I posted a piece of music my boyfriend composed online, only for people to dig up that it was a song he wrote for his first love. In an instant, I became the target of everyone's mockery. "The song is beautiful, but what a pity it wasn't written for you." "He's remembered her for seven years? What about you? How many years will you make him remember you?" "I guarantee you, there is another woman living in his heart besides you." Everyone said I was acting like a clown, but I refused to break up. After all, the only reason I chased him for so long was because he had a pair of eyes— Eyes that were identical to someone else's. 01 While moving, I found a piece of sheet music in my boyfriend's drawer. I casually snapped a picture and posted it online, never expecting it to blow up. "Found this in my boyfriend's drawer, can any music experts tell me what piece this is?" Currently, the top comment in the section reads: "Ah, I've heard this song before." "It's the one the hottest guy in our college played for his girlfriend at the campus anniversary festival back in the day." Obviously, this "girlfriend" wouldn't be holding up the sheet music asking questions about it online. Instantly, the comment section flooded with all sorts of remarks. Some mocked me, some pitied me, and some felt indignant on my behalf. I was still scrolling through the endless comments when Ethan pushed the door open and walked in. 02 He wrapped his arms around me, kissed my chin, and asked what I was looking at. I pointed at the comment my eyes were fixed on. "After all these years, he still kept the sheet music. Your boyfriend must love his ex very, very much. Much more than he loves you." He stared at the screen intently for a long time, then raised his long, elegant fingers and pressed the button to turn off my screen. "Why did you post a piece of music I wrote online?" "Don't read this nonsense when you have nothing better to do." I looked up, staring at him unblinking. "Do you still love her, Ethan?" The man's long silence was my only answer. He had a mole near the corner of his eye. It sat there, looking just like a star spilled from the Milky Way. After a long while, he raised his hand and pinched my cheek. "What do you want for dinner? I'll go make it for you." I really wanted to tell him: Ethan, your subject changes are terrible. 03 I leaned against the kitchen doorframe, watching the man's busy back. Actually, there were some differences between him and that person. For example, he was a great cook. And, his personality wasn't actually that cold. But they were also very similar. Their mannerisms, their movements, everything was so alike. That was why I had persistently chased him for two years. I still remember the sixth time I cornered him on his way home from work, shoving a bright bouquet of daisies into his arms. I told him, "Professor Hayes, I still can't play that Chopin Nocturne." He sighed, gently pulling a petal off a daisy. "Then how do you expect me to teach you?" I leaned in close, my hands behind my back, my face almost touching his lips, and said straightforwardly: "I heard kissing can speed up brain function. Do you want to try it, Professor?" His ears turned completely red, but his eyes were bright, like the Milky Way. He actually leaned down and pressed a kiss to my lips. "Like this?" Back then, I didn't know how much I looked like his long-lost first love. Nor did I know that the scar on his wrist was carved because of her. 04 "Ethan, I'm just saying... if I and your ex-girlfriend fell into the water at the same time..." During dinner, I was idly chewing on my spoon, making trouble. "Who would you save first?" "Her." I didn't expect him to answer without hesitation. I blinked. "Why?" "Because you talk too much." As he said that, he placed a peeled shrimp into my bowl. I popped it into my mouth, but I couldn't taste anything. Even though I knew he was half-joking, mostly just teasing me, my heart still felt incredibly empty. I think I really was falling for Ethan. This wasn't good. They always say whoever catches feelings first loses. We both saw each other as replacements; it was better to just stick to playing the role. I finished my meal feeling gloomy. He, on the other hand, acted as if nothing had happened. That evening, he sat at his piano, preparing for his classes. Wearing gold-rimmed glasses, his long fingers danced across the keys. He looked indescribably handsome. Ethan taught piano at the conservatory. Tickets for his recitals started at hundreds of dollars, but he let me listen to him play casually at home, and I still complained it was hurting my ears. So, I quietly snuck up behind him, wrapped my arms around his waist, and caused trouble. "Professor Hayes, teach me too, okay?" Then, I didn't even know how I ended up pinned against the piano. His kisses trailed down my jawline. The curtains were drawn, letting a pool of moonlight spill across the floor. At some point, a heavy bass key was pressed, sending a deep resonance vibrating through the piano. I pushed against his chest. "Not here... your piano... is very expensive." He lowered his eyes to look at me, answered very seriously, and then rained down a flurry of dense, soft kisses. "It doesn't matter." Later, when I wrapped my arms around his neck and tilted my head back, I somehow caught sight of a dreamcatcher dangling precariously by the piano. He always kept it with him. It went without saying who had given it to him. In the soft drizzle of the night, I reached out with a hoarse voice, pulled down a white feather from it, and asked him: "This dreamcatcher is too old. Can we throw it away?" But even in such a quiet, intimate moment, he refused to give me a direct answer. After a long pause, he endured my gaze. "No." 05 The post I made online was still gaining traction. The next afternoon, I received a direct message. "Hey girl, I was in the same class as your boyfriend in college. I know some things about him and his ex-girlfriend. Do you want to hear them?" "To be honest, I feel pretty sorry for you." This kind of thing is like Pandora's Box. Even though I knew this wasn't going to be a pleasant experience, I couldn't suppress the overwhelming desire to know. So, that afternoon, I sat on a bench outside a convenience store and read the story of him and that girl, word by word. "I remember he and his girlfriend were pretty famous at our university back then." "He was the prodigy of the piano department, and she was the stunning beauty of the literature department. Plus, they apparently grew up together, childhood sweethearts." "During a campus anniversary event, he played this song on stage. He wrote it specifically for her, played it just for her." "It actually got pretty popular locally at the time. I heard if he published it, he could have made a lot of money, but he said he wrote it for her, and only she was allowed to listen to it." "My roommates and I were dying of jealousy back then. Until, right before graduation, the girl made a huge fuss about going abroad, I don't know why." "It was a massive fight. In the end, they broke up. Then I heard he practically gave up his life trying to get her to come back." "But she still left in the end, didn't she? Anyway, I just feel like your boyfriend probably loves his ex-girlfriend very, very much." "That kind of love, time can't wash it away, and the years can't take it from him. Think about it, going that far for her." "Girl, you shouldn't be kept in the dark." Reading the final word, I took a deep breath. I couldn't describe the feeling. My heart felt a bit numb, but I also felt like... yes, this was exactly the kind of thing someone like Ethan would do. He was always looking at another girl through my eyes. I knew that. After a pause, I still asked the person: "Do you have a picture of that girl?" "Ah, hold on. I think there's one from a spring trip. Let me look." About twenty minutes later, she sent over a slightly faded photo. The quality wasn't great, but you could still see that in the blurry image, the girl circled in red was beautiful. She had long hair, leaned against the shoulder of a young, green Ethan, and smiled radiantly. I gently brushed my finger across the screen. I looked up, staring at my own reflection in the convenience store window. No wonder. The shape of my brow and hers were at least seventy or eighty percent similar. 06 I don't know how I got home. Passing by a hair salon, I gestured to the stylist and had them chop my hair off right at my jawline. This felt like the first time in my life I had ever cut my hair short. Looking in the mirror, I felt like I didn't even look like myself anymore. And I also looked a little less like that girl. I didn't know how Ethan would react when he saw me. I sat at home, waiting patiently for him. But I waited until past midnight, only to receive a completely drunk man. Professor Hayes had a business dinner tonight, apparently. He walked through the door. The moment he saw me, he froze. I thought he would have some other reaction, but unfortunately, no. I stood there, and he collapsed against me, calling my nickname. "Lena..." His breath ghosted over my neck. The smell of alcohol mixed with the cold, crisp scent of cedar on his body. He held me, and eventually, we both tumbled onto the living room sofa. Lena. But wait. My name is Lana. The alcohol blurred his syllables, but the vowel shifted just a fraction. He wasn't saying Lana. He was saying Lena. I remembered asking this afternoon. That girl's name was Elena. His kisses fell on my neck. He must have been truly drunk. His fingers tangled in my hair as he called her name, over and over again. I like you. I love you. I miss you. Word by word. I knew that even though he was looking at me with eyes full of emotion, the words weren't meant for me. As I was held in his arms, I gripped the edge of his coat, tilted my head, and stared at the dim yellow light in the entryway. I told him: "Ethan, look closely. I'm not Elena." "I cut my hair short. Your Elena has long hair." He stared at me for a moment, then crushed his lips against mine. Just like that. He wouldn't even let me speak. 07 I don't know how long I was tossed around that night. I'm a light sleeper, and I woke up again in the early hours of the morning. I heard the sound of heavy raindrops violently smashing against the glass. I remembered the weather forecast said there would be a massive thunderstorm. I was locked in his embrace, a thick blanket pulled over me. I was so exhausted last night, I didn't even know how he carried me to bed. As I lay there listening to the rain with my eyes open, the doorbell downstairs suddenly rang. At first, I thought I misheard, but a few dozen seconds later, it rang again. I squinted, lacking the energy to get up. So I nudged the man sleeping beside me. "Ethan, someone's ringing the doorbell." He raised a hand, rubbed my head, and then pulled me back into his arms to sleep. He clearly wasn't fully awake. But the doorbell kept ringing. I kicked his shin. "Ethan. Go get the door." ... The difference between Ethan and that person was that Ethan didn't get angry when woken up. Woken up by my kicking, Ethan looked down at me with sleepy eyes, then got up and did as I asked. Sometimes he was... really quite obedient to me. Thinking about this, I curled up in the warm blankets, my head a mess, wondering who would be ringing the doorbell this early in the morning. But I waited for a long time, and the man didn't come back. I was worried something had happened to him. So I grabbed a random coat, threw it over my shoulders, and leaned against the staircase railing as I followed him down. "Ethan, who is it?" The next second, I froze. The heavy rain outside was still pouring down. Standing there was a girl with long hair, wearing a white dress, completely soaked to the bone. Sometimes it's just a strange intuition; the moment I saw her, I knew it was her. The Elena that Ethan both loved and hated, the one he could never forget. Right now, she was lifting a pale, pitiful face, looking up at him desperately. "Ethan, you won't hide from me anymore, will you?" "I won't leave this time. I really won't leave." "Please don't be with any other women anymore, okay...?" 08 I stared at that girl through the curtain of pouring rain. Her eyes were very clean. The way she looked at me was almost a pure, simple observation. So pure that she clearly didn't consider me a threat at all. Of course. Ethan had almost given his life for her. She held all the winning chips. I instinctively tightened my grip on the staircase railing. I raised my voice, trying my best to sound like I didn't care. "Looks like someone you know, Ethan. Aren't you going to invite her in to sit down?" I thought if I acted magnanimous enough, my heart wouldn't feel like it was being twisted into knots. But the uncontrollable tremor in my voice betrayed the chaos in my mind. As if suddenly awakened by my voice, Ethan slammed the door shut. I never expected him to be so ruthless as to literally shut his first love out in the rain. The heavy downpour continued. I walked over to his side, reaching out to open the door for him. "It's not right to leave her out there in the rain..." Then, the man gripped the back of my neck. His fingers, slightly damp from the rain, pressed me against the wooden door as he kissed me softly. I stared at the fine beads of water clinging to his eyelashes. "Be good, don't make a fuss." Ethan's voice was hoarse as he pressed into the crook of my neck. In his heavy breathing, I could see exactly how turbulent his emotions were. He didn't not care. He cared far too much. 09 Over the next few days, I constantly saw that girl's silhouette around Ethan. On his way to work, on his way home, on the path to his office. It was like a relentless pursuit, constantly clinging to him. "Ethan, please forgive me, okay?" "Ethan, how long are you going to keep living with that woman?" "Ethan, you don't love me anymore? I don't believe you." Actually, I should have broken up with Ethan amicably. I was originally just looking for the shadow of another person in him anyway. But I just couldn't do it. By the time I sadly realized I couldn't bear to let Ethan go, it was already too late. For instance, right now. I was carrying a bento box I spent all morning making, intending to bring it to Ethan. Only to see that white silhouette beside him. The girl rested her chin in her hands, watching the man eat slowly. She looked like she had finally gotten her way, every strand of her hair practically radiating sunshine. "Ethan, admit it, you still prefer my cooking, right?" "That woman doesn't even know how to cook, does she?" She chattered endlessly like a bird. The man silently swallowed his food, but didn't answer. Actually, silence was basically an admission. Ethan was always very gentle with me, but in front of that girl, he was ice-cold. But I knew that this only proved he cared. He cared that she left him. He cared that she abandoned him in this country. I don't remember who told me this, but sometimes hate surges far more violently than love. I tightened my grip on the lunchbox in my hands, unlocked my phone, and sent him a message. "Ethan, what are you doing?" He was always very prompt in replying to me. Even now, he looked down at his phone and typed a response. "Eating." "Are you eating alone?" The man stared down at his screen for a long time. I waited for a long time, watching him through the window. My heart started to beat erratically, betraying me. Then, a single word came back. "Yeah." ... You see, Professor Hayes, who never lied, had lied to me. Just because of that woman who constantly badgered him. Even if he treated her with cold eyes, he couldn't resist the subconscious urge to protect her.
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