The Light Gap
Chapter 5: Locked Memories
During her fourth psychotherapy session, Dr. Chen placed an empty wooden box in front of Lin Xiao and said, "Let's do a little exercise. Try to talk about the heaviest thing in your heart, as if putting it into this box."
Lin Xiao stared at the box for a long time, her fingertips unconsciously rubbing the folds of her pants. After a long silence, she spoke in a hoarse voice, "It's... my high school homeroom teacher, Ms. Zhou."
Back then, Lin Xiao was a top student and had always served as the class representative for Chinese language. In her second year of high school, she wrote a composition about her parents' divorce, filled with grievance and confusion. But Ms. Zhou read it aloud in front of the whole class and said, "Lin Xiao, don't always use family matters as an excuse. Your grades are dropping just because you're not working hard—stop using such emotional stuff to gain sympathy."
As soon as the words were out, whispers spread through the class. Lin Xiao clenched the hem of her clothes, tears welling up in her eyes but she dared not let them fall. From then on, she never wrote from her heart again, her grades gradually declined, and she even stopped looking up at her teachers in class.
"Later I found out that Ms. Zhou meant to motivate me, but I... just couldn't get past that hurdle," Lin Xiao said as tears finally rolled down her cheeks. "Since then, I've always been afraid that what I say or do will be laughed at, and slowly I stopped wanting to communicate with others..."
Dr. Chen handed her a tissue and said, "Those unpleasant experiences are like thorns stuck in your heart—they can't be pulled out easily. But we can try to see them clearly, and gradually let them stop hurting you."
After leaving the consulting room, Lin Xiao didn't go straight home. Instead, she went to her old high school. The old locust tree at the school gate was still there, just much sturdier than before. She stood there watching for a long time, and unexpectedly ran into Xiao Ai, a former classmate.
"Xiao Xiao? Is that really you!" Xiao Ai took her hand. "Ms. Zhou told us later that she regretted treating you that way so much. She even tried to find you, but you had already transferred schools..."
Chapter 6: The Wind of Reconciliation
Xiao Ai told Lin Xiao that Ms. Zhou had retired two years ago and now lived in a residential area on the outskirts of the city. Holding the address Xiao Ai gave her, Lin Xiao hesitated for three full days before finally summoning the courage to visit on a weekend morning.
The door was opened by a gray-haired old lady with a kind smile—it was Ms. Zhou. She stared at Lin Xiao for a few seconds, then suddenly took her hand, "Xiao Xiao? It's you, isn't it? All these years, I've been wanting to apologize to you..."
It turned out that Ms. Zhou had just gone through a marital crisis back then and was in a bad mood. When she read Lin Xiao's composition, she had vented her own emotions on her. Later, when she realized her mistake and wanted to apologize, she learned that Lin Xiao had transferred schools and couldn't even get her contact information. All these years, this matter had weighed heavily on her heart, becoming a source of guilt.
"I was wrong, teacher shouldn't have said those things to you, and certainly shouldn't have read your composition in front of the whole class," Ms. Zhou said as she took out a notebook from the drawer. "This is a letter of apology I wrote for you back then—I never got the chance to give it to you..."
Lin Xiao opened the notebook. It was filled with neat handwriting, including words of apology and wishes for her future. Looking at those familiar characters, she suddenly felt the tight string in her heart loosen a little—she realized that what had trapped her all these years was not just the grievance from that time, but also the obsession that "I'm not good enough."
After leaving Ms. Zhou's house, Lin Xiao called Su Yang, "I want to go see the farm. Is it time to harvest Grandma's vegetables?"
At the farm, Grandma was leading several volunteers to pick cucumbers. When she saw Lin Xiao, she smiled and handed her one freshly picked, "Try it—it's crisp!" Lin Xiao took a bite, and the sweet juice spread in her mouth. She looked up at the clear blue sky and suddenly remembered the sentence in Su Yang's notebook—It turns out that sunlight can really find its way into the heart.
On the way back, she passed the overpass and saw the old lady who sold balloons again. The old lady recognized her at once, "Young lady! I haven't seen you in ages! You look much better now—did something happy happen to you?"
Lin Xiao nodded with a smile and paid for a red balloon, "This time I want to choose it myself. Red looks like the sun—it's warm just looking at it!"
Tied to her bag, the balloon swayed gently with her steps, as if walking forward alongside her.