Seven Years of Us, One Year of Me Chapter 03

Seven Years of Us, One Year of Me Chapter 03

After discovering that photo, I started noticing more things.

It wasn’t that I was overthinking.

It was that I had refused to look before.

My contact name in his phone was Sloane Bennett.

Madeline Hayes was saved as Madeline.

No last name.

I stared at it for a long time, then put the phone back.

I didn’t ask him.

One Saturday, he said he had student council work.

I saw him and Madeline walking out of the movie theater at the mall.

She was holding popcorn. He was holding two cups of milk tea.

I stood on the escalator.

The crowd moved up. I moved down.

He didn’t see me.

I didn’t call out to him either.

That night, he messaged me from his dorm.

Done for today. I’ll spend time with you tomorrow.

I replied, Okay.

During fall break, he went home.

I went home too.

He posted a photo on social media.

It was the milk tea shop outside our high school.

The caption read: Old place.

I liked the post.

Then I saw Madeline’s post.

She had posted one too.

Same angle. Same milk tea shop.

Caption: Someone brought me to his old place.

I stared at the word “someone” for a long time.

Then I screenshotted her post.

I didn’t send it to him.

I saved it on my phone and created an album called “1.”

I didn’t know why I was saving it.

Maybe I was afraid I would forget.

One rainy day, I didn’t bring an umbrella, so I called him.

“Where are you? I forgot my umbrella.”

“In a meeting. Wait a bit.”

“How long?”

“Soon.”

The call ended.

I waited in the academic building until dark.

The rain got heavier and heavier.

Later, I saw a photo on Madeline’s social media.

The school field in the rain.

Caption: It feels so nice when someone brings you an umbrella.

The time was five in the afternoon.

That night, after he returned to his dorm, he messaged me.

The rain stopped. Did you go back?

I replied, I did.

On my birthday, he gave me a bracelet.

Madeline gave me one too.

They were exactly the same.

He said, “Madeline said this one was pretty. She helped me pick it.”

I took off the bracelet and put it in the very back of my drawer.

He didn’t know.

There were other things in that drawer.

The star necklace he gave me in senior year of high school.

The card he wrote me freshman year of college, which said, Happy first year.

Movie stubs. Milk tea receipts.

An ugly drawing he had made of me.

I put the new bracelet inside and closed the drawer.

When we were preparing for grad school applications, he studied with me in the library.

Madeline came looking for him and said there was something about outreach work.

He put down his pen and followed her without hesitation.

He didn’t cap his pen.

I capped it for him.

The textbook was open to the page where we had marked key points together.

I kept memorizing vocabulary.

By the time he came back, the library was about to close.

He sat down beside me and whispered, “Let’s go.”

I said okay.

I closed the book.

I had memorized three hundred words that day.

I remembered none of them.

He bought two cups of milk tea.

He handed one to me and held the other in his hand.

I took a sip.

Full sugar.

I only ever drank thirty percent sugar.

He had remembered wrong.

Madeline liked full sugar.

I put the milk tea down and didn’t drink it again.

He changed his profile picture.

It was a group photo of the student council department.

He and Madeline stood in the middle.

His old profile picture had been a side-profile photo I took of him.

After changing it, he didn’t tell me.

I opened our chat and wanted to say something.

I typed a few words, then deleted them.

Your profile picture looks nice.

Deleted.

You and Madeline are standing pretty close.

Deleted.

Do you remember what your old profile picture was?

Deleted.

In the end, I sent nothing.

When it was time to submit grad school applications, we had agreed to apply to Princeton together.

Later, he changed his choice and applied to a school in another city.

I heard it from someone else.

When I asked why, he said, “That program is better.”

I said nothing.

Later, I found out Madeline had been accepted early to a graduate program in that city.