Ten-year Love story: He asked me to break up with him, and I agreed immediately

01

In the 1990s, I was a normal high school student. I am a science class student and I am not good at studying. My head teacher asked Lee to sit beside me to help me with studying.

Lee was a tall and thin boy with slender limbs. When he hurried on, his body would sway slightly, like a praying mantis.

He didn’t talk much and seemed a little rigorous, but when I asked him questions, he would patiently explain them. His long, gnarled fingers were pointing through the question in the exercise book.

At recess, he would turn around and play chess with the person at the back table, and I would go to the bathroom and say, “I want to go out.” Calmly, he leaned his thin body forward, leaving just enough space for me to squeeze out. My waist would touch his back, and his body heat would pass through his white shirt, wide and warm.

At the end of my senior year in high school, I was depressed and heavy. Lee and I often stayed together for self-study at night. When I had problems, he could answer my questions and clarify my doubts. Sometimes, I take off my glasses to rest and feel Lee staring at me. I suddenly opened my eyes, he turned away quickly and pretended to read.

Lee’s side face lines such as knife cut general, straight nose, temples have heavy hair, like a dark shadow.

He knew I was looking at him, his long eyelashes quivering, flustered. I have a little satisfaction, such he only I can see.

02

I did well in the college entrance examination. We were admitted to two universities in Beijing.

Tian Li often visited me on weekends from the northwest to the east of Beijing. I didn’t wear glasses after class. I just saw a shade of the campus, until Lee came to my eyes. My face was brushed.

He accompanied me to the optometry, and my vision in my left eye was getting worse. Lee accompanied me to the nearby optician shop. At that time, I was short of money. When I walked out of the shop, I said sadly, maybe I should wait for a few months.

For a while, Lee came to see me on campus less and less. There were no cell phones, so I couldn’t contact him. I called his dormitory. His roommate said, he went out early and returned late recently, rarely in the dormitory. It is not clear what he is up to.

Three months later, he came to see me on campus and pulled me out of my dormitory. His white shirt was dirty, his skin was rough, and his bulging Adam’s Apple was covered with stubble.

He pulled out a suede case containing my favourite glasses. In order to save enough money in the shortest time, he took two jobs as a tutor and distributed advertisements for businesses on weekends.

He put them in my hand, and I said, “Are they expensive?” He said, “It’s worth, if you like it.” I said, of course I do.

He helps me to put on the glasses. Then, he also took glasses from his pocket and wore it. I am looking at his eyes, lips and eyelash, I got blushed.

03

I asked him, “You are not nearsighted, why do you want to wear glasses?” He said, this is a flat lens. That way, when we’re together, we’re the same.

I lowered my head and my heart was pounding. Together? Why did he say “together” to me? Did he read my mind? Lee saw that I did not speak and asked what happened. I screwed up my courage and asked him, what does it mean to be together?

“Being together means being together”, he smiled in a dull disguise. His teeth are particularly white against his tan. In that age when communication and the Internet were not developed, people’s minds were still imprisoned, and some secrets could only be buried deep in their hearts.

Love, even if not spoken, the heart also understands. We fell in love under the nose of our classmates.

Living expenses were low at that time, so we tried to meet at school and seldom went downtown. Eating in the canteen, sitting in the playground all afternoon, listening to the songs on the campus radio, going to the gym to play table tennis, and going to the bathroom together. Taking him to the bus station to catch the last train, holding hands and kissing on the dark, deserted side of the road.

04

In the summer of 2000, we graduated. Instead of breaking up right after graduation, as most campus couples do, we were lucky to stay in Beijing.

When Lee graduated, he worked in Zhongguancun as a computer engineer, but actually assembled computers. I work as an administrator in a foreign company, and our combined salary is over 2000 dollars, just enough to live in Beijing.

He was in Haidian and I was in Chaoyang. In order to save fare and time, we shared a room with several classmates near our workplace.

All fall, we wandered along Chang ‘an Avenue and Wangfujing Pedestrian Street. No parks, no shopping, the simplest food. On the bus, two people crowded a seat. He hugged me, together with looked out the window of the world.

Once in the Wangfujing Department store, I saw an imported men’s watch. I looked at it at the counter and thought I would give it to him when I saved enough money. Lee seemed to see through my mind: what do you think? Wait for the money, we buy two, you one, I one, it becomes a couple watches. I was amused by him.

05

When winter came, we rented in a village in the city. The landlord burned coal for heat, and the room was cold. On weekends, if you want to sleep in, dating becomes a test of love.

Once, after a day of wandering in the wind, I came back at night with a fever. I didn’t tell him. I kept going to work. That way, we can meet again next weekend. A week later, when he saw me get off the bus and knew I had a fever, he took me in his arms by the side of the road and wept bitterly.

Then, during the cold spell, we didn’t date again for a long time. Until one day, Lee sent a text message, asking me to go out on the weekend. I was hesitant. He said, don’t worry, I found a place, cosy and we don’t have to
spend too much money.

06

That day, he took my hand and ran straight to the subway. When we were alone, we’d sit with our hands clasped, and he’d whisper sweet nothings in my ear. When crowded, we secretly embrace in the crowd, like two sardines for warmth.

On Christmas Day, we were still about to meet on the subway. Lee gave me a small box from his pocket. I opened it. It is a beautiful MP3player. He spent 100 dollars at that time. His monthly salary was just 700 dollars, removing the cost of living, there was not too much left.

Seeing me in tears, he said quickly that he didn’t borrow money, but saved the money we had saved on the date.

I snuggled up to him, he put the earphones in my ears, pressed the switch, the music from slow to passionate, it was a new song. I asked him what song it was, and he said it was Yu Quan’s Subway to Spring: You and I are looking for the subway to spring…

In the rumble of the subway, winter disappeared without a trace. That is our poor but wonderful journey, that is the subway of love. What Tian li didn’t know was that I collected all the subway tickets that winter and put them in a box.

07

Would it be like a good fairy tale if the story ended there? The prince and the prince lived happily ever after. But what the fairy tale doesn’t tell you is what happens to love after that.

Ten years later, we both bought a house, had a car, had a successful career and were in the middle of the company. No more subway dates, even if we haven’t taken the subway for a long time.

Ten years later, love was lost to time and reality. We have become numb to feelings, no enthusiasm like fire, no ear to ear, unreasonable repeats replaced the original happiness.

Do not know starting from when, we sat face to face at the dinner table, just buried in eating, we all stuffed mouths, hard chewing, afraid of mouth empty down, do not know what to say.

At some time, we sat side by side on the sofa, flicking the remote control from channel to channel, each guessing the other’s mind. About to speak but stopped, but did not say anything, probably it was a good match.

I always doubted my own feeling when I looked at Lee’s cold back in the dead of night. My bestie asked me if Lee was having an affair? Maybe, but it doesn’t matter anymore. The important thing is, we don’t know how to change, and maybe, we don’t even want to change.

So many years together, not without tacit understanding, not no longer trust, but, later we are more and more lost, without the future of the affirmation of certainty, without the simple and firm love.

Ten years later, Lee and I finally separated. It seemed like when he asked, I said yes. There was no questioning, no fighting, a calm that he suspected.

08

Another ten years have passed. Lee and I still live in Beijing and occasionally call to say hello like old friends. We don’t hate each other. We agreed to always be honest about our relationship.

We had countless chances, but in the end, none of us would try anything. Courage is what we lack more and more.

If only we had swallowed our pride and said that I was in a bad mood, that I was scared, that everything was a misunderstanding, that I loved you the most. What will the result be? We didn’t take that step, are the people in front of confidence? Or have no confidence in love? Who knows?

The weather in Beijing has been unusually hot this summer. An early morning downpour drenched the city. I got up early to go to work, afraid of traffic jams on the road, so I went to the subway station.

I stood in the dense crowd, watching the subway pass by as if from the window to see twenty years ago, Lee and I snuggled in the corner, listening to music with an iPod in the underground of the city.