To the Love of My Life

At that time, Howard Coleman, Rusell Henris, and Edward Woods all affectionately called Ruby Gregory “Ruby”. Even though every time they uttered these two words, Steve Burton would glower at them a bit, the three were still oblivious to the matter.

So, the first thing Howard said when he went to find Steve was: “Bro, Ruby is being bullied.”

At that time, Steve was busy organizing their Christmas gala party for their class. Hearing this, he immediately headed out of the classroom without any further discussion.

Howard quickly followed behind him, repeating to Steve exactly what Madeleine had told him.

After listening, Steve immediately turned around and went to Rusell Henris’ classroom, unzipped his backpack, and rummaged around for a bit. He took out a still-sealed MP3 box and headed toward Ruby Gregory’s classroom.

The MP3 player was a Sony brand, bought by Rusell to gift his new girlfriend that evening.

When Steve entered Ruby’s classroom, he noticed at once that Ruby was surrounded by a group of people. She was pursing her lips, clutching her fist, and looked wronged.

Although he was livid, he still maintained his good upbringing. He knocked on the door, entered politely, then, acting completely oblivious to the situation, handed the MP3 player to Ruby: “Ruby, when I picked you up last night, you said that this was your grand prize, too valuable to risk leaving here. So, you asked me to take it home for you. I forgot to give it back to you. Just found it when I was searching through my bag. So, here it is.”

Ruby looked at Steve with slight surprise. She had not given him an MP3 player at all.

Although Ruby wasn’t the best student academically, she was still seen as a good student in her teacher’s eyes. Moreover, with Steve Burton, the universally known top student of the school, stepping in to help Ruby, the teacher was the first to be all smiles: “So the MP3 player was taken home by Ruby. Why didn’t you say so earlier? We thought it was lost and have been searching for a long while.”

Steve of course knew they were not searching, but rather trying to force Ruby to confess. He still kept his polite smile, passed the MP3 player directly to Ruby’s teacher, then lifted his hand to tousle Ruby’s hair, his tone both indulgent and tolerant: “You’re so grown up, yet still so absent-minded. How can you forget so quickly what you’ve said and done?”

Having said that, Steve patted Ruby’s head: “Let’s go, I’ll give you your Christmas gift early.”

Then, with his arm around Ruby’s shoulder, Steve started walking out of the classroom, all the while saying, “Ruby, didn’t you drop your Nokia color screen phone, and a small piece of paint chipped off that you felt uncomfortable looking at? So, for a Christmas gift, I’ve prepared a brand-new one for you. The old one, since we don’t like looking at it, we can just throw it away.”

Although Steve was speaking to Ruby, his voice was loud enough for everyone in the classroom to hear clearly.

At that time, owing a Nokia color screen phone was merely a dream for students.

Yet, Ruby discarded hers just because of a tiny chip in the paint, and replaced it with a brand-new one.

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