I had thought of Reforging as nothing but pain after years of war and separation. Then I witnessed your son’s transformation, and I let myself hope again. And when that girl gushed about the power of stories and how she wanted to dedicate her life to preserving the history of ordinary lives—it was hard to drown in the darkness of that pain when her light shone so bright.

All that to say, my oldest friend, though we may never see each other again, though you may have closed your heart to our stories the way I did, I hope you will at least take this one. I hope you can see that perhaps this world is less cruel than the one we grew up in. We made hard choices, wrong ones, because we had no other way. But these girls, growing up now, will have a better life, will make better choices, and you played a part in making that happen. Perhaps their story can reignite the hope we once had.

—Chen Meng

Chapter 31

From the Reforged pencil of Wong Yun

Monica has Reforged your pencil. She brought your words to me in a convenience store notebook. There was a poorly applied bandage on her arm, lopsided and peeling. That she had cut herself to Reforge your words—it was the one thing I had wanted her to avoid. I know the dangerous places it can lead. I tried to ask her about it, how she had felt, if it hurt. She was reluctant with her words, distant in a way that squeezed my heart tight. There is a sadness to her I have never seen before. I asked if it had to do with your words, if they changed the way she thought about me.

“I will always love you,” she said, with a serious melancholy that ached more than my hip, more than the nights alone in the hospital.

When I asked if your girl had hurt her, she turned quickly away, changed the topic to the logistics of my surgery and recovery instead. She forced a smile upon her face, though I could still see the stain of her tears, no matter how she tried to hide them.

“Did Meng . . . ?” I began.

She knew what I was going to ask.

“She forgave you,” she said. Those were the words I wanted to hear for so long. And yet, to have Monica deliver them, to see her like this—I hated myself all over again. Monica left at some point, I don’t remember, and there was nothing I could do for her, not here in a hospital, not with my mind like this. But she is strong in her own way, and I must believe that she will find a way.