To the Love of My Life

At eleven years old, Steve Burton was already much taller than Ruby Gregory.

Now Ruby Gregory was sitting on the steps, and when Steve looked at her, he had to look down.

There were a mess of textbooks, writing books, pencil cases, and pencils scattered all around her. Ruby had an eraser in her mouth, her hair a bit disheveled, and her face smeared with graphite from the pencils.

Steve frowned at the disordered Ruby and said with a cold tone, “What are you doing squatting here?”

Ruby, though only in the first grade of elementary school, had a sense of pride. She raised her hand to cover her writing book, looked up at Steve with a pair of large, black eyes, and shook her head, “Nothing.”

“Haven’t finished your homework?” Steve’s frown deepened. Although he was only eleven, he could tell from Ruby’s little movements what she was doing there and then.

She was found out!

Ruby’s little face blushed in an instant, and she glared at Steve angrily, puffing out, “It’s none of your business!”

Steve snorted lightly, his expression somewhat disdainful. He turned his head and waved to Howard Coleman, Rusell Henris, and Edward Woods parking not far away, signaling them to leave first.

Watching Howard, Rusell, and Edward leave, Steve kicked away the textbook in front of him and moved forward a couple of steps. Seeing the filthy steps beside Ruby, he frowned in revulsion, took off his backpack from his shoulder and threw it beside Ruby. He sat down, bent over, rummaged on the ground for a while, picked up a brand new writing book from Ruby, and snatched the writing book Ruby was working on. He glanced at the handwriting, asked, “Writing each character ten times?”

Ruby hadn’t come out of her angry embarrassment, and she puffed out her cheeks, only letting out a “hmm.”

Steve picked up the textbook from the ground, leafed past the pages smeared and messed up by Ruby’s pencil, and frowned at the chaos. Then he turned to a blank page and asked, “Up to the word ‘road’?”

“Yes.” Ruby was about to ask why he was asking so many questions, but Steve had already picked up a pencil and told her, “You can stop at the word ‘square’.” He then went on with the new writing book, imitating Ruby’s handwriting and finishing the sentence for her.

Steve wrote three times as many words as Ruby, yet finished earlier than her. Seeing her write one word and erase it twice, he impatiently reached out, took her writing book, finished the last few words for her, and then tore out all the remaining unused pages..