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"Life is never what we hoped it would be, but it's okay you will always find your way home and mommy will always open the door for you."
"What if I can't find my way home? What if I can't find you?"
"Then you must make your home where you want it to be, silly. Don't worry about me, mommy will always be with you even if you don't see me."
When Lan Zhan was a child his mother would be running with him on her back, he would have his arms wrapped tightly around her neck, his feet pressing against her stomach, and his face would be buried in the nape of her neck, the strands of her hair tickling his cheeks. His mother would be laughing so loudly it would echo through the whole house.
She would say between her giggles "Look A-Zhan, look how you are so tall and free. Don't be afraid, look!"
The wind would be whipping at them, it would sway his mother's hair and make him shiver. Then he would turn his face slowly and take a peek out into the world and see his mother's smile.
His mother. Shining like the sun itself. She seemed eternal.
His mother died when Lan Huan was 13 years old. When he understood that he no longer had a mother, that he would never again be carried on his back. He took her favorite jar and threw it against the wall, then he tried to glue the pieces together while crying.
No one ever carried him on their back again.
—
Lan Zhan never thought of anything specific that he would like to be when he finished high school. He liked to imagine himself walking down the streets, watching people come and go, seeing historical landmarks and amazing sights.
He wanted to see the sun shining for him. He wanted to feel satisfied.
Satisfied.
—
When Lan Huan was accepted at the university, as the movies showed all young people going after high school. When his uncle cried while helping him pack his things to put in the van.
When Lan Huan said, "See you in two years, didi.
Lan Zhan understood that he should follow the same path, that everyone expected the same from him.
When Lan Zhan slept for the first time alone in his sixteen years, he stared at the roof of the house and whispered to his mother.
"Mom, I don't know where I want to go. Mom, I'm scared... Mom... I want you."
Lan Zhan slept and dreamed of a house glowing from the touch of the sun and a laughter that echoed through every room, but no matter how many doors he opened his mother was nowhere in sight.
—
Wei Ying was a free spirit. He envied him for it, his spontaneity, his laughter, his manner... he was what Lan Zhan wished he could be but could not.
They were in history class when Wei Ying poked him in the hip with Lan Zhan's stolen pencil. Damn, he still hadn't finished answering the quiz on French revolution and women's participation.
"Psst, psst, Lan Zhan" The professor gave a raised eyebrow in their directions and Lan Zhan suppressed a wince.
With a sigh he turned to the restless boy beside him. "What is it Wei Ying?"
"Which university are you applying to?"
Lan Zhan let his pencil fall onto the sheet he saw Wei Ying's face full of expectation and curiosity. He knows that Wei Ying wants them to study together at the same university.
He looked out the window, at the bright blue sky. It has been six years since his mother died, one year since Lan Huan went to university.
Lan Zhan looks again at Wei Ying, he doesn't know how to say he doesn't want to go. Everyone expects him to go.
"With your grades I bet you'll get accepted into all the ones you want."
That's the problem, Lan Zhan thought, I don't want to.
—
Uncle made a list of universities that he should give a chance. Over the weekend, they would visit the two closest ones. Maybe he could go where his mother went.
Lan Zhan threw up his dinner that night, then he talked to his mother and said he was afraid he would never be satisfied.
—
Lan Zhan has never lied in his life.
I mean, Lan Zhan has never told big lies in his entire life. So when he said that there was his university application, he thought he was going to die of dying.
When Wei Ying asked where he had applied for and Lan Zhan lied saying he had applied for the same ones as him - because damned if Lan Zhan knew how to decorate each one - he threw up his breakfast as he thought of Wei Ying's smiling face.
—
A week before the test that would never happen, Lan Huan called him wishing him good luck. Maybe it was foolishness or maybe it was courage, he doesn't know which, but they say that the two things are the same so it doesn't matter. He asked his brother.
"If I don't go to university is it over?"
"Didi, are you worried about not passing? Don't worry-"
Lan Zhan gripped the sheet between his fingers. "No! I was just thinking... if... I don't go now"
Lan Huan let out a small oh and was silent.
"Your life won't end because you didn't go to university... it doesn't have to be now, it can be later or never either... as long as you feel satisfied, Lan Zhan. It's okay."
Satisfied.
Lan Zhan thought of his mother, her laughter, her joy. How happy and free he seemed, how happy and free she was.
That night he cried thinking about a future he could see no light in.
—
While Wei Ying and hundreds of other students were taking their entrance exams, Lan Zhan went to the park, then he went to the movies and watched The Age of Adaline and cried with half the empty seats in the four o'clock session.
His cell phone started vibrating, he looked at the caller ID it was Wei Ying. The exam was over, it was time to go home.
Lan Zhan thought about Adaline on her way home, always running and nowhere to go, always alone. How she was never satisfied.
Her uncle asked how the test went. He lied. Wei Ying visited him the next day, but they were silent.
Wei Ying looked at him as if he had betrayed him.
Damn him then.
—
When his uncle found out that he had lied, he was so furious that Lan Zhan worried for a moment whether he wouldn't have a heart attack right there.
"You!!! H-how could you do this nonsense?!! Answer me! Why?"
Lan Zhan looked at his angry uncle, then he looked at the picture of his mother hanging on the wall.
"Because... because... I want to feel satisfied and I don't think I would be in college."
His uncle stared at him with a blank face for a moment, then quickly shouted again.
"Satisfaction?!!! What is this nonsense, Lan Zhan!!!? All the money I spent on your damn education for you to come up with this crap? You don't know what you want. You're ending your life, do you want to stay working in a damn factory for the rest of your life?"
Lan Zhan felt his whole body shaking, it felt like the walls were moving and his throat was tightening.
"I don't know what I want, that's true, so why do you think by going to college I'll know? Why do I have to go now? There are so many things to do, to see."
"It's your only chance to be somebody, Lan Zhan, think well about what you're doing, think about what your mother would want for you."
Lan Zhan thought of laughter, the sun, his mother's soft hands. He thought of being carried on his back as he once was all those years ago.
"My mother wanted me to be happy, Uncle. I am seeking that happiness."
Lan Zhan turned his back on his uncle and went upstairs to his room. A room that once was his and his brother's, then Lan Huan left and Lan Zhan stayed, the room became his alone. His uncle was shouting in the background, as he said he would call his brother.
Lan Zhan lay in his bed and that night he dreamed of his mother. She was hugging him and telling him that she was fine, everything was fine.
—
The day Lan Zhan left was the day Wei Ying was going to college. He sent a small box to the dormitory that would be Wei Ying's new home for the next few months.
Wei Ying opened the box while unpacking his things. Inside was a picture of Lan Zhan as a child next to his mother. The curve of her mouth turned upwards, the sun eternalizing them like silver in the memory of a photograph.
There was a note behind the photo, written in impeccable letters.
See you later.
Lan Zhan's mother once said that life was nothing like what we expected, at the time he didn't understand, but perhaps now he was beginning to understand what she meant.