Chapter 1 The Sixteenth Trip

The train car fell silent for a few seconds.

Forrest was the first to speak, his voice tinged with amusement.

"Don't look at us like that. Charlotte thought you'd overthink things. She was afraid you'd have trouble sleeping if you knew we were sitting next to each other, so she told me not to tell you about it."

I looked at the jacket draped over his shoulders.

Before we left, Charlotte had taken it out of my suitcase. She said the air conditioning on the train was cold, and she didn't want me catching a chill.

Yet in the end, she'd put it over Forrest.

I stared at Charlotte, my voice hoarse. "So, you lied to me 16 times?"

Charlotte lowered her voice. "Enough. Everyone's watching. Do you really have to make a scene on the train?"

Meanwhile, Forrest was already on his feet. He brushed at his clothes and smiled as he offered me his seat. "Fine. You two can sit together. Besides, Charlotte and I have done this 16 times already. What's one more trip?"

As he straightened up, the headphone cable connecting them was pulled loose.

She immediately grabbed his wrist. "You don't need to move."

Then, she turned to me. "Go sit next to the person you switched seats with earlier for now. Quit blocking the aisle and giving everyone a show."

My whole body felt numb, and I couldn't move.

Charlotte reprimanded sternly, "He gets motion sickness. Sitting in an unfamiliar seat makes him uncomfortable."

Even the train attendant awkwardly reminded me to move aside.

With no other choice, I sat in the empty seat behind them. Forrest settled back into his seat and picked up his headphones.

I turned my head, only to notice a thick scrapbook on their table. Its cover was plastered with train tickets.

Following my gaze, Forrest picked it up. "Since you've found out, we might as well take another picture for the collection."

He pulled a Polaroid camera from his bag, aimed it at me, and snapped a photo.

Before I could react, the picture had already slid out.

In the picture, my face was pale, my hair was mussed from the luggage brushing against it, and I was sitting beside the aisle looking so disheveled I was almost unrecognizable.

Forrest laughed as he stuck the photo onto the last page. "This one's especially meaningful. Our 16th trip, and we finally got caught."

Then, he raised the camera again and leaned toward Charlotte. "Come on. Let's get a picture of the real mastermind."

Charlotte said it was silly, but she leaned toward him anyway.

The flash went off.

In the photo, he smiled brightly, while she wore a slight smile of her own.

He stuck the two pictures side by side, then turned the scrapbook toward me.

"I was going to give this to you two after graduation. When you get married someday, it'll be a keepsake from your college years."

I flipped back through the earlier pages.

Sixteen trips. Hundreds of photos.

They'd taken pictures of themselves eating instant noodles together. They'd even taken pictures of Charlotte falling asleep against his shoulder.

Beside the photos were handwritten notes from the two of them.

"Winter break, sophomore year. She slept for five hours and let me use her shoulder the whole time."

"Start of junior year. Someone grumbled about it, but still refilled my hot-water bottle three times when my stomach hurt."

Yet after four years of dating Charlotte, I barely had any pictures with her.

Whenever I raised my phone to take one, she'd frown. "We see each other every day. What's there to take pictures of?"

Once, I begged her for so long that she finally agreed to take one with me.

As soon as we took the photo, she told me to delete it. She said she didn't like keeping photos.

It turned out she just didn't want any with me.