Shine on Me

Prologue

Later, I asked him, "What counts as love?"

He was driving at the time and replied, "Probably a little more than like."

Such a typical answer. I smiled, watching the red light across the street, then suddenly thought to ask him, "If a little more than like is love, then what is a little more than love?"

"A little more than love?" He turned his head to look at me, then gave a faint smile and said, "For me, it's you."

—Jiao Yang

The second semester of my senior year was the hardest period of time in college.

Endless job fairs, all kinds of interviews, tedious and headache-inducing thesis defenses, and farewell banquets that wouldn’t stop until someone collapsed… Everything could only be described as chaotic, and everyone was like a spinning top that couldn’t stop, whirling helplessly.

Until the moment of stillness arrived.

On the night of June 23rd, A Fen, my bunkmate, became the first in our dorm to leave Nanjing.

She was heading to Xiamen—a distant place I only knew by name.

I never imagined that one day, I would be running after a train in tears, watching it accelerate and roar away into the distance.

I had always been a happy, healthy child.

I had never truly understood farewells.

Until this moment.

From now on, we may never see each other again.

From now on, even if we do meet, it will only be for a brief reunion before we part once more.

Maybe by then, we won’t grieve as we do now—because we’ll no longer be as important to each other, or because we’ll have grown stronger.

But right now, as you leave, all I can do is walk along the platform and cry.

Goodbye, the last of our youth.

We can no longer live like children.

We’ve graduated.