Perhaps, in this, as with everything else, because I didn’t know how to speak in code, I didn’t know how to speak at all. I felt like a deaf and dumb person who can’t even use sign language. I stammered all manner of things so as not to speak my mind. That was the extent of my code. So long as I had breath to put words in my mouth, I could more or less carry it off. Otherwise, the silence between us would probably give me away—which was why anything, even the most spluttered nonsense, was preferable to silence. Silence would expose me. But what was certain to expose me even more was my struggle to overcome it in front of others.
The despair aimed at myself must have given my features something bordering on impatience and unspoken rage. That he might have mistaken these as aimed at him never crossed my mind.
我当下的反应，就像面对其他事情一般，不知道如何含蓄暗示，只能沉默以对。我像个还没学会手语的聋哑人，结结巴巴东拉西扯，以免吐露心声。这就是我使用暗语的程度。只要我还能撑得住隐藏不说，我多少就能若无其事地应付过去。否则，我们之间的沉默或许会使我暴露无遗。再怎么语无伦次也比沉默来得好。沉默或许会让我露出马脚，但我在别人面前拼命压抑的模样，铁定泄露更多。
我不由得对自己感到失望，想必也令我的表情看起来有点近乎不耐和未予明言的愤怒。我压根儿没想过他可能误以为这些全是冲着他来的。
Maybe it was for similar reasons that I would look away each time he looked at me: to conceal the strain on my timidity. That he might have found my avoidance offensive and retaliated with a hostile glance from time to time never crossed my mind either.
What I hoped he hadn’t noticed in my overreaction to his grip was something else. Before shirking off his arm, I knew I had yielded to his hand and had almost leaned into it, as if to say—as I’d heard adults so often say when someone happened to massage their shoulders while passing behind them—Don’t stop. Had he noticed I was ready not just to yield but to mold into his body?
还有一件事，或许也出于类似的理由。他一看过来，我就撇开目光，这只是为了隐藏我的胆怯造成的紧张。他可能觉得我这样回避很失礼，才不时以带着敌意的眼神报复——这一点我当时也毫无头绪。
我希望他没有从我的过度反应中察觉到什么，这是另一回事。但在躲开他的手臂之前，我知道我早已向他屈服，几乎像是贴了上去，仿佛要说：“别停”（就像我听到那些成年人在有人偶然经过他们身后为他们按摩肩膀时常常这样说）。他有没有注意到我随时准备屈服于他，还想与他合为一体？
