Waiting for the Blue Skies to See the Sea

Chapter One"

That day, Emily came back and said to me, "Lucy, I'm dead!"

I glared at her and said, "Great, leave your new mp4 player to me." Saying this, my eyes had already rudely swept over her new mp4 player.

She then lunged at me, playfully hitting me a couple of times. Seeing my lack of reaction, she sat across from me, her hands propping up her cheeks, and dreamily said, "Lucy, this afternoon, I saw an incredibly handsome man!"

"So what..." I asked her, unimpressed by her lovesick appearance.

"I, want, to, chase, him..." She pronounced each word clearly and accurately, making me feel as if I'd been stung by a bee. I jumped up and exclaimed, "Damn it, if you dare leave Dave, I'll chop you up!"

Emily then put on a pleasing smile and said obediently, "I was just daydreaming, really, just a little careless daydreaming!" Then she quickly hopped onto the upper bunk across from me, picked up her phone, and started talking affectionately to her boyfriend Dave.

I had just heard her utter a sweet "Dave..." and immediately, without hesitation, stuffed earplugs into my ears.

I intentionally called that guy (or maybe more accurately, a boy?) "Dave." His real name is Edward Johnson. From his facial features to his build, to his aura... everything about him was very proper, incredibly proper, so proper that it dazzles and leads one's thoughts astray.

People familiar with him call him Big Ed!

It was my pettiness, my fragile heart, my malice, my skewed morals, my narrow-mindedness, that's why I stubbornly and persistently called him — Dave!

Because, actually, Edward Johnson was from my hometown, my middle school classmate, the only bright color in my uneventful teenage life, the subject of my countless sighs under the moonlight.

I remember at fourteen, on a dark and windy night, sneaking into school, breaking a window, and stealing his photo from the display case, showing him sprinting on the sports field. I hid it under my blanket, shining a flashlight on it, admiring it over and over. At fifteen, on my birthday, I sneaked out a bottle of champagne from my uncle's collection, filled my glass, pretending he was sitting opposite me, raised a toast to the moon with a smile, and then, as it was so fitting to the mood and the moonlight, I burst into tears. At sixteen, I secretly took out a piece of paper and wrote a line that I thought was full of poetic charm but was essentially nonsensical: "When you hear the sound of flowers blooming, please believe, it is a declaration of love from someone who loves you!" Then, the next day I hurried to school early in the morning, the first to arrive in the neighboring classroom, and secretly slipped the note into his drawer... God forgive my silly, brainless, and severely princess-syndrome-infected self, always imagining that upon seeing the note, he would turn around and slip a pair of shining glass slippers on my feet!

I never knew if he ever found that note. Of course, I once hoped desperately that he did, but later, as I grew up, I was very relieved that the answer was probably "no!"

And so, I carefully and deviously lurked in the shadows, "coveting" and "spying" on him, spying for as long as five years, until finally, the moment to break the stalemate came — I finally got my wish to attend the same university in the same city as him. We were going to college together in the North!

I still remember the day I finally dialed that familiar number on my phone, the bewildering, ashamed, yet faintly excited complex emotions; I remember that voice trembling in the air like a crooked musical stave —

"Hello..."

I finally mustered the courage to ask him, "Can you, maybe, accompany me, to... London?"

He laughed lightly on the other end of the phone, "Uh... I've already booked my flight, it's on the 6th! And... who are you?"