A Love Like Hail

Chapter 12

CONGRATULATIONS SONG HUIQIAO, you and Lin Xiawei are the only ones out of our school this year to be admitted into Tsinghua University!"

With the time I spent trying to decipher what Lin Xiawei said that day, months have already passed, and admission results are shuffling out one by one into mailboxes. I did not expect that Tsinghua University would notify our school principal too about our admission status. I was so lost in thoughts these days I forgot to open the admission letter to Tsinghua University which came in my mailbox a week before, thus it was only from the principal I found out about my success.

My eyes widened, but the joy surging through my blood was not from getting into the school I worked so hard for. Instead, the light at the end of the tunnel I journeyed so desperately into was the heavenly radiance emitted from Lin Xiawei. Happiness flowed into every vein in my body at the thought that I was able to remain in the same school as her.

"Lin Xiawei also got in?" My shaky voice asked, and our principal grins ear to ear.

"Of course! She was just here a moment ago to hear my congratulations."

I had never felt so light in my life, my feet walking on air, as if one more good news might make me fly away. Before I have processed my own actions, I am running down the halls of our school like a wild child. People cast confused and judgmental looks my way, but for the first time I do not seem to mind them as I so consciously held them in the back of my head before. Nothing was logical. I did not know how long ago she had left and for which direction possibly, but something in me told me that I would find her. I would find her and let go of all our previous misunderstandings and my own pettiness. I wanted to hold her hand, to laugh together, to chat about both nothing and anything; I would talk about anything that could make her interested enough to allow me to stay by her side; I would do anything for her as long as I can be counted as someone she can keep.

My chest hurts as air plunges through my lungs, and my eyes stung with tears of pain from the evening dust of the school atmosphere beating aggressively on me from the wind brushing past my face due to my desperate search. My breath pants, my legs inflamed with soreness, and my hands that crumbled the paper certificate I received from the principal all begin to tire my body. But I did not mind any of this, because I needed to see her in that instant for some reason, to let my eyes land on her soft features, to see her lips pull and tug, to see her cry and smile only for me. As long as I could find her, everything would be alright again.

Ah, and there she is: In the empty classroom that we had once shared moments of trueness together. The evening casts a rosy golden light onto every crevice, where the dust in the air resembles magical fairy dust. A comforting warmness crept onto my skin and summer uniform, and my breathing calms as my eyes rest finally on her graceful figure. She sits in a chair as if her thoughts are occupied by a daydream I cannot learn, but her turning face makes my existence suddenly known to her.

I wanted to tell her everything about myself, but at the sight of her calm gaze I did not have the courage to say anything at all.

"Congrats, Song Huiqiao." She smiles finally, not the perfectly practiced one she saves for everyone. Instead it is a bit crooked, and her eyes slim into happy lines I have never seen before. There was no malice or devious intentions within her words and gestures, only pure content for my accomplishment.

My hands clasp nervously at the bottom of my shirt. "That's what I wanted to say. You always steal my words away it seems, Lin Xiawei."

She gently laughs. "Is that so? Maybe our minds are secretly connected then."

I quickly look down at the floor, while I feel her eyes search gently for my expression. Inevitable heat finds its way onto my cheeks. "You shouldn't joke about weird things like that."