13: A Tear

“Yu Yue?”

It seemed like someone was calling Yu Yue’s name in a blur, and there was a hand holding onto his.

Yu Yue opened his eyes to find himself in a hospital room.

The person by his side was Dan Hang, his childhood friend.

Dan Hang looked anxious and relieved, saying, “Thank goodness you’re finally awake.”

Yu Yue felt dazed and couldn’t quite remember what had happened.

Dan Hang explained to Yu Yue that after leaving the barbecue restaurant, Yu Yue had driven towards the hospital. However, on the way, he suddenly felt dizzy and unwell. The next thing he knew, he had crashed the car into a tree.

Only then did Yu Yue recall that everything he had experienced, the memories that had come back to him, were all just dreams.

After breaking up with Xu Yuanzhe, he had gotten into the car in a daze, intending to drive to the hospital. However, his head had started spinning, and he had lost consciousness after the accident.

According to Dan Hang, Yu Yue had made a phone call to him just before he lost consciousness.

Yu Yue had no recollection of it.

At that time, Dan Hang was at work. When he answered Yu Yue’s call, he saw Yu Yue sitting in the car, blood running down his forehead, looking disoriented.

Frightened to death, Dan Hang asked for Yu Yue’s location before he passed out and then called an ambulance.

“Why did you call me?” Dan Hang sat by Yu Yue’s hospital bed and asked, “You should have called your parents first, in case something happened to you…”

Yu Yue lay on the hospital bed, staring at the bright ceiling light, his vision slightly blurred.

His voice was soft, “My mom is already in the hospital, and I didn’t want my dad to worry more about me.”

Dan Hang opened his mouth, as if he wanted to say something, but in the end, he just sighed deeply and didn’t say anything.

Yu Yue attempted to sit up slowly, but he was hit by a splitting headache. Dan Hang said, “Don’t get up; it’s hard to say if you have a concussion. You need to rest.”

Yu Yue’s voice was hoarse as he said, “My phone…”

Dan Hang reached into Yu Yue’s coat, retrieved his phone, checked it, and handed it to Yu Yue, saying, “The screen has a small crack, but it looks like it should be fine with some repairs.”

Yu Yue remained silent.

He didn’t care about the screen.

Yu Yue pressed the phone’s power button, and the lock screen wallpaper appeared, featuring a loving photo of him and Xu Yuanzhe. He couldn’t remember which special day it was taken on; maybe it was their anniversary of becoming a couple, or perhaps it was from their first date anniversary.

Yu Yue had always been bad at remembering these special days, but Xu Yuanzhe attached great importance to them, remembering each date clearly. In that photo, the two of them posed with hearts, and they had spent quite some time trying to capture the perfect shot, not getting annoyed but instead ending up laughing together.

Yu Yue lowered his gaze to his phone’s screen, staring at the clean, empty screen, devoid of any messages or missed calls. Xu Yuanzhe hadn’t called or messaged him. The screen was immaculate, displaying only the time and date, and the image of the two people.

Yu Yue swiped his phone, checking messages, opening WeChat, and glancing at the call history. Everything was empty.

Dan Hang asked, “What’s wrong? Are you looking for something?”

Yu Yue remained silent. He sat on the hospital bed, wearing a patient’s gown. The wound on his forehead throbbed slightly, and needles were still inserted into the back of his hand, making him look pitiful.

Seeing Yu Yue in this condition, Dan Hang couldn’t help but ask, “How about letting Xu Yuanzhe take care of you if you don’t want your parents to know?”

Yu Yue kept his eyes down, and his eyelashes quivered involuntarily. His voice was soft, “No one is here for me anymore. I broke up with Xu Yuanzhe.”

Dan Hang: “What?!”

Without waiting for Yu Yue to explain, Dan Hang incredulously said, “How could Xu Yuanzhe break up with you? It’s impossible… He really likes you, doesn’t he?”

Yu Yue’s voice was very soft, “I was the one who brought it up.”

He placed his phone on the bedside and let his chin rest on his knee. His voice became even softer, almost like a murmur, “But he was the one who initiated it too.”

Dan Hang was left in a daze.

The hospital room fell silent for a long time.

Yu Yue lowered his head and continued, “I actually knew early on that we weren’t compatible.”

But he had fallen into this trap for so long.

“When he first pursued me,” Yu Yue gazed at the hospital bedsheet, and it seemed his vision had blurred, but he continued, “I should have known that we weren’t right for each other.”

A long silence followed.

Yu Yue blinked.

A tear dropped onto the bed sheet.

He said, “But I still remember the first bouquet of flowers he gave me, the first time he got caught in the rain with me, our first New Year together, our first argument, the month’s worth of living expenses he spent on taking me out for steak, the two-hour bus rides every time he came to my school, and the nights he spent locked out of the dorm because he came back too late. Later, he worked tirelessly to save money for a car to make my life better and rented a small house near my school to be closer to me.”

“Do you know,” Yu Yue raised his hand to wipe his eyes, as if trying to smile but tears kept falling, “do you know that the light in our bathroom at home always went out, and I often found myself showering in the dark, unable to see anything? At first, I was really upset and often lost my temper with him. But later, I realized it was due to a circuit problem. No matter how many light bulbs we replaced, it would still happen. But he persisted in fixing it for a long time, and eventually, the light didn’t go out so easily.”

The hospital room was quiet.

Yu Yue kept his head down, his voice very low, “But why… back when he pursued me so passionately and loved me so much, why did he decide to let go so easily today?”