"The number is still the same as before. It hasn't changed. I'm just afraid that when you want to contact me, you can't find it."
I couldn't help but twitch the corners of my lips.
Unexpectedly, I cut off all ties with my own hands and wished I could never see the person again.
Now he was showing such a deep and unrepentant attitude.
"No, I'm not interested in getting entangled with a married man."
I pedaled hard and the bicycle carried me along the long road covered with golden ginkgo leaves.
The wheels rustled over the fallen leaves.
I was once very familiar with this road.
When I was young, that was my favorite place to go for morning jogs and rides with my brother.
At that time, he always said that I was his follower, but he always slowed down and waited for me.
He liked to ruffle my hair and watch me dance.
He said that even when we were old—seventy or eighty—we would still walk this road together and enjoy the sun.
But now I was two years older than him.
I cycled all the way back to the old neighborhood where my brother was still alive.
Ever since my brother's accident, that place had been vacant.
Opening the rusty security door, a stale smell hit my face.
A group photo of four people hung in the living room, covered with dust.
Growing up, my brother and I depended on each other.
When I was sixteen, Oliver appeared in our lives.
He said my brother had saved him from drowning and given him a second chance at life. So he promised, “From now on, I’ll be your best brother.”
But he and I never got along. We clashed over the smallest things.
It wasn't until my senior year of high school trip that a mudslide occurred in the resort area.
The classmates were picked up by their parents one after another, but my brother was on a business trip out of reach.
The pouring silt instantly flooded the hotel.
I was pressed under the collapsed beams, silently waiting for death to come.
Oliver, however, ignored the current and dug upstream from dawn to dusk with his bare hands.
"Stacy, don't be afraid, I'm here!"
He carried me on his back all night.
It wasn't until I was taken to the hospital that I realized he had lost two shoes.
The feet were covered with crisscross wounds that turned white.
The nails on the ten fingers were broken and bloody.
“Hey, don’t cry. As long as you’re safe, it’s worth it even if I end up disabled!”
At that moment, he was my ultimate hero.
On New Year’s Eve, the three of us were setting off fireworks when a disheveled Kathryn Guzman showed up at our door.
She was the daughter of my brother’s teacher. Her family had gone bankrupt and she was hiding from the creditors chasing her.
My kind-hearted brother took everything on himself.
He quit the job he loved, went into business, drank until his stomach bled and brushed against death more than once.
In two years, he lost thirty pounds, paid off Kathryn’s debts and won her heart.
We toasted their future and swore we would always love each other and never be apart.
Just as I was lost in thought, I heard a key turning in the door.
The door opened and Kathryn and Oliver stood there suddenly.
I forgot that we each had a key to this place.
"I heard from Oliver that you are back, so we guessed that you must be here."
"Why didn't you tell us that you were coming back so we could pick you up, Stacy?"
She stepped forward to hold my hand, but I avoided her.
"How can anyone live here? Come back with us. The nanny is on leave and has a room available."
I lowered my eyes and saw that the person in my family’s home was in this city.
I just came back to see my brother and later I was going to meet my in-laws, whom I had never met before.
I held out my hand to them, "Keys!"
This house was bought by my brother and it had my name on it.
It had nothing to do with either of them.
Oliver glanced at the photo in my hand with complicated eyes.
