Loving Audrey ✓

                                      To all the days that plagued the days of the Spring, those of May were no different. I walk down the aisle beside the small white building just behind the auditorium looking at my old school. The only difference is, I am now alone. I crush the already crushed pink leaves on my way, in hopes that my memories too would die.

Sometimes, when my heart aches a little too much, I wait for a while just to inhale the familiar scent in the air before started walking again. I can now speak half-fluent Chinese which is not my “native tongue.” I like the way they use this expression to express the language of your native land.

So thank you, my half native Chinese tongue.

I stack up against my books from my friend's shop and deliver them to the doorways of the houses, my way manicured through the same old aisle. Ironic, isn't it? The way everything comes back when running away from?

I have learnt to live on my own now. A little lonely, but quite happy. I own a little pharmacy just across the road, with a tiny white fair attached in its entrance, in remembrance of her.

Her. Her. Her. Her. All about her.

I saw her here, fourteen years ago. Wearing a white dress, brown long curls resting momentarily upon her temples, her delicate red lips widened in a smile as she twirled and danced with the street musicians. Pink petals of the cherry blossom struck on those curls as she smiled and twirled with the euphony and danced and danced and danced. Gracefully, dare I add.

Our class was just opposite to the large auditorium, the main paths, usually crowded by all the exchange students helplessly finding ways to return to their classes resulting in an absolute excuse for taking the aisle often. I started walking down that same aisle every day hoping maybe, just maybe, I could get another glance, another look and maybe another chance.

Oh, the word maybe.

The world as if stopped with her smile and resumed its rotation in her blink of an eye.

The green lawn underneath my feet and the vibrant light blue sky overhead looked so dusted in front of her brown hair and pink ajar lips. Some days I would just stand behind the small white building and spend some time admiring her from afar.

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The very first memory I have had of Shanghai was of the Sun dawned pink glow glimmering over the white buildings like some a coy smile blushed over, stood upright as if huge, bulky men looking down at my tiny figure. Small droplets of rain stung on the leaves showered with the wind as honey dripping off a hive.  Breeze struck new flower petals margined over the old buried ones as I started noticing everything with my regular visit to the aisle over and over again.

Unexpectedly (yet, very fortunately), I met her again at the traditional art classes of Shanghai. Just like the girl I first saw, she now had her dark brown hair opened,  huge round glasses at the tip of her nose, always had a beige sling bag by her side, and the brightest smile on her lips, wearing her heart around her neck, always ready to offer.

A few days ago, I came back to Shanghai from Los Angeles with my parents for my grandpa's burial. Since then, my father wanted me to join the Chinese Academy of Fine Arts. My dad, a man of word, always used to say that work defines people and not words, and as a kid of fourteen, I would just dismiss them with an eye-roll. But now that I pause and think to recall everything, a strange feeling fills the very bottom of my heart, a feeling I can't escape from.

As the days moved on, communication stood out as my greatest shortcoming.

The classes had been tormenting if I am being honest. Corporal punishment, however, never ceased from the view. The punishments where you had to stand in an empty corridor with two full buckets of water on your shoulders, hung with a thin stick, were more than just granted.