We Can’t Go Back 72

Chapter 72 [Extra]:

Monologue Before the Reunion (Song Shuci’s POV)

H University, early evening. The setting sun cast a deep red hue, falling upon the old red brick buildings, giving them a heavy, somber appearance.

The Charles River flowed meanderingly in the distance, occasionally a rowing boat would glide across, rippling the surface with white crests.

It should have been an ordinary autumn evening, before I thought of a certain someone.

His name is Jian Wu. He’s my neighbor, my younger brother, my ex-boyfriend.

The story about him probably begins when I was very young.

He’s the child of my parents’ best friends. Because of this relationship, our families always hoped we could become friends, so they would often send me to his house, or bring him to my room.

Childhood holidays were always accompanied by the sounds of mahjong from the adults. I would close my door and do my homework, and he would sit beside me, keeping me company.

He was a well-behaved child. While other kids were still running wild, he had already learned to be observant and quiet.

I didn’t like children, although I was also a child at the time.

I found them noisy, and their innocent, carefree faces made me jealous.

Because I couldn’t run and jump like them, couldn’t squander my time, couldn’t chatter about meaningless things, or play pointless games. I could only stay in my room, practicing the piano, calligraphy, math, and English.

My life was as boring as I was.

To my surprise, Jian Wu was actually willing to keep me company. Although he was also one of the noisy kids downstairs, when he was in my room, he was like a quiet doll.

He also looked like a doll, very cute, even more so when he smiled.

Out of some subtle intention, I suddenly said to him one day: “Let me buy you some snacks.”

Coming out of the small store, he smiled sweetly, his words even sweeter.

He called me Gege and praised me.

I discovered his reaction gave me immense satisfaction, far exceeding the joy of buying snacks and toys for myself.

I quickly became addicted to this feeling.

From initially resenting my parents’ strict demands on my grades, I started actively spending time and effort improving my grades, repeatedly using the rewards to make Jian Wu happy.

Soon, he became increasingly attached to me, coming home from school with me every day, waiting for me outside my classroom, always saying “Wait for me.”

I knew this friendship was bought with money, it wasn’t strong, nor was it sincere, but I was still addicted, unable to extricate myself.

I needed Jian Wu’s praise, his smile, to prove I was a useful person.

Not the trash my parents said couldn’t even solve simple problems.

They wouldn’t praise me like Jian Wu. When I ranked first in the grade, they would just say indifferently, “Keep it up.” Only Jian Wu would say “You’re so amazing.”

But humans are probably just cheap like that.

I still wanted my parents to say I was amazing.

When I was in ninth grade, I thought, this was my chance.

My parents had high hopes for me getting into the special program for gifted students, repeatedly saying that only a handful of people in City B had ever been accepted, and if I got in, I would be their greatest pride.

So I studied like crazy, I was determined to get in.

But right before the exam, I got sick.

The cold symptoms made it impossible for me to focus, my mind was foggy.

I can’t be like this, I thought.

So, after my parents went to bed, I secretly took more cold medicine, increasing the dosage.

I woke up in pain that night.

I had never felt so awful before.

I wanted to throw up, but I couldn’t. My nose was bleeding, and my head was throbbing.

As the ambulance took me away, I suddenly felt very tired.

From unconsciousness to waking up, my mind felt like it had been shattered and then reassembled.

I realized I no longer seemed to care about anyone’s approval.

My parents cried in front of me, saying they shouldn’t have been so demanding. Looking at their distraught faces, so different from their usual assertive demands, I should have felt sorry for them, but I couldn’t cry.

Later, Jian Wu also came.

I knew he would come, his parents would definitely bring him, but I didn’t want to see him.

While I was preparing for the special program exam, he had been playing happily with other people. He was an interesting person, with many friends. He played with me partly because he was a kind child, he was nice to everyone, and partly because I would buy him food and toys, I gave him whatever he wanted.

But I knew clearly that, to him, I wasn’t that important.

I knew I was a boring person.

No child would want to be friends with a boring person.

I decided that day that I wouldn’t torture myself for rewards anymore, so I also decided to quit my addiction to Jian Wu.

But he said, he didn’t want toys or snacks, he just wanted me to get better.

That year, I was fifteen, and because of one sentence, I realized I had fallen for someone.

A boy.

If this had happened before, it might have scared me, but lying in the hospital bed, realizing this, I felt calm.

I wasn’t worried about the pressure, the judgment from others, or my parents’ disappointment. I didn’t care about the former, and I no longer cared about the latter.

So I made up my mind, I had to be with him.

This thought was initially subtle. My first plan was to become his best friend.

I continued to buy him things and deliberately appeared in front of his friends, acting close to him. I told everyone we were brothers who grew up together, I repeatedly told Jian Wu, like brainwashing, that he was my best friend.

Sure enough, after a while, my efforts started to show results. All of Jian Wu’s friends thought we were very close, even Jian Wu himself, after my repeated confessions, agreed to let me be his best friend.

I knew he was a kind and soft-hearted person.

I knew he couldn’t say no.

When I declared to everyone that he was my best friend, he would be touched and feel obligated to reciprocate, or rather, to give me the same title.

After hearing him say “You’re my best friend,” I breathed a sigh of relief and went to No. 6 Middle School.

Jian Wu’s father taught at No. 6 Middle School. Although he always said he would never go to the school where his father taught, I knew he was just being rebellious and provoking his father. Based on my understanding of him, he would still go to No. 6 Middle School in the end.

But before that day arrived, I received the news of Jian Wu’s father’s passing.

That strong, gentle man, the man who would persuade me when my parents were too strict with me, the man who had lectured eloquently in the math competition class not long ago, the man who always said he treated me like his own son, only had less than six months left to live.

I couldn’t accept this.

Jian Wu couldn’t accept it even more.

He was only fourteen, how could he cope with losing his father?

During Uncle’s last days, my parents and I took turns taking care of him, making sure there was always someone at the hospital every night. The day Uncle passed away, it was Auntie Jian and I who were with him.

Because the cancer progressed too quickly, and it had already metastasized to his brain, Uncle was in a coma, there wasn’t even a final moment of clarity, no last words. He just suddenly stopped breathing, the monitor started alarming, the nurses rushed in, but Auntie Jian shook her head and said: “No need for resuscitation.” He stopped breathing, ending his suffering from terminal cancer in his coma.

She had discussed it with Uncle, if that moment came, there was no need for resuscitation, it would only prolong his suffering without dignity.

It was late at night. Auntie Jian told me not to call Jian Wu, to let him sleep well, since, as a junior, he would have to stay awake for the funeral rites and wouldn’t be able to sleep for the next few days.

After Auntie Jian and I dressed Uncle in his shroud and placed him in the coffin, I finally looked at my phone.

The old Samsung phone had died. I changed the battery, turned it on, and saw several missed calls from Jian Wu, all within a few minutes of Uncle’s passing. He said he had a nightmare, then probably because my phone was off, he didn’t call again.

I called him back, and he answered almost immediately. I told him to wash up, that my parents would come pick him up soon. Silence from the other end for a moment, followed by suppressed sobs.

The memory of that night was bleak and profound. Later, whenever I was stressed, I would dream of that day, the only things in my dream Uncle’s lifeless face and Jian Wu’s cries.

If before Uncle’s passing, we were just ordinary “best friends,” then after his passing, we truly became inseparable.

We witnessed the death of a loved one together, we hugged each other and cried all night, waking up to cry, exhausted from crying, then falling asleep, then wearing black armbands on our school uniforms.

He had been bothered by the fact that he wasn’t with his father when he passed away. I said Uncle chose to leave when I was there, probably because he didn’t want him to be sad, and also because he wanted me to take care of him.

So, when he was troubled by nightmares, I moved into his house.

In my memory, he was always bright, like rapeseed flowers in March, brighter than the spring sun.

But during that time, he was dim, his face pale.

I desperately wanted to make him happy, but I was a boring person, everything I said was dull, I couldn’t make him smile.

I tried to show him interesting and fun things, but he wasn’t interested, only when I spoke occasionally would he listen.

So I decided to improve my comedic skills.

I memorized many jokes, watched many comedy shows, listened to crosstalk. I forced myself to act funny in front of him, unlike my usual self. After several months of this, he finally smiled again.

At that moment, I saw the light.

Perhaps because of this, after the high school entrance exam, he told me he was coming to No. 6 Middle School.

He had asked me to wait for him during my high school entrance exam because of that “best friend” promise, but this time, I knew clearly he was coming for me.

After Uncle’s passing, Jian Wu refused to touch anything related to his father for a long time. Anything could trigger his memories and make him burst into tears.

He was initially determined not to go to No. 6 Middle School.

His father had taught at No. 6 Middle School for almost twenty years, his presence was everywhere.

I told him it was okay if he wanted to go to No. 4 Middle School, I could often visit him.

But he said he wanted to be with me.

Perhaps because we had experienced the loss of a loved one together, his attitude towards me also changed. He used to have many friends, and even with the title of “best friend,” I wasn’t much different from his other friends.

But now, I could clearly feel I was in a separate category.

He would mention me constantly, hold my arm when we walked home together every day. I bought him game cards and snacks, and he bought me pens and notebooks. He would even climb several floors to my classroom just to let me try a new snack, or, during off-campus activities, sneak into my class’s group, share his earphones with me, and walk with me.

His blatant favoritism and intimacy, for someone with ulterior motives like me, was a fatal catalyst.

My shallow affection quickly turned into love, desire growing within me.

I was no longer satisfied with the title of “best friend.”

I wanted to hold his hand, interlock our fingers, when he held my arm.

This desire reached its peak on a quiet night. He fell asleep, his arms around mine, his soft breaths against my neck. I turned my head and noticed the baby fat on his face was gone. It was a handsome, well-defined face, a youthful face, so beautiful that I couldn’t help but kiss him.

I swallowed, realizing that my feelings for him, with the development of puberty and the surge of hormones, had, on the basis of affection, crossed a certain teenage taboo and grown into desire.

Once this emotion took root, there was no turning back.

Dark thoughts started to grow in my mind.

If I could be attracted to him, others weren’t blind either.

As he entered high school, growing taller rapidly, his once doll-like face became increasingly handsome, and more and more people surrounded him, expressing their affection.

Frankly, I hated everyone around him. I couldn’t help but see them as rivals. I didn’t like seeing Jian Wu smile at them more brightly than he smiled at me. I was trapped in this comparison, unable to extricate myself. I knew these thoughts were dark and twisted, but I couldn’t suppress them.

These thoughts didn’t start in high school, they started when he was very young.

From the moment he first appeared in my room and smiled at me.

He was the only light in my otherwise dull life.

I thought he was my flower, but he bloomed for everyone.

I watched coldly as he received love letters one after another, listening to him say he couldn’t refuse them, watching him open and read them carefully, then write replies.

I hated his inability to say no. I said I could help him refuse if he couldn’t, and he lectured me seriously: “Even if I don’t like them, I should still respect their feelings and thank them.”

Then what about me?

I couldn’t help but think, if I told him I liked him, would he also thank me?

My heart was like a volcano about to erupt, exploding every time he received a love letter, burning me, and when he rejected them, I would cool down, returning to a precarious calmness.

But one day, after school, the time that should have belonged to us, walking home together, he gave to someone else.

He said he had an important appointment and told me to go first. I pretended to leave, then came back and saw him and a girl walking side by side on the playground, chatting and laughing, like a painting of a perfect couple. And I, standing in the shadows, was consumed by the volcano within me.

At that moment, my selfishness defeated my reason.

I no longer cared if pursuing him was leading him astray. At that moment, I only had one thought: I wanted his eyes to be on me only.

So I confessed to him.

I admit I’m a despicable person.

I knew his inability to say no, so I took advantage of his weakness and relentlessly pursued him. I knew that even if I clung to him like a leech, he wouldn’t forcefully tear me off and throw me away, but would try to reason with me, hoping I would see the light and leave on my own.

But how can you reason with a leech?

I was like a madman, trapped in my possessiveness, unable to hear his voice.

I continued my madness until the day I couldn’t control myself and kissed him, the instant camera shattering on the ground, the moment he panicked and rushed onto the bus. I felt like I had been slapped in the face, and I finally calmed down, realizing what I was doing.

When we were young, when he would linger outside the wedding dress shop, I knew he liked girls, he longed for marriage.

And I was trying to ruin his ordinary, happy life.

I loved him so much, how could I do this to him?

I came to my senses, and I gave up.

I went to his house, packed my things, and moved back to my own place.

The story should have ended there… it should have.

But at the New Year’s Eve concert that year, he mentioned my name in front of so many people and sang a song for me.

From the moment he asked me what we would do if our parents didn’t approve, I knew he had decided to compromise for me.

My heart wasn’t pure.

I knew his compromise wasn’t entirely out of affection for me.

He just didn’t want to lose me after experiencing the pain of losing his father.

But I still seized the opportunity.

As if my clarity, regret, and self-reflection from a few months ago were just a joke.

But so what?

After becoming his lover, I experienced unprecedented joy and satisfaction. Kissing him, holding his hand, embracing him, my heart and soul trembled, I couldn’t bring myself to let go.

How could I let go?

I kept hoping that as long as we were together long enough, and I was good enough to him, he would eventually fall in love with me.

He held my hand, kissed me, even slept with me. He came to my city for university, we were together every day, caring for each other, we faced our parents’ opposition together, we dreamed of our future together.

It was too beautiful, too dreamlike, making me think he loved me as much as I loved him.

But as it turned out, you can’t force something that’s not meant to be.

The day he became a “Gold Medal Tutor,” I finally realized I wasn’t in his future.

He kept saying he wanted to come to my university for graduate school, but he spent his time and energy on other things.

He didn’t really want to come.

He didn’t really want to be with me.

Only I was looking forward to the end of our long-distance relationship.

Before that, I could convince myself that he had his reasons for not saying he loved me, but from that day on, I couldn’t convince myself anymore.

We had been together for six years then.

Six years, so many shared moments, I believed he had feelings for me, but how much, I didn’t know.

But he had tried so hard to come to my city for university, he had said he wanted to chase his dreams with me.

Why not now?

I was at a low point in my academic career then, my research wasn’t progressing smoothly, I had the title of a PhD student at a prestigious university, but it was still far from materializing, far from our beautiful future.

Was it because of this? That I was no longer worthy of his love.

I was in so much pain.

But I thought, this was what I deserved, the bitter fruit I had to swallow.

After all, I knew from the beginning that he wasn’t with me because he loved me, wasn’t it?

Like a repeat of the broken instant camera, the old nightmare resurfaced, and I started thinking, was I holding him back?

But he said he wanted to try again.

He knew exactly how to break me.

Whenever it came to him, I would become someone without conviction, repeatedly changing my mind, contradicting myself.

But once the cracks of trust appeared, it was difficult to go back.

Possessiveness and the desire for control gradually consumed my reason, and we started arguing frequently.

Perhaps the pressure of life was too much, the financial difficulties, the academic stress, the repeated failures, the uncertain future, even I didn’t realize that, unconsciously, I had become my younger self again, only this time, my desire for approval wasn’t from my parents, but from Jian Wu.

I wanted his love, his recognition.

I attributed Jian Wu’s changes to my incompetence. I thought I had to be good enough to be worthy of his love.

I wanted to become someone worthy of his love again, so I had to devote more energy to my studies.

But research wasn’t something that guaranteed results with effort.

One night, after another failed experiment, I accompanied him to a classmate’s wedding. Amidst the clinking of wine glasses and the lively mingling of guests, I learned that his classmate had successfully started a business and just bought an apartment in City A. Hearing others talk about this, Jian Wu glanced at me.

I had never felt so like a failure as I did that night.

I selfishly held onto him for so long, but I hadn’t given him anything.

No money, no companionship.

But even so, I stubbornly didn’t want him to leave me and became even more possessive.

Like a child throwing a tantrum outside a glass display case, refusing to leave, knowing it was useless, still trying to get the things inside through unreasonable demands.

Utterly foolish.

So, later, we still broke up.

He didn’t even give me a chance to save it.

I frantically called him, but no one could tell me where he went.

I went home, only to find a note from Jian Wu.

The paper ring was casually tossed on the desk. Jian Wu, who had just agreed to my proposal, chose to abandon me at this moment.

After living for over twenty years, I truly understood the meaning of despair for the first time.

After coming back from the airport, I had a fight with Lu Lizhu.

After the fight, I returned to my workstation and saw the hard drive plugged into my computer.

It contained all my research results and data from these past few years, but at that moment, I wanted to smash it.

All my efforts, all my hard work, were for Jian Wu, for our future, but now that he was gone, what was the point of all this?

But just as I was about to do it, I thought of Jian Wu again.

He was such a principled person, he wouldn’t even let me use my connections to help him with his postgraduate entrance interview. If he knew I had destroyed the experimental results funded by the country, costing tens of thousands of yuan, would he think I was beyond redemption?

I put down the hard drive and wrote a withdrawal application.

My application wasn’t approved. Apparently, it would affect Lu Lizhu’s evaluation, so he and my advisor strongly opposed it. I didn’t care about that at the time. After submitting my application, I started searching for Jian Wu everywhere, until I finally came to my senses and realized I wouldn’t be able to find him like this.

Perhaps time truly is a healer.

I gradually emerged from my sadness and returned to the lab.

I started numbing myself with research, started living alone again.

I bought rings whenever I had money and wrote him letters on his birthday.

Although we had been separated for a long time, the date was still so familiar, more deeply ingrained in my mind than my own birthday.

Every year, on the night of April 1st, this date would haunt me.

I had cursed my brain for not being able to forget someone who made me sad, for not being able to forget someone who resolutely abandoned me.

But it didn’t answer.

In the end, I still bought the most beautiful colored paper from the small store and returned to my old apartment.

The cheap rented apartment had poor soundproofing. As I laid out my tools, the melodious sound of a guitar drifted in.

Coincidentally, Joe, my roommate, also loved playing the guitar, just like him.

Joe was Malaysian, but he loved Chinese culture, even listening to Chinese songs.

He was playing Rene Liu’s “Later.”

“Later” was the first guitar song Jian Wu learned.

He loved this song. During my senior year, when I was suffering from insomnia, he would play it for me every night. Unlike its slightly melancholic lyrics, the melody was soothing and warm, making one think of clouds in the sky, soft and gentle.

I would lie in bed and watch him, and he would smile at me. The bedside lamplight fell on his face, peaceful like a dream.

My tense nerves, from studying, would gradually relax, and I would always pull him into my arms.

I would mess up his hair, and he wouldn’t be angry. I would kiss his hair, and he would laugh because it tickled.

“Later,” later—

During my year in City A, my insomnia returned.

But this time, there was no beautiful guitar melody.

I took sleeping pills, and he had already fallen asleep. We lay back to back, each with our own thoughts.

That night at eighteen, both the listener and the player were so happy, who would have thought the lyrics would become a prophecy?

I knocked on Joe’s door, asking if he could stop playing for a while. I couldn’t bring myself to write Jian Wu a birthday card, a card that might never reach him, with this melody playing.

Joe, seeing me, cheerfully held his guitar, said “Hi,” and asked why I was home so early.

I suddenly couldn’t speak.

I remembered the days when we lived together. I would open the door, and he would be lying in bed, holding his guitar, the smile on his face when he saw me coming home early.

If Jian Wu was also somewhere, on some evening, wanting to play his guitar, he probably wouldn’t want to be interrupted either.

So I shook my head, pointed at his guitar, and praised: “It’s really good.”

I hoped that those who heard Jian Wu play would also praise him like this.

I returned to my room and started making the birthday card. Last year’s unused colored paper was still on the bookshelf, but I still bought new ones.

Jian Wu liked different cards every year, he said it made him look forward to it more.

I started with the design, then wrote the letter, blew on the still-wet ink, and opened the drawer beside the bookshelf.

Last year’s card was also there, lonely, yet well-preserved.

This was my second year in America, his third birthday since we broke up.

I didn’t know what the point of keeping these was, but I still couldn’t help but write, couldn’t help but wish him a happy birthday.

Would Jian Wu also think of me during my birthday month?

Or had he already become someone else’s lover?

I was still angry at him, angry that he wouldn’t give me a chance to explain, angry that he still chose to leave me in the end.

But I really… missed him so much.

As if God heard my prayers, a few months later, I suddenly received a call from City B.

I held the phone, my heart pounding, a warmth spreading through my body, my fingertips and toes ice-cold.

Not a single word was spoken, but my world changed.

After three years, I finally found my direction again.

That year, I was busy with my experiments, but I still tried to find him in City B whenever I had the chance.

The process was both sweet and painful, despairing yet full of hope. I comforted myself, like a gambler believing they could still win, that the phone call wasn’t an illusion.

Even though he avoided me to the point of not even seeing my parents.

I believed I would definitely find him.

This time, I had enough money to support myself, and the ability to find a high-paying job in any city he liked.

I kept encouraging myself like this, until one spring day, I walked into B Medical University.

As if guided by fate, I saw that thin glass panel.