“It’s me. Please don’t send me any more air. I won’t accept it again. You’re wonderful, but we’re impossible. My heart simply can’t make room for another person. We’re not substances that can collide,” I said everything in one breath.
He was silent.
“Did you hear me?” I wasn’t sure if he was still listening.
“Mm,” he responded softly.
I looked at the F-15 fighter jet model he had built and placed in front of me. I wanted to ask him:
“Can we still be friends?”
But I felt it was childish and held back.
Someone like him, pampered and raised in luxury, likely wouldn’t want to remain friends with me.
As expected, Gao Hai Ming didn’t send the thirty-third can of air.
For work, I had to visit his company to discuss promoting a new brand of shampoo and conditioner they were distributing. Thankfully, the meetings were with the head of the marketing department, not him. Even though I visited the company several times and passed by his office, I never saw him. It was as if he was deliberately avoiding me.
One day, after a meeting in the company’s conference room, I passed by his office and finally saw him. As always, he was bent over, assembling a model.
“Hi,” I greeted him from outside the door.
He looked up and seemed a bit awkward.
“What model of fighter jet is this?” I asked.
“This is an F-18D,” he replied.
“Is this the thirty-fourth model you’ve built?” I remembered him saying that, including the one he gave me, he had built a total of thirty-three fighter jets.
“Mm.” He nodded and continued working on the model.
“I won’t disturb you anymore,” I said.
“Am I being too obsessive?” he suddenly asked.
I shook my head. “People in science are always a bit obsessive. Every scientific theory could one day be overturned, but scientists believe their theories can withstand the test of time and won’t be disproven.”
“Yes, two substances cannot collide—it’s just a matter of time.”
“Goodbye,” I said.
As I turned to leave, I suddenly understood why he had sent me thirty-three cans of air. It was because he had also built thirty-three fighter jet models. He had mentioned before that the thirty-three jets, scattered in different corners, symbolized love. Were the thirty-three cans of air meant to signify the same thing?
I felt utterly useless. This was my first job, and yet I had allowed something like this to happen with my very first client.
For the following months, Gao Hai Ming didn’t contact me again.
“Are you going to Xiao Jue’s graduation?” Meng Meng asked me one day.
“The plane tickets are too expensive, and he’ll be back the day after the ceremony anyway,” I replied.
I couldn’t believe three years had passed so quickly. In just four months, Xiao Jue would graduate.
“That’s a pity,” Meng Meng said. “Aren’t there some really cheap tickets available?”
I did want to attend Xiao Jue’s university graduation. It was an important day for him.
I found a ticket to the UK through a travel agency, with a layover in Dubai, which was much cheaper than a direct flight.
Xiao Jue had decided to return the day after the graduation ceremony. I didn’t tell him I would be going to the UK—I wanted to surprise him.
I took three days off to travel to the UK. Everything seemed to be going smoothly until the layover in Dubai, where the airport was suddenly locked down. Armed soldiers filled the terminal, and I learned from the announcements that an Islamist group had claimed to have planted a bomb in the airport, prompting a full security sweep. All flights were canceled.
If I had to wait one more day, I wouldn’t make it to Xiao Jue’s graduation.
I spent two days waiting in Dubai Airport, but the lockdown wasn’t lifted in time. I realized I wouldn’t make it and called Xiao Jue. I couldn’t keep it from him any longer. When I called his dorm, a woman answered.
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