In the blinding neon glare of the VIP lounge, the crystal chandelier scattered fractured beams of light across the room. The clinking of glasses, raucous laughter, and drinking games blurred together into a chaotic roar that made my eardrums throb. I leaned back in the deepest corner of the leather sofa, an unlit cigarette pinched between my fingers. The cold light caught the dial of my Patek Philippe watch. Dressed in an immaculate, bespoke Italian black suit without a single crease, I exuded an unapproachable distance that felt entirely out of place in this loud, suffocating environment. "Ethan! Ethan, man!" Someone with sharp eyes spotted me through the dense crowd and raised a glass, his voice booming over the blasting pop music. "The biggest nerd in our graduating class is now the CEO of a publicly traded tech empire! We have to toast to you!" The room erupted in laughter, and several others eagerly chimed in. "No kidding! Who would have thought? Back in the day, Ethan used to walk across three different quads just to catch a glimpse of Sarah at the dining hall. And what happened? She turned around and got together with Brad! Man, people clowned on him so hard back then!" "Hey, don't say that! It was a blessing in disguise! If he hadn’t been so crushed, would Ethan have buried his head in his books, snagged a full ride to grad school, moved out to Silicon Valley, and built his startup into what it is today?" The gossip buzzed in my ears. I let out a faint, cynical smirk but didn't say a word. I simply raised my glass of whiskey and took a slow sip. The harsh liquid burned down my throat, but it couldn't quite extinguish the old, familiar itch rising from the depths of my memory. Nobody here knew how that "nerd" had survived countless freezing nights, eating cheap ramen while cramming for exams. Nobody knew that when I was in grad school, I lived in an unheated basement apartment to save on rent, my hands covered in frostbite as I stayed up coding until dawn. Nobody knew that during the early days of my startup, when we were on the verge of bankruptcy, I stood on a rooftop all night in the freezing wind, clutching a business proposal that was soaked through with my own nervous sweat. I never told anyone about that pain. And the only thing that had kept me going—aside from sheer, stubborn ambition—was the memory of a girl in a white dress walking away from me on the elm-lined campus walkway. Sarah. For twenty years, that name had been a thorn buried deep in my heart. I had never pulled it out, but slowly, it had stopped hurting. Right at that moment, the heavy door to the VIP room was pushed open. The noise in the room died instantly, as if someone had hit the pause button. All eyes snapped toward the doorway. I looked up, too. Silhouetted against the hallway light stood a frail, exhausted figure. The woman wore a simple, unadorned linen dress, her hair pulled back into a messy bun that exposed her thin neck. She was so gaunt it looked like a strong gust of wind might blow her away. But that face, even weathered by time, was instantly recognizable. It was Sarah. Twenty years later, the radiant, confident girl from college was gone. Her brow was lined with profound exhaustion. Only her eyes still held a faint trace of the lively spirit I once knew. But right now, those eyes were brimming with anxiety, helplessness, and a heavy, unshakable guilt. Her gaze cut through the crowd and landed directly on me. It was as if, across two decades of time, she had perfectly located the boy who used to be madly in love with her. The room was eerily quiet; you could hear a pin drop. Someone muttered under their breath, "Sarah? Why is she here... Where's Brad?" Those words were like a needle, popping the dusty membrane over my memories. Scenes from the past flooded my mind without warning. I remembered the summer I was eighteen. The elm leaves blocked out the sky, and sunlight filtered through the gaps, landing on Sarah’s white dress, blindingly bright. I was clutching a three-page love letter, my palms sweating, my voice trembling: "Sarah, I like you. Will you... be my girlfriend?" I remembered Sarah biting her lip, her brows furrowed in apology, yet her tone undeniably firm: "Ethan, I'm sorry. I know you're a great guy, but... I like Brad." I remembered Brad walking up from behind her, a smug smirk on his face. He threw an arm around her shoulders and raised an eyebrow at me, his tone dripping with mockery: "Hey man, you can't force these things, right?" I remembered the wind howling that day, scattering the elm leaves across the ground, and blowing away all the joy of my youth. I remembered hiding in the darkest corner of the campus library, listening to the muffled sounds of Brad and Sarah laughing outside. I gripped my pen so hard it snapped in half. The ink splattered across my notebook in an ugly, black stain—just like how I felt inside. After that day, I never spoke a single word to Sarah again, and I never acknowledged Brad. I poured every ounce of my energy into my classes and tech competitions. Like a cornered, enraged beast, I ran toward one single goal: to become stronger. Strong enough that everyone would have to look up to me. "Ethan." Sarah’s voice, soft and carrying a barely detectable tremble, pulled me back to reality. She gripped the hem of her dress and walked toward me step by step, her white canvas shoes slightly dusted with dirt. When she reached my table, she stopped and lowered her head, not daring to meet my eyes. "Long time no see." I withdrew my gaze. I crushed the unlit cigarette between my fingers, letting the shredded tobacco fall into the ashtray. I looked up at her, my eyes as calm as a stagnant pool. "Can I help you?" No pleasantries. No small talk. Not even a ripple of emotion. It was as if the woman standing in front of me was just an irrelevant stranger. Sarah’s face paled. She bit her lower lip, her voice dropping even softer. "I... I've been looking for you for a long time. Can we... talk privately?" I raised an eyebrow, scanning the room. Some people were gloating, others were hungry for gossip, and in the corner, Brad was holding a beer, glaring at us with a dark, resentful expression. I stood up slowly, my long fingers adjusting the hem of my suit jacket. "Let's go." As I walked past Brad, he reached out to block me, his tone laced with a forced, aggressive familiarity. "Ethan. Long time no see. Have a drink before you go?" I didn't break my stride. I didn't even glance at him, leaving him with nothing but a cold shoulder. Brad's hand froze in mid-air, his face turning an ugly shade of red and white. An Apology Twenty Years Late In the emergency stairwell at the end of the hallway, only the dim, yellow backup lights were on. It stretched our shadows out thin and long against the concrete—like two parallel lines that could never intersect. The heavy steel door was shut tight, completely cutting off the noise from the lounge. The only sound was our slightly labored breathing. Sarah spoke first. Her voice choked with tears, her eyes rimmed with red. "Ethan. I'm sorry." Three words. Twenty years late. I leaned against the freezing concrete wall, my hands shoved into my suit pockets, just looking at her. I didn't say anything. Under the dim light, I could clearly see the fine wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and the bloodshot veins in her sclera. She looked incredibly haggard. She was practically a different person from the radiant, smiling girl in my memory. "Back then... I shouldn't have treated you like that." Tears fell without warning, splashing onto her plain dress and leaving dark, damp spots. "I know you spent a long time writing that love letter. I heard later that you dug through dozens of poetry books and stayed up for nights..." She wiped her face, her shoulders shaking. Her voice was thick with regret. "I was too young and stupid back then. I just thought Brad was exciting. He could take me to concerts, make me laugh, give me a thrill. I never realized my rejection would hurt you so deeply. And I never considered that getting together with Brad would turn you into the laughingstock of our entire class..." "Later, when I saw you burying yourself in the library every single day, when I saw how much weight you lost, how you were solving equations even during breaks... I felt incredibly guilty." Sarah sniffled, her words disjointed. "I wanted to apologize to you, but I was too scared. I was afraid you hated me, afraid you didn't want to see me..." I remained silent, just listening quietly. My gaze rested on her face, but it felt like I was looking right through her, seeing that young, broken boy hiding in his dorm room, secretly wiping away his tears. How pathetic was I back then? After she rejected me, the whole class gossiped about it. Some said I was out of my league, a toad trying to eat swan meat. Some said I deserved it—who told me to aim so high? Others pointed behind my back, calling me a spineless loser. Back then, my only thought was to get stronger. Strong enough that no one would ever dare laugh at me again. Strong enough to make Sarah regret it. Strong enough that... I would never have to shrink myself down into the dirt for anyone, ever again. "Brad and I broke up less than two years later," Sarah’s voice pulled me back. "During our junior year, he cheated on me with a sorority girl from another major. That was when I realized 'excitement' is the most unreliable thing in the world." She gave a bitter, sorrowful smile. "After the breakup, I was a mess for a long time. I used to see you in the library a lot. You always sat by the window. The sunlight would hit you, and you looked so focused reading your books. Back then, I kept thinking... if only..." "There are no 'if onlys'." I finally spoke. My voice was light, but it carried an undeniable, absolute certainty. Sarah froze, looking up at me with tear-blurred eyes. "Even if you had never existed, I still would have made it to where I am today," I said, looking her dead in the eye, pronouncing every word clearly. "Your rejection was, at best, a minor catalyst. The thing that actually pushed me forward was me. It was the nights I stayed up coding, the days I gritted my teeth and endured, the ambition in my bones." I paused, then added, "It didn't have much to do with you." Sarah's tears fell even harder. Her knuckles turned white as she gripped her dress. She had always assumed my years of relentless struggle were somewhat tied to her. She thought I still harbored some lingering affection for her deep down. But my words were a bucket of ice water, extinguishing the last, faint flicker of hope in her heart. "I know it's too late to say any of this now." Sarah took a deep breath, as if making a massive decision. She reached into her canvas tote bag, pulled out a crumpled piece of paper, and handed it to me. "Please. Just look at this." I looked down. It was a medical diagnosis from a hospital. The handwriting was a bit messy, but the words were unmistakable: Pancreatic Cancer. Terminal. My pupils constricted slightly. I had noticed her complexion was terrible, but I hadn't expected something this fatal. "I have cancer. Terminal." Sarah's voice was as light as a feather, as if a breeze could blow her away. "The doctors say I don't have much time left." She looked at me, the guilt in her eyes so dense it was suffocating. "For the last twenty years, I've regretted it every single day. I regretted my immaturity, I regretted humiliating you, I regretted... not apologizing to you sooner." "I'm not looking for you to beg for forgiveness. I just... I didn't want to leave this world carrying this guilt." Sarah's voice carried a hint of pleading. "Ethan, can you... forgive me?" Only her muffled sobbing echoed in the stairwell. I looked at the diagnosis, then at the tear-streaked woman standing in front of me. In my heart, there was no hatred. There was no resentment. There wasn't even a ripple of emotion. I thought about the boy twenty years ago, crying under his covers because he was rejected. I thought about the version of me in the library, turning all my humiliation into fuel. I thought about the arduous, brutal path I had walked to get to where I am today. Those memories had long been smoothed over by time. Did I hate her? Maybe, once upon a time. But now? Not anymore. Brad's Provocation and the Hidden Truth Before I could answer, the heavy steel door to the stairwell was violently thrown open. Brad stormed in. He gripped a beer bottle, his face terrifyingly dark. His eyes were filled with aggression as he glared daggers at Sarah and me. "Sarah! What the hell are you doing out here?!" Brad's voice was furious. He marched over and reached out to grab her arm. "Get back inside! What are you doing embarrassing yourself at a college reunion?!" Sarah violently dodged his hand, her brows knitting together tightly. "Brad, stop making a scene!" "I'm making a scene?" Brad acted like he had just heard the funniest joke in the world. He pointed at me, sneering. "I think you've lost your damn mind! It's been twenty years and you're still chasing after him? Did you forget how he used to be the biggest joke in our class?" "Enough!" Sarah's voice spiked, filled with exhaustion. "Brad, please, just stop talking." "Why shouldn't I talk?" Brad's gaze locked onto me, burning with jealousy and bitterness. "Ethan, you think you're hot shit now, huh? A big-shot CEO! But don't you ever forget, if it weren't for me and Sarah, you wouldn't be where you are today! You should be thanking us!" I frowned slightly. The thing I hated most was people attributing my success to some pathetic college heartbreak. My success was built step by step, with my own blood, sweat, and tears. It wasn't given to me by anyone, and it certainly wasn't fueled by some cheap romantic trauma. "Brad," my voice dropped a few degrees. "My success has absolutely nothing to do with you, or Sarah. You don't need to flatter yourself." "What the fuck did you just say?!" Brad was triggered. He stepped forward, raising his fist to swing at me. "You arrogant piece of shit! If I hadn't—" "I said enough, Brad!" Sarah suddenly screamed. She stepped in front of me, looking at Brad with pure disappointment. "When are you going to stop? Have you forgotten what actually happened back then?!" Brad froze mid-motion. His face instantly drained of color, a flash of panic crossing his eyes. I looked between the two of them, a hint of confusion surfacing in my mind. What actually happened? Was there a hidden truth to what went down twenty years ago? Sarah turned around to look at me, fresh tears welling in her eyes. She took a deep breath, as if resolving to finally unearth a secret she had buried for two decades. "Ethan, back then... I didn't get together with Brad just because I liked him." Her voice trembled. "During our junior year, my dad's business failed. He went completely bankrupt and owed a massive amount of debt. Aggressive creditors were showing up at our house every day, threatening me and my mom." My pupils shrank. I had known absolutely nothing about this. "I was losing my mind." Sarah choked on a sob. "Brad found out. He came to me and said he could help. His family was wealthy, and he offered to pay off a significant chunk of the debt. But... he had a condition." Sarah bit her lip, her voice dropping to a whisper. "His condition was that I had to be his girlfriend." My heart gave a sudden jolt. I looked at her, a flash of shock in my eyes. I had never imagined that there was such a dark, desperate reason behind her choosing Brad. "I was at a complete dead end." Tears fell like broken pearls from Sarah's eyes. "My dad fell terribly ill from the stress. My mom cried every single day. Brad was the only person who could save us. I didn't have a choice." "So, when you confessed to me... I had to reject you." She looked into my eyes, her own filled with immense guilt. "I couldn't drag you down with me. You were a brilliant student. You had a bright future ahead of you. I couldn't let my family's mess ruin your life." "And..." Sarah's voice grew even quieter. "Brad threatened me. He said if I didn't agree, he would hire people to come to the campus and broadcast my family's bankruptcy to the entire university. I didn't want everyone to look at me like a joke... and I especially didn't want you to look at me like a joke." Brad stood off to the side, his face ghostly pale, his lips trembling, but he couldn't utter a single word. I was stunned. I looked at her tear-stained face, and it felt like something had gently struck my heart. So that was the truth. For twenty years, I thought she had rejected me simply because she liked the excitement Brad offered. I thought I was just a pathetic, discarded loser. I never knew she was hiding so much pain and helplessness behind her choice. "Why didn't you tell me?" I asked, my voice carrying a barely noticeable huskiness. "Maybe I could have helped you." "You couldn't have helped." Sarah shook her head, tears blurring her vision. "You were just a broke college kid, same as me. How could you have helped? I didn't want to drag you into a life of being harassed by loan sharks." She gave a bitter smile. "I thought choosing Brad would solve my family's problems. But I never realized... he was just a predator. He paid off some of the debt, but it was only to possess me. It didn't take long before he got bored and cheated on me." "Eventually, my dad recovered. We slowly paid off the rest of the debt ourselves." Sarah looked at me, her eyes full of regret. "But I lost so much. I lost my dignity. And I lost... the right to love you." The stairwell fell into a dead silence. What We Miss is Just Our Youth The yellow emergency light cast a hazy, ambiguous glow over our faces, each harboring vastly different emotions. I looked at Sarah, a complex storm brewing in my chest. So, the "white rose" of my youth wasn't the carefree, radiant girl I had pictured in my head all these years. Behind her smile, she had hidden so much suffering and despair. Brad kept his head down and left the stairwell without another word. The heavy steel door slammed shut behind him with a dull thud, breaking the suffocating silence. Sarah's emotions slowly leveled out. She wiped her eyes and looked at me with a sense of relief. "I've held onto those words for twenty years. Now that I've finally said them, I feel so much better." I was quiet for a moment before asking, "How is your health right now?" She smiled, though it was tinged with bitterness. "Not great. The chemo is agonizing. My hair is all gone. I'm wearing a wig today." She reached up and gently touched her hair, a self-deprecating tone in her voice. "Does it look awful?" "No," I shook my head. Her eyes welled up again. She looked at me and asked softly, "So... do you forgive me?" I looked into her eyes. They were so full of hope. I stayed silent for a few seconds, then nodded gently. "I forgive you." That answer made Sarah let out a sigh of relief, yet it also brought an inexplicable, profound sense of loss to her heart. She felt like things shouldn't be this way. She had thought I would hate her, that I would interrogate her, or at least yell at her. But I didn't. My calmness was like a thick glass wall, permanently shutting her out of my world. "Actually..." Sarah hesitated, then spoke softly. "Over the years, I sometimes thought about our college days. I thought about how you used to save a seat for me in the library. How you brought me hot milk. How your eyes would sparkle like there were stars in them when you looked at me." I looked at her, not saying a word. I thought about those things too. I remembered the summer I was eighteen, the girl in the white dress under the elm trees. I remembered the dimples framing her smile. I remembered her gentle voice when she asked to borrow my notes. Those memories were like yellowed, vintage photographs, locked away in the deepest vault of my heart. "I always thought I couldn't forget you," Sarah said, her voice laced with confusion. "I always thought my guilt all these years was because I still loved you." I cut her off. My voice was light, but every word was crystal clear. "Sarah. You don't miss me." Sarah froze, looking up at me. "You miss the girl who dared to love and hate so fearlessly. You miss the carefree youth you used to have," I said, looking out the small window at the neon-lit city sky—a sky that looked exactly like the one above our old campus night market. "Just like me." I paused, then continued, "I used to think I couldn't forget you, either. I couldn't forget the look in your eyes when you rejected me. I couldn't forget seeing you walk away with Brad. I used to think I worked so hard just to make you regret it." "But later, I realized that the thing I couldn't let go of was never you." I turned back to look into her eyes, my gaze filled with total closure. "The thing I couldn't let go of was the boy I used to be. The insecure, sensitive boy who made his crush his entire universe." "It was that chaotic, heartbreaking, but incredibly pure youth." Sarah stared at me, dumbfounded. The tears spilled over once again. But this time, it wasn't out of guilt. It wasn't out of regret. It was out of absolute closure. It was true. She didn't miss Ethan Wright. She missed the version of herself that was young and willing to risk everything. She missed the days when my eyes would light up just by looking at her. That was the most beautiful testament to her youth. And what I missed wasn't her, either. I missed the reckless, passionate boy I used to be. I missed the years I spent fighting tooth and nail for a single goal. We didn't miss each other. We just missed the youth we could never get back. "Ethan." Sarah wiped away her tears and gave me a relieved smile. This smile stripped away all the guilt and exhaustion, finally showing a glimpse of the radiant girl from twenty years ago. "Thank you." Thank you for listening to me. Thank you for releasing me from twenty years of guilt. Thank you for helping me understand that the fading of a first love isn't a tragedy—it's just growing up. Looking at her smile, I smiled too. I reached out and gently patted her shoulder, like an old friend I hadn't seen in years. "Focus on your treatment. Medicine is very advanced now. There's always hope." Sarah nodded vigorously. Her eyes were red, but her smile was brilliant. "I will." We stood side by side in the hallway, watching the bustling traffic outside the window. Neither of us said another word. The obsessive grudges of our youth, the lingering resentments of the past—in this very moment, they vanished into thin air. The phantom of my youth had finally faded. But maybe, just maybe, this was the start of something new. The Curtain Falls and Final Farewell It was late into the night by the time the reunion ended. I had just seen the last of my classmates off and was about to get into my car when I saw Sarah standing under a streetlight. She was gripping her canvas bag, her silhouette looking exceptionally fragile in the yellow glow. "Did you need something else?" I walked over and asked. Sarah shook her head, then nodded. She pulled a small box tied with a red string from her bag and handed it to me. "This. I'm giving it back to you." I opened the box. Inside was a fountain pen—the expensive brand-name pen I had saved three months of allowance to buy. I had planned to give it to her when I confessed my feelings, but ended up leaving it behind in the library. "I found it back then, but I never had the courage to return it." Sarah smiled, fine lines of exhaustion showing around her eyes. "Giving it back to you now feels like checking off a final box on my list." I closed the box and slipped it into my suit pocket. "Thank you." "I should be the one saying thank you." Sarah looked at me, her eyes full of genuine sincerity. "Ethan, I hope everything in your life only gets better from here on out." "You too," I said. "Focus on your health. There's always hope."
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