Chapter 1

I had a crush on Mandy Sawyer for three years.

I had thought it would be my secret pantomime forever. I had even planned to silently wave goodbye to her back on the day of our high school graduation.

However, when I saw her weeping silently under her desk over the sudden drop in her usually stellar results…

I watched her trembling shoulders and knew that I could no longer pretend to be a stranger.

Chapter 1

Class had long since ended. Mandy and I were the only ones left in the class.

The ones who were supposed to clean up today were long gone, and the desks were still a mess. Mandy sat at her table, her head buried in her arms.

The math test we had received back today lay on the table in front of her, the red crosses on it large and striking. She did not weep loudly, but I could hear her hitched breathing in the silence of the room.

I stood at the back door of the classroom, my right hand sweating as I clung tightly to a blue notebook.

I had stayed up until three in the morning last night to finish this. I filled it with all the formulas, common questions, and her recent mistakes, including everything I could think of. I had even faked my handwriting so it did not look like mine.

I stood there, took a deep breath, and then walked up to her.

She raised her head in a panic when she heard my footsteps, rubbing her tears away with her sleeve. Her lashes were still laced with tears, and her nose was red.

She was clearly surprised to see me. Her hand stopped in mid-air, halfway through wiping her tears. She then sniffled, her voice thick and nasally. “Zach? Why are you still here? Don’t you have your part-time job today?”

My mind went black when she stared at me with those red-rimmed eyes. I quickly turned my head aside and pretended to look at the blackboard, slamming the blue notebook onto her desk.

I was so nervous that my voice came out tense and cold. “The notebook got mixed up. This one’s for you.”

Mandy was utterly perplexed. She stared at the notebook, devoid of even a name on its cover, and looked at me in confusion.

“What do you mean, mixed up? This isn’t the standardized notebook we all got… And it’s completely blank. How could it be mixed up?”

“Whatever. I found it in my bag, and I’m giving it to you. If you don’t want it, just toss it. Don’t pester me about it.”

After snapping at her for some reason, I ran away from the room like my pants were on fire, determined not to give her any time to decline or probe me further.

My jacket flapped in the wind as I practically flew down the stairs. My heart threatened to leap out of my throat.

“Hey, Zach! Wait, whose is this….?”

Mandy’s voice echoed through the hall, but I did not dare to turn back, rushing down three flights of stairs in one go. I only dared to touch my burning face after I turned the corner on the first floor, catching my breath against a heavy wooden door.

My heart pounded in my chest. I could not help but smash my fist into the wall, cursing myself. “Zach Rimmer, you coward! Handing over a notebook shouldn’t feel like pulling off a robbery. What are you so afraid of?”

Chapter 2

The next morning, the class was filled with the sound of students scribbling notes and eating breakfast.

The moment I walked into the room with my backpack, my best friend and deskmate Kevin Lee jumped up like a cat that had smelled a rat. He threw his arm around my neck and leaned most of his body weight on me.

“Zachie, buddy! Be honest, have you been up to some secret mischief behind everyone’s backs?” Kevin kept his voice low, his round face filled with curiosity and his eyes gleaming mischievously.

“Are you high this early in the morning? Go to the infirmary if your head is screwed on wrong.” I bumped his arm away in contempt and put my bag into my desk drawer, pulling out my vocabulary notes.

“You’re still pretending, eh?” Kevin rubbed his stomach as he sniggered, subtly pointing his chin at Mandy, who was sitting at the front of the class. “This morning, Mandy took a blue notebook and asked every boy in class who it belonged to. She was like a detective sniffing out clues!

“She even asked me if I recognized the handwriting. Looking at those sharp strokes, I knew it had to be you! Come on, spill it. Have you started making a move?”

My hand paused on the pages, but I quickly covered up my panic with a cool expression and tone. “You’re overthinking it. I just happened to find that random piece of trash, so I tossed it at her. Did you say anything you shouldn’t have?”

“Of course not! I’d never betray my bro for a girl.” Kevin thumped his chest confidently and then leaned in to whisper with a snicker. “But I hafta say, Mandy’s gaze changed when you walked in just now.

“She was distracted before you got here, but the moment you came in, her eyes kept following you. That’s all I can say to help you, dude.”

Just then, the bell for morning exercise rang through the school, interrupting Kevin’s unruly tongue. All the students started heading toward the gym, and when we lined up in rows, I instinctively stood at the back. It was a habit due to my height.

I was looking down and kicking a rock at my feet out of boredom when I suddenly caught the sweet, faint scent of shampoo.

I turned around to see that Mandy had subtly shifted to the back of the line so that she was standing on my right.

Her hair was tied into a ponytail that swayed with her every move, and she looked more energetic than she had been yesterday afternoon. Even so, her doe eyes were still a little puffy.

“Zach,” she said, her head pressed low. Her voice was pressed low, but I could still hear her clearly amid the bustle of the gym.

“What?” I said stiffly, my eyes pointed straight ahead. I was too nervous to look around.

“Thank you… for the notebook yesterday.” She crumpled the hem of her shirt in her tight grip. “The formulas are really clear, and there are some solutions I’d never even considered before. Also, your writing is very pretty.”

“It was written on a whim, and I happened to find it in my bag. As long as it’s of use to you,” I said coolly. However, my hand hidden in my pocket was soaked to the fingertips.

Chapter 3

Afternoons in the final year of high school felt especially long. The track and field lesson dragged into high noon.

The rubber‑surfaced track field turned into a giant sauna under the sweltering heat. After we completed the yard-long run, many of my classmates collapsed in the shade of the trees from exhaustion.

I twisted off the cap of a plastic water bottle and stood next to the furthest pole. While my eyes turned to the school building in the distance, I never stopped watching that figure that lingered at the finishing line.

Mandy was off today. She was usually one of the fastest runners in our class, but she had slowed down significantly after the fifth round, as though her legs were filled with lead. She kept swaying on her feet.

The moment she crossed the finish line and the gym teacher hit the stopwatch, her body suddenly trembled and collapsed onto the burning-hot latex without a sound.

“Someone fainted!”

“Mandy? Are you alright? Don’t scare me!”

Chaos erupted around the finishing line. Some girls surrounded her, shouting, but no one could actually lift her.

My mind went blank when I saw her fall. My self-contempt for the past three years and my fear of getting close instantly vanished.

By the time I came back to my senses, I had already forcefully pushed through the crowd and rushed to the very front. I crouched down wordlessly and pulled the pale Mandy onto my back. The moment her skin touched mine, I was startled by how hot her body was.

Listening to the weak breathing against my back, I turned to the stunned gym teacher and shouted, “I’m sending her to the infirmary!” After that, I carried her in a mad sprint toward the school building.

Her body was light as a feather back in high school, so light that my heart ached for her.

I clenched my teeth and held her up with all my strength, the sweat pouring down my face onto the concrete. It felt like forever those couple of yards.

“Doctor, please check on her! She fainted!” I kicked down the old wooden door to the infirmary, giving the school doctor a shock.

He set aside the newspaper he was reading and hurriedly instructed me to put Mandy on the most stable bed. He then checked under her eyelids, measured her blood pressure, and let out a sigh of relief.

“It’s nothing too serious. She got severe heatstroke from the hot weather, and it’s made worse by her low blood sugar and chronic malnutrition. Grab an ice pack from the back, and I’ll give her a glucose drip.

“You ran fast, kid, seeing as you’re panting like a dog. Rest here for now, and call me when the drip runs out.”

The doctor drew the curtain behind him, and a silence fell over the small infirmary. The only sound remaining was the drip of the IV.

I sat down on the plastic chair next to the bed, my chest heaving with my heavy breathing. My gaze was trained on Mandy’s face as it slowly regained some color from the medicine.

After about twenty minutes, Mandy’s lashes trembled violently, and she slowly opened her dazed eyes. She turned to see me, drenched in sweat and looking like a mess. Her gaze was confused, and then self-deprecating as she smirked without humor.

Her voice was barely audible. “It’s you… You helped me again, Zach.”

“The gym monitor was too far away at the time. I just happened to be nearby, so I may as well help you out.” I instinctively looked away, staring at the medicine cabinet in the corner as I spouted a lie even I did not believe.

Mandy stared at the half-empty bottle of glucose hanging above her head and was silent for a long time. Just as I thought she was falling asleep again, she suddenly turned to stare at me unblinkingly, her voice soft. “Zach, do you… really hate me?”

“What?” I looked at her, my heart jolting painfully.

“Because you keep avoiding me in class. When I try to talk to you or thank you, you storm away without even looking at me. But if you hate me so much, why did you give me the notebook yesterday… and save me so desperately today?”

Her voice was quiet, but I could hear the long-suppressed hurt within. As she spoke, a tear rolled down her cheek without warning, staining the white pillowcase.

My hands clenched into fists on my knees, my nails digging into my palm. When I looked at her exhausted, frail, and confused face, I felt like there was something stuck in my throat, choking me.

‘I don’t hate you,’ I thought to myself. ‘I like you. I like you so much that I feel useless and unworthy. I’m scared that just taking another look at you would make my love spill forth unbidden for the whole world to see.’

Chapter 4

Two weeks later, the city was engulfed in constant thunderstorms.

At ten o’clock at night, after I finished up my self-study and headed to the entrance hall, it was pouring outside.

The hall was filled with students who had not brought their umbrellas. Mandy stood alone by the side, holding her bag in one hand and her phone in the other.

She had to raise her voice to drown out the rain, so I could clearly hear the trembling sob in her voice.

“Are you working overtime again today, Mom? It’s fine, I’ll head home after the rain subsides. No, don’t tell Dad. You’re still in the middle of the divorce, and I don’t want to hear you two argue in the car.”

After she ended the call, Mandy crouched down and buried her face in her knees, her shoulders shaking.

The other students left with their parents, until only she remained in the corner with the teachers on duty. I stood in the shadows a short distance away, feeling terrible.

I took a deep breath and pulled out my large black umbrella from the bag. I then strode up to her and tapped her white sneakers with the tip of my shoes.

She lifted her head abruptly, her face covered in tears. She panicked when she saw it was me, instinctively trying to hide how messed up she looked.

I did not give her time to explain, stiffly stuffing the heavy black umbrella into her cold hands. My voice was harsh. “Take it. I’m lending it to you.”

Mandy held the umbrella tightly, looking at me in a daze. “What about you, Zach? Did you bring another umbrella?”

“I have a raincoat in the bike garage. This umbrella is so heavy that it’s a pain to carry. Remember to return it to me tomorrow.” With that, I pulled up my hood and ran headfirst into the rain.

There was never a raincoat. I pushed my old bike through the rain and pedalled fiercely in the storm. I could barely open my eyes in the ice-cold rainwater.

By the time I rushed back to the dorm, I was soaked to the bone. My clothes were drenched and plastered to my body.

Kevin was lying on his bed and playing a game. He jumped when he saw me. “Dafuq? Are you torturing yourself, Zachie? What happened to the huge umbrella you brought in the morning?”

“I forgot it in the classroom.” I grabbed a towel to dry my hair, looking out at the roaring rain.

Although I sneezed from the cold, the thought that she could go home dry and not keep crying in a corner made it all worth it.

The next day after school, Mandy returned the umbrella right on time. She wiped it clean and even added a pink sticky note that read, “Thank you, Zach.” I pulled off the note and secretly slotted it away in my dictionary.

After that, the days flew by. Mandy and I interacted a little more than before; she would occasionally come to me with math questions, and I would explain them to her as simply and quickly as possible.

When Kevin sniggered next to me, I would shut him up with a smack to the back of his head.

Just as I thought the days would pass by smoothly like this, less than ten days before our college entrance exams, Mandy sent me a text message.