1 “Are you still in love with him?”

The flickering headlights cast lights face through the car window, on Ava' somewhat nervous face. She shrank a bit and tried to hide more in darkness.

Huge regret was in her mind.

She twisted her hands nervously and peeked at Blake, who was driving quietly beside her. The man concentrated on driving forwards, with an expression that Ava was very familiar with - his thick eyebrows lightly pressed, his lips ended down coldly, showing his impatience.

Ava felt strong regret to going to the classmate's reunion if she had knew earlier what would happen.

Two months ago, Emma's message suddenly popped up on Ava's phone. It's been seven years after graduation.

"We're going to hold a class reunion to celebrate the tenth anniversary of our class, will you come?"

Ava stared at the message for quite a long time. Her fingers hesitated on the keyboard, still unable to type out an answer.

"Blake will also come."

Looking at the latest message on the phone screen, Ava's pale cheeks inexplicably emerged a blushing reflected by the cold screen light. Finally, her eyelashes trembled when she quickly typed back a word, as if she was afraid that she would regret it.

"Yes."

Emma was the class monitor when they were in high school, and she had always been very capable of organizing all kinds of activities and parties for all. Ava had seen the photos on their social media pages. Sometimes there were only seven or eight people in one party, and sometimes more than a dozen classmates, but none of them was Blake.

Actually, she didn't attend the class reunion only for Blake. Back the time in high school, Emma took good care of her and never looked down on her like most classmates did. Ava felt hard to say no to Emma's invitation. And she heard that her loved teacher Mrs. Well would also be there. Mrs. Well was very kind to Ava and they hadn't seen each other for so many years. Ava definitely hoped to see her.

She seldom went shopping. She bought a set of new clothes and contact lenses. The contact lenses were black and endures for half a year which cost more than usual, because the saleswoman persuaded her that colored contact lenses could make people look more energetic and attractive. After wearing it, she suddenly thought of the elves in the movies. Unfortunately, in the movies the elves were fairy beauties, but with contact lenses on her face she looked like a bit like some weird specie.

She did not want to waste the money, so on the day of the classmate's reunion, Ava put them on bravely. In order not to look too abrupt, she let go of her low ponytail, which had been tied up all the year round. Then she searched through the drawer corner to find a lipstick sample given by a colleague, and covered her pale lips into healthy rosy.

She thought of buying a foundation to cover the birthmark on her forehead, but it would be too wasteful for her to use the foundation only once, so she finally decided to cover it with hairs.

The bright red birthmark on Ava's forehead was about the size of a fifty cents coin and had accompanied her since her birth. At birth, the doctor suggested her parents observed the birthmark for several years because it might subside naturally. However, before the birthmark subsided, her parents had a car accident.

When she turned eight years old, Grandpa took her to a well-reputed hospital for treatment. It cost a great amount of money at that time. After one treatment, the birthmark did fade a lot and turned pink. Ava stopped receiving further treatments when she knew that expenses.

At that young age, she already understood the income difference between her family and other classmates' families, and also knew that her grandparents had to work hard to support her living and tuition fee. If the price of becoming beautiful was much extra hard work for her grandparents, she would rather not become beautiful.

P City's weather in April was frequently changing between coldness and warmness, between cloudy and sunny. When Ava went to the mall for shopping, it was all summer clothes on. She didn't think so much and bought a summer dress. But on the classmates' reunion day, after putting on makeup and lenses, she put on the new skirt and went out. Within 5 mins she came back due to the coldness outdoor, and put on a padded coat outside the dress.

The reunion address was a restaurant in the ninth Venue, a place where every inch of land worthen a piece of gold in P city.

There was no subway near where her apartment, in order not to be late, Ava called a taxi. However, things always went against the wills. A traffic accident in the tunnel blocked her for half an hour. So by the time she arrived the restaurant door, she was already half an hour late.

After finally enter the restaurant, she looked for the elevator while checking the Emma's message of the banquet hall for the reunion. Unluckily, she was not a full master of the high-heeled shoes at this moment, and she accidentally sprained her foot.

Her ankle hurt as hot as it was broken, causing her rested in a cold sweat for a very long time. Noticing her strange posture, the security guard came to ask. "Miss, are you feeling alright?"

Ava reluctantly straightened up: "Yes, I'm fine."

She waved her hands and told the security guard that she was fine. Under the guidance of the security guard, she finally found the banquet hall where the classmates' reunion was.

More than 30 classmates and two teachers gathered together in the medium-sized banquet hall, they sat at four tables. Drinks and food had been served and people were drinking and eating. No one waited for her.

She limped into the door and tried to find Emma among the many familiar and unfamiliar faces. She failed, maybe because of her wearing inappropriate contact lenses.

Standing awkwardly by the door, Ava started to regret for the first time on that day. Ava looked at the well-dressed and warmly chatty old classmates in the hall, feeling like she had gone back to the high school time when she was asocial and lonely. Gradually her eyes gloomed, and she stepped back.

She did not step back into the empty corridor but bump someone's body which really startled her. Instantly Ava looked back and saw that the person she bumped into was looking down at her. His handsome features were the same as that when he was a teenager, no, they were more mature and tougher than that in high school. He had taken off youthfulness, and became a real man.

He seemed taller. Ava raised her head to look at his face, that made her neck a little sore.

"Blake?" Ava called out the man's name in a hoarse voice.

Blake stared at her face which had been covered by a protection mask, then his eyesight stayed on her eyes for a moment. He recognized her. "Ava."

Like a small electric current, the voice hit her back then all the way up into her ears, making her dazed.

After see her staying still for a long while, Blake frowned, "What are you doing standing here stupidly for? Go in!"

"Ah...Oh I'm sorry!" Ava woke up from a dream and hurriedly pushed open the door.

Entering the banquet hall again, she and Blake caught the crowd's notice.

"Blake, why did it take you so long to go to the toilet... Hey, who is this next to you?" Evan was a bit shocked when he saw Eva standing next to Blake.

The girl next to Blake wore a big black mask that covered most of her face. Although her long hair was black and shiny, it looked messy and seemed to have not been taken care of by a barber for a long time, the bangs had been so long that covered her eyes. What on her body was an old, thigh-length brown cotton-padded coat of a grandma style, a green dress extending from the hem of the coat, and a funny pair of red socks in her loafers.

Standing to the tall, straight and shining Blake, who was always the focus in any crowd, she looked like a big gray mushroom with weird and poisonous taste.

The memory before seven years ago awakened among the classmates. Evan blurted out before waiting for Blake's answer: "Ava the silencer?"

In high school, Ava was even more introverted and aloof than she is now. She was always gloomy and very rarely to speak to others. Someone gave her a nickname "Ava the silencer", then other classmates started to call her in that way as well. A couple of days later, the nickname was known to students of the whole grade.

It had been seven years that she hadn't been called this humiliating nickname, but she still felt harsh. Ava lowered her face subconsciously, hiding her expression under the long bangs.

"I happened to meet Ava at the door." Blake walked past her, blocking Evan's vision.

Seeing his walking away, Ava was subconsciously about to follow him. At this moment, a hearty voice came from behind.

"Ava, you're finally here! I just wanted to call you!"

Ava stopped and turned around. A beautiful short-hair girl was walking towards her.

She recognized that the girl was Emma. When Emma came close, she said in a low voice. "I'm sorry, I'm late."

Emma took her to the dining table next to Blake's, and replied with a kind smile, "No, not late, you arrived just at the right time, the dishes just start to get on table. Would you like to sit here with me? Everyone here is our old classmate, feel at ease and don't be shy. "

Ava followed Emma and sat down. She took off the mask and restrainedly greeted everyone at the table.

Emma was always very experienced in understanding people, her arrangement of people at each table was quite reasonable and comfortable. On the dinning of Ava sat at, classmates were all very unnoticed students in the class during high school. Although they shared not much friendship with each other, they also did not feel easy to chat.

Blake had always been outstanding in every way since he was a student. He was arranged at a table with all other popular students in the class, like Evan, who had a good relationship with him, Vivian, the beauty of the class, and Mrs. Well, their head teacher.

Emma as the class monitor should be at that table as well, but to take care of the feelings and atmosphere of these shy people at this table, she sat with them.

"Ava, you haven't changed much." Emma was exquisite in all aspects and left no one in corner. She threw up a new topic every now and then. "What do you do now?"

Hearing Emma's question, Ava retracted her chopsticks and found that everyone at the table turned attention to her, she felt so nervous that her voice even trembled.

"I'm… doing finances in a nursing home."

Although no high salary, but Ava was really satisfied. Her colleagues were elder than her and treat her very well, just like their younger generation. Some of the residents in the nursing home were so old and dim-sighted, that they even praised Ava for her beauty.

"Doing finance is quite stable and suitable for you. It's a good job. You don't have a boyfriend, do you?" Emma asked again.

Ava shook his head: "No."

Her colleagues introduced some boys to her, she went on some blind dates with them, but none of them had opened her heart.

Talking to this topic, Emma stretched out her right hand and showed everyone a shining diamond ring on her ring finger, and said with a proud voice, "Is there anyone else getting married earlier than me? Anyone does, please stand up!"

"Sorry to say, there are some." Responded by 3 other people in laughter at the table. Others were amazed at their speed of marriages and at the same time expressed congratulations.

"My husband has many handsome brothers and friends, girls if any of you feel interested, please talk to me in private. I'll introduce." Emma laughed.

Ava could easily see Blake over the back of Emma, as long as she slightly tilted her head.

She could not hear what they were talking about at the table, she could clearly see Blake slightly lowering his eyes, wearing a plain smile, looking a bit tired of the ongoing talk.

"Hey Ava, are you still in love with him?"

Ava hurriedly drew back her sight from Blake and met Emma's eyes that seemed to know everything.

"I..." Ava's lips trembled and her face was burning hot.

Emma's voice was very soft, and their conversation completely hidden in others' noisy chatting.

"You really should not." Emma sighed, looking at Ava's eyes with pity, "I heard that when he just came back from overseas, he probably was single, but..." She said with an even lower voice, almost like a whisper, " Vivian is also interested in him. They two seem have already be together for a while. "

"Vivian?" Ava's heart beat so hard and tried to look at Vivian at the next dining table, but Emma hurriedly stopped her.

"No No!"

Ava's gaze didn't attract attention, but Emma's cry got Blake's notice. He stopped sipping drink in the glass and turned his face back, finally looking at Ava's face.

He didn't say anything, but Ava clearly read two words from his eyes – "so noisy".