Long summer vacation
July flowed slowly amid the chirping of cicadas, and Lin Weixi's summer vacation was divided into two distinct parts. During the day, she volunteered at the city library, organizing books and guiding readers; at night, she stared at the starry sky outside the window, stroking the camera-shaped keychain in her hand.
The children's reading area of the library became her favorite place. As the children gathered on the carpet, holding picture books, she told them the story of "The Little Prince." When she read the line "If you come at four o'clock in the afternoon, then at three o'clock I will begin to feel happy," her voice softened. A little girl with pigtails looked up and asked, "Sister, are you waiting for someone too?"
This question left her frozen in place. What was she waiting for? A university acceptance letter, the start of a new life, or a phone call that would never come?
In early August, she began sorting through her belongings from her three years of high school. Cardboard boxes held thick notebooks, each title page marked with a date. She noticed something interesting: the closer graduation got, the neater the handwriting became, as if to hold time back a little longer.
In a folder filled with old exam papers, she stumbled upon a crumpled piece of paper. On it was her signature, imitating Chen Wang's handwriting, with a crooked basketball drawing next to it. This discovery made her blush and her heart flutter. She hurriedly crumpled the paper into a ball, but then carefully flattened it and tucked it into her diary.
On the Ghost Festival, the family went to the river to release lanterns. She wrote "A Bright Future" on a lotus lantern and watched it drift away. Her mother gently asked, "Would you like to make a wish for your classmates?" She shook her head, but a familiar smile surfaced in her heart.
What she looked forward to most were the weekly class group videos. Classmates chatted about everything from college life to the daily grind, and she listened quietly, hoping to catch a glimpse of someone's news from their words. Once, Zhou Xu casually mentioned that Chen Wang was learning to drive, and she immediately wrote in her diary: "He should learn a manual transmission, because he loves a challenge."
In late August, university acceptance letters began arriving. As she'd hoped, she'd been accepted into the Journalism Department at University B, with her major in "Photography and Video Communication" printed next to her photo. At the family celebratory dinner, her father, for the first time, opened a bottle of red wine and said, "Wei Xi is going to be a great journalist."
She smiled and raised her glass, but the gate of another university loomed before her. University A and University B were 1,200 kilometers apart, a number she had checked countless times.
The last rain of summer vacation came suddenly. She hid under the eaves of a convenience store when she saw a familiar figure across the street. Chen Wang, holding a transparent umbrella, was looking down at his phone. Rain slid down the ribs, forming a hazy curtain around him.
When the light turned green, she instinctively tried to cross the street. A bus passed by, and the splash of water made her step back. When she looked up again, the figure had disappeared around the corner.
Maybe it was just an illusion, she consoled herself. Just like this summer, every similar back view would make her heart beat faster.
After returning home, she opened her dusty camera. In the album were photos of the graduation ceremony. She zoomed in on the photo and discovered a blue ink stain on the cuff of Chen Wang's graduation gown—the exact color of the bottle of ink she had given him.
This discovery kept her awake all night. At two in the morning, she turned on the radio, and the host was reading a letter from a listener: "...This summer, I hid my secret love in the chirping of cicadas. When the autumn wind blows, I'll say goodbye."
She quietly turned off the radio and wrote the last entry of her summer vacation in her diary:
"It turns out it wasn't the summer vacation that was long, but the feeling of waiting. I hoarded every little thing related to him, like a squirrel storing food for the winter. Perhaps in a new city, a new school, I'll slowly forget all this. But at least for now, I'm willing to remember it."
Outside the window, the first sycamore leaf quietly fell. Summer was coming to an end, but her secret love would continue to wander.
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