Chapter 16: Swimming
"But I can't swim." Tang Wu smiled at Su Can, the corners of her lips lifting slightly as she looked at him uneasily.
As Su Can drew his gaze back from the hotel, Tang Wu caught sight of it too, and her heart gave a flutter.
One look at Tang Wu's expression told Su Can how nervous she was, and seeing her like this really made his heart itch. During the summer after their high school graduation, their large group of friends had scattered in different directions. Even the two of them had come to Shanghai separately, each traveling with their own parents.
Although they knew they were heading to the same place, once they arrived in this economically developed city and faced their new surroundings, passing plane trees, European-style buildings, dormitory blocks, and university campuses, they knew the other was somewhere in the same area. Yet often, the more this was the case, the stronger their desire to see each other became.
It was like prison. People could not understand why some inmates would try to escape at the very last moment when they had only six months, or even three, left before their release.
Ten years in prison might leave a person numb. Yet that long stretch of imprisonment told you that, at last, a day would come when it ended. Counting the days ahead like that was, in fact, a torment worse than physical suffering.
"You can't swim? Then all the more reason to learn. Have you forgotten you've got me? You can't go your whole life without knowing how. There are always some things in life you have to try changing for yourself." Of course that had to change. Su Can was still imagining Tang Wu wearing a bikini, swimming and splashing around