William listened to Chloe's words, his mind blank, with a constant ringing in his ears.
He knelt by her bed, gently taking her hand that was exposed outside the covers.
It was the height of summer, yet her hand was cold, cold. He held her small hand in his palm, but he couldn't warm it up.
"Little Teacher, happy birthday, happy eighteenth birthday."
Unfortunately, Ellie couldn't hear it, never to hear it again.
After William spoke these words, Chloe couldn't help but shed tears again.
She was only eighteen, and her life had abruptly ended, forever frozen at eighteen.
Stopped at the most beautiful age.
Chloe wiped the tears from her face haphazardly, took out the things from the drawer, and said to William, "These are the things she left for you."
William took the things handed to him by Chloe, his fingertips trembling.
It was a diary, a large box of candy, and a letter.
So the goodbye she said before the college entrance exam was already a farewell.
So her low blood sugar was not the real issue.
He should have realized it earlier, should have realized it.
"Ellie was a good girl. She was diagnosed with advanced gastric cancer near the end of her first year of high school. She knew from the start that she wouldn't live long, so she didn't want to hold you back and didn't accept your confession. Many times she wanted to tell you about her illness.
But with the college entrance exam at such a critical juncture, she knew that even a small matter could distract someone, so she chose to keep it from you. Even the last time she saw you before the exam, she was barely holding on. The doctor said she would live at most three or four more days, and I don't know how she managed to hold on until today.
My silly Ellie, until she left, was still considering others, but she never thought about herself."
She told William a lot, a lot.
"When you confessed to Ellie before, she told me that she, a dying person, had nothing to promise you with. Ellie was too good. I used to worry that she would be deceived by boys. It was the first time I saw Ellie like someone, but it ended before it began."
Chloe became more and more choked up as she spoke, until her sentences were fragmented and incoherent.
William looked at Ellie on the hospital bed.
Every chemotherapy session was torture, each time it was like a brush with death.
Each chemotherapy session reminded her that her time was running out.
How painful were her chemotherapy sessions? How did she force herself to accept the reality when she first learned about her illness?
William dared not think about it.
Her thinness was also due to her inability to eat.
No wonder she was sensitive to his stomachache from the beginning.
She bore so much, so much alone.
Why was she so silly?
Why didn't she tell him?
He stayed by the hospital bed for a long time, unwilling to leave, as if by not leaving, Ellie hadn't left either.
...
At Ellie's funeral, many people came.
Everyone from Class 17 came, and the young man in black stood out in the crowd, his black eyes showing no emotions.
Daniel pulled William's sleeve and said, "William, if you're sad, just cry it out."
"I'm fine."
Daniel thought William was too calm, calm in a way that was a bit scary. Not just William, even he couldn't accept the news when he first heard it.
Even now, he couldn't accept it.
"William, I beg you, don't be like this, if you're sad, just cry it out, okay?"
William didn't speak, just looking at Ellie in the photo.
She was smiling sweetly at the camera.
Very, very sweet.
Everyone at the funeral was crying.
Aria rarely talked to Sarah, but this time the two were crying in each other's arms.
Only William, as if he had no tear glands, was silent from beginning to end, never crying.
Not a single tear fell.
As soon as the funeral was over, Daniel noticed that William was gone. He searched the entire venue but couldn't find him.
He was very worried that William might have an accident at this time. They had already lost Ellie; they couldn't lose William too.
He called William, and a mechanical female voice came from the other end: "Sorry, the phone you dialed is turned off..."
Just as Daniel was about to call the police, he received a message from William.
[William]: I'm fine, don't look for me.
He and Mason immediately thought of that unfinished building, a place where the four of them used to hang out.
When he and Mason arrived, they saw William sitting alone on a broken wooden board in the unfinished building.
He just sat there quietly, not speaking, not moving, lifeless, with a gloomy feeling.
As if he could end himself at any moment.
"William."
Daniel called out to William, but he still didn't move.
He didn't know what to say. Perhaps at this moment, William should be left alone.
Daniel looked at him and felt like crying.
William had no idea how long he had been sitting there when he said, "Go back, I'll stay by myself."
Daniel was very worried about leaving him here alone, but Mason dragged him away.
Mason said, "Let William calm down by himself."
William sat alone until late at night.
Somewhere, someone set off fireworks.
A beam of light flew into the sky and then exploded, brilliant and dazzling.
Followed by countless fireworks.
William's instinctive reaction was to take out his phone and capture the moment for her.
He opened his phone, just about to click on the camera, when he suddenly realized, she was gone.
The messages he sent would never be seen by her again.
In a daze, he saw again the New Year when the four of them were here setting off fireworks together.
She wished him a happy New Year.
Tears slid down his cheeks, falling silently to the ground.
The young man's eyes finally reddened.
William bought a lot of fireworks and a large box of the same candy.
He set off fireworks by himself, watched them by himself.
He played those two voice messages over and over again in the dark night, listening to them many times.
She owed no one, it was the heavens that treated her unfairly.
The moon was bright and the stars were sparse, and there were many candy wrappers beside the young man.
Strawberry candy, very sweet, yet he felt no happiness.
"Little Teacher, you lied. I've eaten so much candy, why am I still not happy?"
He read the letter, and at the end, she said: Don't be sad, wait for me in the next life, okay?
"Liar, I won't wait for a liar."
He couldn't accept this reality.
He couldn't accept her departure.
If only he had done better in school when they first met, maybe she would have had the courage to tell him about her illness.
...
William locked himself in his room, seeing no one, and he hadn't eaten for several days.
The pain in his stomach made him sweat, and he pressed his hand on his stomach, the pain so intense that he was almost numb.
Just a stomachache was already very painful.
How did she endure it?
How did she get through each chemotherapy and episode of illness?
"I miss you, Little Teacher." The young man's voice was hoarse, with a hint of grievance in his tone, as if he had been abandoned.
Knowing full well that he would never get a response, he still couldn't help but send her messages every day.
He held the diary in his arms and carefully opened the first page.
She said: William, eat properly and be good.
"I won't be good, I won't eat, when will you come back to coax me?"
She no longer coaxes him.
She will never come back.
He never thought that goodbye would mean never seeing each other again.
They met in the height of summer, and they parted in the height of summer, his little rose forever hidden in that summer. (End of the story)