My Silly Little Boyfriend

The faint light scattered across the floor, flickering in and out, and it felt like an eternity before he finally calmed down. A quiet sob slipped from his throat.

He bit his lip, trying his best to control himself, his teeth nearly drawing blood. The sound of the rain eased, and the lights in the house flickered, casting a little bit of light into the room.

It wasn't until much later, when I thought back to this moment, that I realized something. Every time he looked at me with those eyes full of guilt, I could never bring myself to blame him for what happened.

-

"Your bite is something else, kid!"

The living room light was bright, and outside, the night was pitch black. Ben was sitting cross-legged obediently across from me as I used iodine to disinfect the cuts on my skin.

To be honest, his bite was well-placed, and it was clear he had a neat set of teeth. But even with that thought, the anger inside me still boiled over.

I reached out and pinched his jaw.

He let me do it, but his eyes were full of confusion and panic. His face was soft, and the feel of it was better than I expected.

I pinched his face and he opened his mouth slightly, as if uncomfortable with the situation. He reached up to touch my wrist but didn't dare to slap my hand away.

I let go.

"How'd you break the vase? Did your hands shake again, just like the last time when you handed me coffee? I saw you drawing, and your hands didn't shake..."

He pressed his lips together for a moment and inched closer to me. His eyes held countless little sparks of light, innocent, yet shining with a quiet glow.

"Jen, you're so pretty."

I froze.

Even if he called me pretty, that didn't mean I'd let him off the hook so easily!

-

Ben was actually quite afraid of the dark.

After he made strange noises several times in the living room and then looked at me with those pitiful eyes, I finally gave in.

We ended up sharing the same bed.

To be fair, his mentality was still like that of a four or five-year-old child.

He slept curled up in a little ball, sometimes even stealing my blanket.

And not only did he take the blanket, but his sleeping posture was a disaster.

In the first few days, I woke up to find myself tangled up with a man over six feet tall, like he was an octopus, nearly tossing him out of the bed.

Afterward, I resigned myself to waking up to his soft breathing, slipping out of his arm to start the day.

It turned out that getting used to something could be a terrifying thing.

Before I met him, my life was a complete mess, and everything was falling apart.

But after meeting him, I started having expectations.

Like on my way home from work, I'd pick up his favorite fruit cake.

When I passed by a store, I'd wonder if he had run out of painting supplies.

During that time, I actually began to feel happy.

When I smeared whipped cream on the tip of his nose, and he looked at me, helpless, I laughed so hard.

I laughed so much that I even surprised myself.

-

But such is life.

Smooth sailing was always a fleeting fantasy for me.

At some point, rumors started circulating at work that I was the daughter of a mistress.

At first, it was just a few coworkers whispering to each other behind closed doors.

But soon, even in the cafeteria, people would point at me.

It wasn't hard to figure out who was behind it—my "wonderful" stepmother.

She had already spread lies about me more than once.

Back in high school, right before my college entrance exams, she had even showed up at the school gate with a banner calling me the child of a mistress.

In fact, she was the mistress, and my father had married her less than a week after we buried my mother.

Yet she insisted on pinning that label on me.

I thought about defending myself, about clearing my name.

But when she and my father appeared, walking hand in hand, looking like a picture-perfect couple, everything I said seemed like an empty lie, and all I received were judgmental stares from others.