That night, I walked back to the dormitory barefoot, carrying my very high heels in my hand.

The dormitory the company provided for us was a tiny cubicle crammed with many, many girls. It was very, very far from their school.

When I arrived, the sky had already brightened. Seeing me sitting dazed in a chair, the girls climbed down from their beds one after another, asking, “Axue, what happened? Did your boyfriend bully you?”

When I left, they had made a big fuss for a long time, lending me their best dress, excitedly giving me the most fashionable makeup, instructing me in every detail about what men liked.

But I had ruined everything.

“He’s not my boyfriend…” I hid in their warm embrace, sobbing. “He’s someone I like.”

“What’s so great about him?” They all spoke at once, indignant. “Isn’t he just from S University?”

“My San Jie even found a guy from Q University!”

Only Zhong Ping, a sister who was already married and the oldest among us, asked me, “What do you like about him?”

This question left me at a loss.

Cheng Xia wasn’t handsome in the popular Korean Wave pretty boy style of that time. His eyes weren’t big, his nose was reasonably straight. When he didn’t smile, he seemed a bit cold and aloof. When he smiled, he looked obedient. Overall, he was very comfortable to look at, the kind of handsome that grew on you.

His grades were excellent, but S University had plenty of boys with excellent grades. Many of them were willing to have casual flings with pretty girls.

But I only liked Cheng Xia.

What I finally remembered was the coat he wore when walking me back—a camel-colored duffle coat with toggle buttons, very simple. I dimly realized that it was a kind of simplicity created with money, different from my seventy-nine yuan free-shipping Taobao dress printed with lace trim.

I really liked how he looked in that.

“You like that he’s rich, right?” I said hesitantly, drawing squeals and laughter from the girls.

Being rich was all I could articulate at that time, but deep in my heart I knew it wasn’t about being rich—at least not only about being rich.

After this, I still liked Cheng Xia.

After work, I would chat with him. To have common topics, I bought textbooks from his department online and memorized the names of architecture masters he casually mentioned.

Laughably, I couldn’t understand them at all.

Our company and his school were at opposite ends of the city, but I still frequently trekked mountains and crossed rivers to find him.

He treated me like any other friend. He would reply to texts and make very long, long phone calls.

When I went to find him, if he had received his living allowance we would go eat hotpot off campus. If not, we’d eat at the cafeteria. The spicy fragrant pot at their school was especially delicious.

After eating, he would take me to the library to study. He would tackle obscure and difficult tomes while I read adult self-study exam materials.

Actually, I had seen photos he posted online. He wasn’t that much of a bookworm. In his spare time, he and his classmates would ride bicycles by the seaside, visit comic conventions, and travel to neighboring cities.

That was his precious leisure time. He wouldn’t share it with me.

He would only let me stay by his side when he was studying.

Therefore, I would hold my breath with particular concentration, even making my breathing especially light.

When dusk fell, we would go eat dinner. After eating, he would walk me to the subway station. We walked side by side like any couple, except that his shoulder and my shoulder… were always kept at a fist’s distance apart.

This fist’s distance was a clear dividing line. He could choose not to reply to my messages at any time. If he wanted, he could go to mixers, flirt with any girl, and I couldn’t get angry or even let him perceive that I had the slightest bit of emotion.

I couldn’t let him know that even though he treated me like dust, I still liked him.

I couldn’t let him know I had debased myself to this extent.

In his junior year, their school’s New Year’s Eve party stage play was short one person. He was the student council president and called to ask if I could fill in. I said cheerfully that he’d have to treat me to a meal, and I went.

The rehearsal period was one month. Every day I took taxis back and forth. I quickly got along well with his group of junior girls. After all, I had worked and earned money for three years. My cosmetics and clothes were a little bit better than theirs. They liked to gather around me asking questions. “Sister, where did you buy this outfit?” “Sister, how do you draw your eyebrows?” “Sister, how is this lipstick shade?”

They pouted and said, “I really envy you for earning money.”

In my heart I said, “I really envy you for being able to study at such a good school.”

He didn’t come to watch us rehearse often. When he occasionally came, he always brought lots of snacks. When he was on his phone, I would feed snacks to his mouth, and he would open his mouth and eat them. When people around us teased ambiguously, he would lift his head with a confused expression. Those were the happiest moments of my three years.

As the party approached, there were still many rough spots in the stage play. The day before the party, while I was dancing, I suddenly felt abdominal pain like knife cuts. Blood trickled down my leg—my period had come.

I was in so much pain I broke out in cold sweat. The junior girls urged me to go back, but the program still had many errors and omissions. I borrowed a sanitary pad and pants and continued rehearsing with them.

During this time, I sent him a WeChat message asking him to help me buy a box of ibuprofen. He didn’t reply. By the time I remembered again, it was already midnight, and I could only endure the pain.

Later, when dawn broke, the girls were all exhausted and sleeping on the floor, while I lay on the ground, curled up in a ball from the pain.

One junior girl woke up and asked quietly, “Sister Dongxue, are you okay?”

“I’m fine, go back to sleep.”

She still got up to get me hot water, then covered me with her clothes, carefully holding me to keep me warm. Just as I was about to say thank you, I heard her whisper hesitantly in my ear, “Sister Dongxue, do you know that Senior Cheng Xia… is pursuing a girl from the dance department?”

For the first instant I didn’t react, then violent pain in my lower abdomen pierced through me, and I began to tremble.

“I didn’t want to be nosy, but you’re really, really such a good person…” Her voice sounded unbearably clear in the night. “He shouldn’t do this.”

I’ve always remembered that performance. I wore a beautiful, elaborate performance dress and went on stage with those girls under the spotlight. For them, it was just another small, ordinary embellishment of youth. For me, it was borrowing wings to see heaven.

The stage was set up on the playground, the lights dazzling and mesmerizing, like a net to catch dreams. I spun within it, leaped, smiled freely at the audience below. In that instant, I saw him—it was strange, I could always spot him at a glance.

Over these years, he had grown increasingly tall and straight. Wearing glasses with his arms crossed, he stood there watching us, his presence commanding.

That boy with the buzz cut who would blush and get flustered at one word from me had grown into an excellent young man.

Just then, a girl in a white dress leaned out to joke with him. He smiled and looked at her. The sea breeze lifted his shirt and the girl’s skirt hem, like truly pure white wings.

I withdrew my gaze and looked up at the sky following the dance movements. How strange—clearly I had taken painkillers before going on stage, so why did it still hurt so much, hurt until tears streamed down my face, hurt until my mouth tasted of blood.

After I returned that day, I developed a high fever and experienced the most severe menstrual pain of my entire life. My roommate ordered her boyfriend to rush over in the middle of the night with painkillers and a pile of snacks. I didn’t eat them. Just like the night three years ago after my confession when I walked home in high heels, I just wanted to let myself hurt.

I wanted to see how many times I needed to hurt before I could forget him.

That time, I slept for a long time. When I woke up again, it was already dusk the next day. Zhong Ping was sitting at my bedside smoking. Seeing me awake, she reached out to touch my forehead and said, “If you didn’t wake up, I was going to call 120.”

I was dazed for a while, then reflexively grabbed my phone. There were several messages—credit card weekly reports, photos sent by the junior girls. They asked if I had gotten home safely, and there were a few voice calls.

That familiar profile picture sat quietly at the top. There were no messages from him, not a single one.

I sat there in a daze. Zhong Ping wrapped me up in the blanket, leaving only my head exposed. She sighed and said, “When I was young, I also had a few good girlfriends. After I got married, we gradually drifted apart… They talked about graduate school, studying abroad, how to start businesses. I talked to them about celery being a yuan cheaper in the evening. How could we talk?”

I stared at her blankly. Everyone had righteously told me that I was in no way inferior to him.

Only Zhong Ping finally spoke some cruel, bloody truths.

“People all have one nose and two eyes, what’s the difference? But when you grow up, you should see that between people there’s that invisible line. To put it bluntly, he might treat you quite well, but you’re outside that line. He will never consider making you his wife.”

She took a deep drag of her cigarette and said to me, “I’m telling you this because I treat you like a real little sister. You’re so pretty and so clever. As long as you don’t force it, what kind of man can’t you have?”

I stared blankly at that smoke ring rising in the sunset light, dissipating together with the dust.

I suddenly became enlightened.

I could be with the most handsome boy in the factory, or like Sister Zhong Ping, find a small business owner who earned quite a bit.

But not Cheng Xia. Education, family background, future… Between us lay an invisible line, pretending not to see it, but a line that existed at every moment.

At that time, I still didn’t know.

That line was called class.