. 

They were only an arm’s length apart, yet it felt like a thousand miles of open plains stretched between them.

Sheng Xia's heart clenched tightly.

Zhang Shu: "I looked it up. You also need to take tests to study in the U.S. Shouldn't you be enrolled in some prep courses by now?"

The course schedule from the agency was still sitting in her phone. Sheng Xia kept her head down, answering softly, “Mm.”

The wind carried his low laugh, sharp and heavy, striking her right in the heart. 

She felt a dull ache. 

He shoved his hands in his pockets, kicking at nonexistent pebbles on the track, as if weighing his words, holding back, deliberating. Finally, he looked up, unable to contain it any longer. “So, what am I to you, Sheng Xia?”

What was he?

Someone who didn’t even have the right to know—what was he?

A beggar? A tagalong? A lapdog?  

Before she could respond, he gave a low, self-mocking laugh, "I guess that question was a bit presumptuous. I’m the one who confessed, not you. You never said anything, never promised anything. I have no right to ask. What am I? You said we're just classmates, aren't we?"

The dull ache in her chest was pierced through, a raw, sweeping pain engulfed Sheng Xia.

“It’s not like that…” she whispered, almost to herself.

Zhang Shu: "Even if I'm just a classmate to you, if you knew it was going to end like this so early on, why couldn’t you just reject me outright?”

Sheng Xia answered, "I tried. I gave it my all, I was fighting, I thought I could do it, but I failed.”

Rejected him? That night, who could have done that?

She couldn’t even resist the evening breeze that night.

"I was wrong. I was too careless. I'm sorry..." Her voice cracked, already laced with tears she hadn’t noticed spilling.

At the word ‘sorry’, a surge of nameless anger flared in Zhang Shu, but when he heard the tremble in her voice, he panicked. He lifted her face, finding it already streaked with tears.

Flustered, he used both hands to wipe them away.

As he wiped, he couldn’t help but coax, "It's not your fault. Don't cry. It’s me. It’s all my fault. Don’t cry, please don’t cry…”

The more he coaxed, the less she could hold back. Her tears poured like a broken dam, beyond her control.

“I really didn’t… I didn’t…” Sheng Xia sobbed, her voice breaking. “I tried so hard. I… I stayed up every night, writing draft after draft, but…” 

Her crying fragmented her words, barely coherent, "But, but I still failed.. I’m hurting too. How could you say… say such harsh things… Do you think I’m not hurting? Sob…”

Zhang Shu felt like his heart was being strangled by a thin cord, suffocating. “I said the wrong thing. Don’t cry, don’t cry. I didn’t mean to be harsh. If you keep crying, I… I won’t know what to do.”

Her tears kept coming, and wiping them with his hands was futile—her small face was nearly red from his efforts. 

He thought to himself, screw restraint, and pulled her into his arms. one hand steady on her shoulder, the other gently rubbing the back of her head. “It’s all my fault. Don’t cry, please don’t cry…”

The sudden closeness made their young bodies tremble, a strange sense of fulfillment washing over them.

The girl in his arms was soft as a foam toy, her shoulders quivering faintly from her sobs.

His chest was soaked, he felt as if a hole had been torn through it.

The warmth of her tears seared his heart, leaving it a scorched ruin.

  

Sheng Xia was nearly suffocating too; she couldn't tell when her emotions had spiraled out of control. Maybe it started the moment she learned independent enrollment was out of reach, the weight building, swelling until it overflowed.

Now, held in his embrace, she was at a loss, letting the tears run free.

His scent was like sun-baked earth, his warmth a blazing fire.

His hands were broad, warm, gentle.

What should I do? Oh, clouds and wind, tell her, how could she say goodbye to someone like him? 

Click. 

Light flooded the field, blinding and clear.

The power was back.

From the teaching buildings in the distance came a chorus of shouts—some joyful, some wistful, some just joining the chaos.

They cared about when the lights would come on, not whether the night was beautiful or the breeze was cool.

Only the two clinging to each other on the track knew that.

Sheng Xia slowly pushed away from Zhang Shu, stepping out of his embrace.

Seeing his face clearly now, she was momentarily dazed.

And Zhang Shu, looking into her tear-filled eyes, couldn’t move either.

They stood in silence, staring at each other. Zhang Shu’s hands lingered a moment, then let go, the softness of her fading from his grasp. His Adam’s apple bobbed unnaturally.

"We should go back,” she said softly, her crying stopped.

Zhang Shu remembered the purpose of tonight’s ‘talk’. He steadied himself and called her name: “Sheng Xia.”

She looked up.

"You should prepare well. Penn is a great school, don't miss this opportunity."

She stayed quiet, sensing he wasn’t finished.

Zhang Shu’s lips curved into a faint, strained smile, like he’d made up his mind about something. His eyes were dim, unfocused, his voice heavy. “I’m the one who should say sorry. I shouldn't have bothered you at a time like this. You should cut your losses now. Let's...end it here."

His voice caught, pausing briefly before adding, "I wish you a bright future.”

---

← Previous | Table of Contents | Next →

0