Walk

The waxing moon hung close to the Earth, appearing to be an opal goose egg in the sky. Chen An took the shortcut home, avoiding the blur of traffic on the main street. But, that also meant that the moonlight was her only guide; many of the street lights lining the sidewalk were broken, flickering dimly like the flashlight with which she read her mother's journal under the covers at night. Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata flowed through her headphones, a suitable ambience for her evening walk.

Of course, the shortest way to her home was also the shortest way to Li Jun Jie's, who lived in the building next door. Somehow, she caught up to him, the boy walking as slow as the caterpillars that wriggled up the asphalt.

As Chen An's footsteps approached him, Li Jun Jie stopped suddenly and bent down to tie his already neatly tied shoe. Ignoring him, Chen An sped angrily past, unintentionally making her steps a little heavier as she passed him by.

The rest of her walk was peaceful, the melancholic music pouring into her ears helping to extinguish her boiling irritation. She rounded the corner to the familiar apartment building, the fluorescent light of its lobby overflowing into the dark street.

Before entering, Chen An turned back and saw Li Jun Jie still standing behind her. He stood a distance away, to where the light could barely reach him. But, Chen An knew it was undoubtedly him: the angular outline of his school uniform, the art portfolio tucked under his arm that was wider than his own body, his straight sable hair shadowing his eyes from sight.

Not wanting to stare a moment longer, Chen An pushed open the glass door and disappeared inside.

The lights to the apartment were all shut off, signifying that no one was home. It was that time of the year again, when her grandmother would travel alone to Hangzhou to visit her mother's grave. It also meant that Chen An's birthday was coming up, a day so rarely celebrated that she had to mark it in her calendar to remember the date.

She exchanged her sneakers for house slippers and shuffled into the kitchen, where a sticky note lay next to two cellophane-wrapped bowls. It was from her grandmother, reminding her to eat well when she was away.

Chen An smiled at lopsided heart at the end of the note. It was drawn with noticeable hesitance, her grandmother's tragic attempt at being loving. Heating up the food she left, Chen An ate silently at the table. She knew her grandmother had made it by hand when she tasted the too-salty soup and too-soft rice, but she continued to shove bite after bite into her mouth until she scraped the bottom of the bowls. She sat there for a while after her meal, her mind blank though she desperately tried to think up something. Finally, she decided to clear up the dishes and made her way to her bedroom.

Under her pillow lay her mother's journal. The fabric cover began to fray away, but Chen An couldn't bear to cut the unwinding threads. She flipped to a random page, reading the poem her mother had written.

It was in these moments that Chen An could convince herself she knew her mother. She had read the journal more than a hundred times over, the only one that had survived her grandmother's wrathful burning. Perhaps, she had missed it, or perhaps, she could not bear to dispose of her daughter's last thoughts, but Chen An had found it in her mother's old book bag at the bottom of the small box of belongings in her grandmother's bedroom.

She did not need to read the pages to know the poems contained within, but her eyes scrambled to memorize every stroke of her mother's handwriting, even each mistake she had made, afraid the ink would one day fade.

Pressing the journal to her chest, she could feel her faint heartbeat through its cover. She would visit her mother one day and return her journal, but, for now, she couldn't help being selfish just a little longer.

Clicking on her desk lamp, she pulled out workbooks from her backpack and began methodically completing the exercises. This was the only way she could reach that day.

Chen An arrived to school early as usual. The classroom was empty, the rows of paired desks back to being perfectly aligned after the students' haphazard departure the day before. Chen An took her seat at the front of the room and stuck her earbuds in, the remainder of Moonlight Sonata meeting her ears.

Reminded of Li Jun Jie's outburst the night before, irritation quickly came back to her. Her mind flooded with all of the things she had wanted to shout back at him that night: that his speculations were wrong, that he should not look down at her kind deed, that he had no right to criticize her life. But, Chen An could only remember herself standing dumbly on the school steps without a word, and she pulled out her earbuds in frustration. Only Li Jun Jie could be capable of being so arrogant as to ruin a piece of classical music for her.

Chen An's gaze drifted to Li Jun Jie's desk in the pair beside hers, and she resisted the urge to kick at his chair out of spite. He always sat in the front row closest to the window. Luckily for Chen An, it meant that she was kept from getting distracted from staring mindlessly at the outside world, as she did not even want to look in his general direction.

Li Jun Jie always sat at the desk next to the aisle too, hoping to prevent someone from sitting beside him, though it unfortunately meant he was only an arms-length away from where Chen An's sat. The seat was empty, however, though he had always arrived before Chen An, no matter how early she left for school.

Giving up on listening to music, Chen An pulled out her workbooks and continued on the next set of exercises to prepare for the following day. But, no matter how hard she tried to focus on each lettered bubble, her attention always wandered to the empty seat beside her.

Chen An groaned, resting her forehead against the heels of her palms, trying to force her troubling thoughts away; of course, even Li Jun Jie's absence could find a way to annoy her.

The classroom door opened, and Chen An could not help but fix her gaze on the entrance expectantly, but it was Lu Xi Xi who walked in.

Straightening up in her chair, she greeted her friend. Lu Xi Xi's eyes immediately found Li Jun Jie's empty seat. She seemed to want to ask about him but, noticing Chen An's foul mood, decided to forget it.

The rest of the students filled in their seats as the opening bell rang, and Mr. Wen arrived and began to lecture the class on a new set of poems from his little book. But, Li Jun Jie's seat remained empty.

He had missed class only once before in the many years he sat beside Chen An when he broke his arm in P.E. class, but he had returned before the start of the next period.

But, nonetheless, Chen An decided that she should be happy about his absence, finally having no one to challenge her every word. Shaking off her jumbled thoughts, Chen An raised her hand to answer Mr. Wen's questions, and he called on her first every time.