I’ve been a ghost for ten years. A streamer found the photo I cherished most and launched a viral campaign across the internet: "#FindLiam." When I saw him again, he was about to get married. I wanted to disappear so badly... But once I really did vanish, he ended up living a life of solitude until the bitter end. When he died, he was still clutching that half-burnt photo. 1 I died the night the psychiatric hospital caught fire. Because the building was a labyrinth, a lot of patients couldn't make it out. We died in the flames. Since then, I’ve been haunting the hospital. At first, I had some company. Other ghosts stuck here. Later, they all faded away. I was the only one left guarding the ruins. I couldn't stray far from the grounds, so I spent my days sitting by the window, killing time. I watched the sunset more times than I could count. Way more than forty-four times. Ten years passed like this. The hospital turned into a ruin. Weeds grew tall, thorns wrapped around the broken walls, and wild roses bloomed over the wreckage. The locals said the place was haunted. They told kids there was a female ghost who ate children, warning them to stay away or she’d snatch them. Total BS! I’ve never eaten anyone! And I definitely wouldn't kidnap a kid! ... One day, a girl showed up talking to her phone. "Hey guys, it's your girl Chloe here. We're at the legendary Whispering Hill Asylum. It’s been abandoned for a decade after a massive fire killed twenty-seven people. Rumor has it the youngest victim was only eighteen. The director went to jail for it. Tonight, we’re gonna see if the ghosts are real." I leaned on her shoulder, peering at her phone. I realized what she was doing. She was livestreaming! Locals did this sometimes to make money. She shivered dramatically. "Even after ten years, you can see how intense the fire was. The walls are still black..." She walked and talked until she reached my old room. After scanning the pitch-black room, her eyes landed on a corner of the wall. Chloe crouched down and pulled a blackened tin box out of a hole in the plaster. I was stomping my feet next to her. 2 "That's mine!" "It's mine!" "Don't touch it!" But she couldn't hear me. She even opened the box. "Ah!" My secret was exposed just like that. She was the worst! She picked up the photo inside, which had been burned in half. She held it to the camera: "Look, guys! The girl in this photo is so pretty. She looks super young. I wonder if she was even eighteen." I huffed angrily. "Don't think calling me pretty will make me forgive you! And I was eighteen! I was an adult!" I even had a boyfriend! The comments floated across the screen: Is she the eighteen-year-old victim? Don't touch the dead's belongings, especially if they died young. That's bad luck! So sad. Dying that young. I heard that hospital was run like a prison. That's why so many didn't escape. Wait, there's a shoulder next to her in the photo. Black shirt. Looks like a guy. Maybe the person she liked? Psychos have crushes? Imagine being liked by a crazy person. Creepy. Seeing the comments made me sad. I wasn't a psycho. I just... I had autism. My dad said if I stuck to the treatment, I’d get better and I could date. I could like people. I wasn't crazy. Chloe frowned at her phone. "If you can't speak human, get out of my stream. Calling people 'crazy'—you look in the mirror lately? You're the weirdos." I decided Chloe might not be that bad. She flipped the photo over. Two words were written on the back. "Liam Ford." Liam was my first love. Because I refused to go to school, he became my home tutor starting my junior year. He was nineteen then. My dad said he was brilliant. We went to the same high school. He was the city's top scholar, an Ivy League student, skipped grades, and secured a spot in a top tech grad program by his junior year of college. "Let him tutor you, okay?" 3 I didn't speak. Whether I agreed or not, he was going to be my tutor. My dad had hired many tutors before Liam. But during class, I liked to do other things—drawing or woodcarving, lost in my own world. Those tutors always quit. When Liam first arrived, I ignored him too. I assumed he’d badmouth me behind my back. Give me weird nicknames. People thought I was stupid because I didn't talk or tattle. That's what they all did. But he just kept lecturing in my ear, not caring if I listened. Actually, I understood most of it. After class, he pulled out some worksheets. "These cover today's lesson. Do them if you have time. I'll go over them tomorrow." I didn't do them. Not interested. I doodled all over his test paper. He said, "That's a pretty nice frog." It was clearly a monster! How could it be a frog?! So annoying. "Did I say something wrong?" I ignored him. He lowered his eyes and started teaching. Liam had long eyelashes. When he blinked, they looked like butterfly wings. Liam was always calm. He didn't seem to care if I ignored him. "Did you understand this question? If not, tell me, and I'll explain it again." He tapped the desk with his fingertip. I ignored him. "Since you understood, let's move to the next one." When I didn't understand, I’d turn my head and look at him, and he’d explain it again. I thought it was fun, so I deliberately looked at him again after he finished explaining. After five times, Liam was still chill. Weird. Didn't he ever get mad? A month later, I spoke my first sentence to him. 4 "What is a little monster?" Why did my classmates call me that? Liam paused, then asked, "Who said that?" I didn't tell him. "Did someone call you that?" I nodded. Then he drew a picture for me. He asked, "What is this?" "A snake eating an elephant." Liam smiled faintly. "But most people think it's a hat." How silly. He said, "People always reject views that are different from their own. They think you're different from them, so they're prejudiced. The prejudice is the monster, not you." "But I am different from normal people." "You're just... very unique. Everyone is different. It's no big deal." No one had ever told me these things. He asked, "Want to know the story behind this drawing?" I nodded. "Finish this worksheet, and I'll tell you." Fine. Liam brought me The Little Prince. I felt like I was as unique as the Little Prince. Liam was even more unique. The Little Prince lived on a planet where he could see the sunset forty-four times a day. "Liam, I want to see the sunset forty-four times a day too." "If you get into Stanford, I'll take you to see it." I hesitated. I didn't like school, and I didn't like the people out there. But if Liam was there, maybe the outside world wouldn't be so hateful. 5 After I got into Stanford, Liam took me there. In the school auditorium, I saw forty-four sunsets. Liam coded the program and projected it with models. He said he wouldn't be tutoring me anymore. "Why?" "You graduated." "Liam, I like you." High school was over, but my like wasn't. "You're still young. You haven't seen the outside world." I understood. Liam didn't like little monsters either. "Liam, I'm not stupid. If you don't like me, just say it. Don't invalidate my feelings." I rarely spoke such long sentences. Just because I didn't like talking didn't mean I didn't have my own thoughts. Liam froze. I knew a lot of people liked Liam. I could read that look in their eyes. But Liam didn't understand my like. He didn't know that he was the only one I let into my world. If he didn't want to come in, then fine. I stopped talking to Liam. No matter what he said, I wouldn't listen. If I wanted to, I could block out all external sounds and live only in my own world. When I was little, I couldn't understand what others said, and I couldn't come out of my world. I didn't understand why my mom cried over me. When she left, I didn't feel anything special. 6 Later, after long-term therapy, I learned how to step out of my world. Although I still didn't understand complex emotions most of the time. But I knew tears meant sadness. And my mom didn't abandon me because she didn't want me. After meeting Liam, I learned what "like" meant. Liking meant wanting to share my world with him, wanting to be with him, doing nothing and still being happy. When I told Liam my weird thoughts, he would think seriously before responding. Even if it wasn't the answer I wanted, I liked Liam's answers. After Liam rejected me, when he dropped me off at my door, he asked, "Are you never going to talk to me again?" He didn't like me anyway, so why care what I thought? But I nodded honestly. "Can't we still be friends?" "But I like you. You don't like me. I'll be sad." "If you like someone else, if you're with someone else, I'll be sad too." "So, I can't be friends with you." Liam was silent. Just as I was about to leave, Liam grabbed my wrist. He said, "I don't want you to be sad." So Liam and I got together. He was the same as before, texting me every day, calling me, telling stories, taking me out to play. We rode the Ferris wheel and watched dolphins. When I was scared, he held my hand. But my dad found out and forbade me from seeing him. My dad said he was poor and dating me to scam our family's money. I didn't know how to explain, I just kept repeating: "No, no, no..." Liam wasn't that kind of person. "He likes me, and I like him." My dad said, "Do you know what like is? How could a normal person like him actually like you! He just sees you're easy to trick! I never should have hired him as your tutor!"
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