-7- Sad birthday and...

Is it perhaps a pointless undertaking to hold on to a love that is led one-sidedly? Does Zhan still love me? Or is he already forgetting me? Suddenly I think I know exactly how Zhan must have felt when he fell in love with me and I didn't return those feelings.

It's been six months since Zhan left and four months since the last time we had contact. Why doesn't he get in touch?

Zhan's parents are also desperate because their son doesn't get in touch. They keep wondering why they let him go? Well, I guess they didn't count on Zhan not getting in touch. Or maybe they hoped he'd regret going and come home as soon as homesickness overcame him. But nothing like that happened. Zhan's been gone for six months and it doesn't look like he's ever coming back.

Today is my birthday and I hear our parents down in the kitchen, they are already waiting for me. I have little desire to go to them and pretend to be happy. I do not like to celebrate my birthday, I have lost all desire to do so. I still hope that Zhan will get in touch with me today in some way. Please don't let him forget my birthday.

Since it is Friday and I have to go to school, I have no choice but to get up. So I slowly crawl out of my bed, go to the bathroom and shower in peace. When I have finished getting dressed, I go into the kitchen. I put on my fake smile and ate breakfast with them. I was given money by both families, from which I should buy what I want.

Even if they overplay it, I can see how much they themselves struggle to keep their composure. Yesterday I heard them talking in the evening, wishing Zhan would at least appear for my birthday, but they themselves have little hope for it. They are fleeing above themselves, not even having a phone number.

On the way to school, Emily ran happily chattering after me. She gave me a voucher for the hottest fashion store in town. I'm sure she had to save a long time for it. I gratefully accepted it and put it in my backpack.

At school I also received small gifts from the other students in my class and Chuyue gave me a new diary with over 160 pages, which I can write in full. He also wished that one day I could show Zhan everything I wrote. I wish that too, very much.

After school, I didn't go straight home and visit my grandma. She wrote me on her new smartphone that she wanted to see me today. When I got to her place, she handed me a big envelope with money in it. I asked her if she would come to my little party my parents are giving tonight. But she said that she couldn't come because she was expecting visitors and didn't know exactly when her visit would come.

The old lady has a lot of friends and they come regularly to visit her. It is a pity that she does not come to my birthday party, but I do not mind her meeting her friends.

Just in time for dinner I was at home. I didn't feel like celebrating and certainly not blowing out my candles, after all Zhan wasn't around to help me with that anymore. I asked if anything had come in the mail, but it didn't. No card from Zhan.

Our parents brought out the cake, sang to me and I got a stomachache. I just wanted to run away. I wanted to lock myself in my room and not come out until my birthday was over. But I stayed in the living room, listening to the birthday stories and became sadder and sadder with each new story.

Fortunately my parents allowed me to drink alcohol and so I drank as fast as I could, two bottles of beer to make the evening more bearable for me. And although I strictly forbid myself to do so, I kept the house phone in view at all times, hoping it would ring and Zhan would call me.

Because our parents drank the hard stuff, it didn't take long until they were drunk enough to do just one thing. Get in their bed and sleep it off.

It was just 10:30 PM when I went to my room and laid down on my bed. I even took the house phone with me in case my long-awaited call would come after all. I lay on my side of the bed and changed my view between the picture of Zhan and the phone, as if I was using telepathy to get Zhan to call me. Unfortunately I am a failure in this area and this did not work out that way either.

So I tried to sleep. I turned off the light at 11:40 PM and closed my eyes, but I realized after a few minutes that maybe I should have drunk more beer to get tired of it, because I was wide awake.

Since I couldn't sleep and I felt like the ceiling was about to fall on my head, I grabbed the large blanket, Zhan's MP3 player and went downstairs. I went into the unlit yard and lay down under my blanket on the wooden platform. Then I turned on the MP3 player, which showed me that my birthday was over in two minutes, and listened to the song in continuous loop that Zhan and I heard together when I kissed him.

https://youtu.be/FFnajsxYTME

The memories of that night came back and hit me like a hammer blow. It hurt incredibly. I put my arm over my eyes and began to cry. What a shitty birthday.

A sea of tears and never ending flashes of memories of that night made me cry bitterly. How many times did I cry in the past six months? Probably more than in my whole life.

Suddenly I felt someone crawl under my blanket and then take one of my earphones out of my ears. I turned my head to one side and my vision, blurred by my tears, was clouded, yet I recognized the person next to me immediately. "I'm sorry, I'm late."

I widened my eyes, turned around and took him in my arms. "ZhanZhan." I said, crying as I pressed my head against his shoulder. Zhan stroked my head and my back.

"I've missed my plane and I'm late because of it. I'm sorry." He said to me.

"I thought you weren't coming. I thought you'd forgotten me. I thought you didn't care about me."

"I would never miss your birthday or forget you. And I could never not care about you."

I lifted my head and looked into his eyes, the moonlight shining so bright, I could see them clearly. The song started again. I closed my eyes and kissed Zhan. And just like that time, these fireworks of feelings erupted inside of me. And it got stronger when Zhan returned the kiss. Just for a brief moment, I released my lips from his, and just to tell him, "ZhanZhan, I love you. I love you more than anything, and I want to be with you. Not just as a best friend. I want to be your boyfriend."

Zhan smiled and nodded. "I love you too, Yibo." He said, clasping his arms tightly around me.

"Please come home to me, ZhanZhan."

"In one year. I'll come back when I graduate."

"But I miss you so much, I can't bear to live without you."

"I miss you too Yibo, I really miss you. But please understand that I want to graduate there."

"So don't you want to be my boyfriend?"

"I want to be your boyfriend and I promise I'll try to visit you more often. I' II give you my address and a phone number where you can reach me anytime. Could you live with that for another year?"

"I will live with it. For you, I will, I'll wait for you ZhanZhan. Just please don't forget me."

Zhan told me he's been in touch with my grandma a lot. She told him about my true feelings and how much I miss him. She bought him a plane ticket so he could visit me for my birthday, she even picked him up from the airport and dropped him off in front of the house. So this was the real birthday present my grandma gave me. A weekend with my ZhanZhan.

I didn't want to waste too much time talking and instead wanted to hold Zhan in my arms and kiss him. We only have two days together and who knows when he can come to visit next time.