Cry Me A Sad River

Warning: violence.

08

Yi Yao sat on the toilet bowl. Her heart fell.

How many weeks had it been since it came? Three weeks? Or had it been almost a month?

Unspeakable terror caused her to clench her fists so tightly that her joints turned white.

Only when her mother’s rough knocking sounded on the door did she pull up her pants quickly before opening the door.

Expected, she heard her mother day, “Closed the door for so long, do you want to die inside!”

“It’d be better if I died.” Yi Yao replied in her heart.

The canteen was also full of people.

Qi Ming only found a seat for two after carrying his lunch box for a very long time, he gestured for Yi Yao to come over and sit down.

Yi Yao ate very slowly. The few times Qi Ming turned to look at her, she was holding her chopsticks unmoving, staring at her bowl as if flowers were about to sprout, Qi Ming had to knock his chopsticks on the edge of her lunchbox numerous times for her to pay attention, only then did she turn and smile slightly.

They ate until the canteen almost emptied out. Only then did Yi Yao and Qi Ming finish eating and leave.

The hand wash basin at the back of the canteen is empty of people.

The taps were lined horizontally. Occasionally, drips of water drop from them.

Qi Ming folded up his sleeves and placed the lunchbox under the tap, the moment he turned it on, he felt the cold seep into his bones, and he pulled his hand back, startled.

Yi Yao reached over and takes his lunchbox before turning on the water to clean it.

Qi Ming stared at her hand that was washing the lunchbox, she didn’t have the long nails girls liked to keep, neither did she have the soft and smooth skin from pampering like other girls. She had a cold sore on her pinky, a small open wound on it.

He looked at her quietly wiping his stainless steel lunchbox, as a rock just rolled into an unknown place in his heart, rolling towards an unknown corner. And then a soft sound can be heard through the darkness.

He couldn’t help but raise his hand, reaching over to the girl’s slightly lowered head.

“Are you just going to rub your hand that’s covered with pig oil on my hair?” Yi Yao turned towards him, a faint smile on her face.

“Your words are really……” Qi Ming frowned, slightly angry.

“Really what”, the girl turned, her expression hard, “Really like my mom?”

The sound of water splashing from the tap.

As if a slide gate had been opened, as long as n.o.body closed it, it’d be pouring out water constantly. Until everything became vacuum.

On the way back to the cla.s.sroom from the canteen was a quiet forest trail. The branches of the wutong trees were bare in winter.

The leaves were scattered across the ground. Yellow. Red. Slowly, they decay in the rainwater from the day before yesterday. The smell of trees permeated the air.

“Why do I feel that there’s the smell of mould.” Yi Yao said suddenly as she stepped on the leaves beneath her feet.

Qi Ming said nothing. He moved ahead by himself until he realized that there was no sound beside him, only then did he turn and see Yi Yao a few meters away from him.

“What’s wrong?” Qi Ming raised an eyebrow.

“Can you buy something for me in the afternoon.”

“Sure. What do you want?”

09

A bird flew overhead, leaving behind its sharp calls, harshly slicing a transparent wound across the air.  The hand that was covered in water was exposed in the wind, numb, almost losing feeling.

The two stood face to face. No one spoke.

The wind was about to blow away all of the clouds in the sky.

The sky of the winter season was always so sharply distant. The wind seemed to have been blowing through the whole of the season. Blowing until nothing was left aside from the ghastly white light that beat down solidly from the sky.

“Is it Li Zhe’s?”

“Who else.”

“You two……did it?”

“Did it.”

A conversation so simple that there was no chance for an alternative way of understanding. Due to its simplicity, the fact that there could be no misunderstandings, no wrongs, a pained feeling intensified in his chest. Like a wound that hadn’t been wrapped properly, every single action rubbed the gauze across the wound even more. Slowly, back and forth, a dull pain.

Qi Ming set a foot down on the ground to support the bicycle and him. In front of him was a red light. All the cars stopped.

Back when she first decided to be with Li Zhe, Qi Ming knew.

Yi Yao’s reason had been so simple that it was laughable. “He’d fight for her.” “Handsome.” “Waited for her at the school gate after school to send her home.”

At that time, Qi Ming had even muttered, “These are all things I can do too.” His youthful hot blood flowed through his chest. His brows were furrowed, his words biting.

“All mammals have one natural instinct, that is to draw on advantages and avoid the disadvantages, just like the microorganisms in high salt concentrations will move towards a water droplet with a lower concentration, n.o.body would fall in love with trouble”, the smile on Yi Yao’s face had been cold, “I am a big trouble.”

And after that, every time Qi Ming saw Li Zhe at the school gate, every time he saw Yi Yao receive fresh flowers, every time he saw Yi Yao skip cla.s.s to find Li Zhe, he’d feel as if someone pierced a large syringe into his body suddenly, and then draw out everything in it bit by bit.

The emptiness could never be filled.

Every time he stepped on the petal, QI Ming felt as if he was pumping air into his body, pumping constantly until he body becomes filled like a balloon, bloating, until near explosion.

He rode his bike for over an hour until the edge of the city. Only then did QI Ming feel that no one would recognize him and stopped for a pharmacy. He found the family planning counter and lowered his eyes before placing his finger on the gla.s.s counter top, saying, “I need a pregnancy test.”

The auntie behind the counter had a mixed expression on her face, the tilt of her lips was mocking. She took a box out and tossed it onto the gla.s.s top, pointing towards the cashier on the right, “Pay over there.”

After paying, QI Ming placed the box into his bag, when he pushed the door open, he heard the auntie’s pa.s.sive words, “Young girls now, tsk tsk, don’t even know what to do with themselves when they see a handsome boy.”

Qi Ming threw his backpack into the basket in front of his bicycle before raising his hand to wipe away the hot tears in his eyes.

He rode into the sunset of dusk.

The busy traffic covered his black uniform cladded figure quickly.

The light disappeared rapidly in the sky.

When he pushed the bicycle into the longtang, the sky had darkened completely. Light could be seen through windows of the houses in the longtang, weakening the sharp coldness of deep winter.

Qi Ming pushed his bicycle until he reached the window of Yi Yao’s kitchen, he saw Yi Yao coughing with a hand over her mouth from the smoke.

He raised his hand and pa.s.sed her a notebook, he said, here. What you wanted.

The hand holding the spatula paused, putting down the things in her hand, wiping the oil on her ap.r.o.n, Yi Yao reached out to receive the notebook.

Qi Ming let his hand go and pushed his bicycle towards his house wordlessly.

Yi Yao opened the notebook and retrieved the pregnancy test before hiding it into the pocket of her pants.

10

In every girl’s life, there is a boy like this. He is not love, he is also not her boyfriend.

Yet, in the s.p.a.ce closest to her, there is a place for him.

When she sees something pretty, she’d want to show it to him. If she hears a nice song, she couldn’t resist copying it from her MP3 for him. If she sees a pretty notebook, she’ll buy two, the other one for him even if he doesn’t like pink strawberries. When she wants to cry, the first person she’ll text is him. When she’s fighting with her boyfriend, he is the first person she’ll go to.

Even though she’s not sure when he’ll disappear from her life and become the prince of another girl, the other girl will also become his princess. But, during the time when he’s still in the s.p.a.ce closest to her, every girl will do all they can to greedily enjoy what he can bring to her until nothing is left.

Every girl becomes tender, loving and careful because of boys like this.

Although they know that the perfect them later on will have nothing to do with this boy.

Yet this emotion will always be more than the existence of love.

Qi Ming is an existence more than love.

Tears drop one by one, like a tap that someone had forgotten to turn off properly. The tears drop into the hot oil in the pot, splattering.

The scalding pain on her arm was raw.

Put it under the cold, running water continuously. Until her whole arm was numb.

11

Guanghua District Block 9 Room 205.

An address Yi Yao could recite even with her eyes closed.

Even the old security guard at the entrance of the district nodded to her.

Qi Ming stopped when they got to the foot of the block, he lifted his head and told Yi Yao that he shouldn’t go up, that he’d wait for her below.

Yi Yao nodded and said nothing more before entering the stairwell.

Qi Ming watched as Yi Yao disappeared around a corner. An unsettling feeling rested in his heart.

He stood below the block, the sunset disappeared quickly.

Dusk arrived.

In a few seconds, only the outlines of the buildings could be seen. Grey. Different coloured lights started turning on. The ones in the kitchen were yellow. The ones in the living room were white. Bedrooms were purple. A variety of lights appeared in the colour of the night in the district like a school of fish in the deep ocean.

The lights on the second floor did not turn on.

Heartbeat suddenly increased, a sense of panic he couldn’t suppress propelled Qi Ming up the stairs.

Turned into the stairwell. Voices drifted over from the end of the corridor. Echoing.

“How can you get pregnant?”

“Who is this woman?”

“Don’t bother about who is she, she doesn’t matter, I’m asking you, now that you’re pregnant what do you plan to do?”

“Who is this woman?”

“Are you f.u.c.king mad? Why don’t you know what’s important Are you really pregnant or not?”

“……I really am. It’s yours.”

“f.u.c.k, when I saw that you didn’t push me away, I thought you were an expert, in the end you weren’t on birth control?”

“I……”

“Just say what you’re planning to do.”

Li Zhe leaned shirtless against the door, Yi Yao stood before him, he couldn’t see her expression, only her back view.

Li Zhe only saw a blur of shadows before a fist crashed into his face, with a crash, he fell into the room, the table knocked to the side.

The woman in the room started to scream, in a moment of anger, she rushed into the room and grabbed the woman’s hair before smashing it against the tea table, the gla.s.s shattered. That woman was still screaming, Yi Yao tears the computer keyboard away, “What the f.u.c.k are you screaming about! f.u.c.k!” before throwing it with force onto the woman.

12

The street light jabbed a hole in the darkness. A small area was illuminated.

When you move forth a few meters, you’d be in the darkness again until you meet the next street light. Occasionally a leave of two flew by across the light before being blown into the infinite darkness again by the wind.

Yi Yao stopped suddenly before saying; I am going to abort the child.

Qi Ming turned to look at her she gazes up at him, saying, but I have no money. I have no money to abort it. I have no money to give birth to it.

The strong wind suddenly blew from the darkness, as if coiling away all the warmth in an instant.

The coldness was like that of an ice age.