Summary
In my previous life, the neighbor everyone treated like a little boy was always coming over to play with me. One night, he slipped into my sister’s room.
When I woke the next morning, the living room was full of police officers. My sister barely seemed to know where she was. She shrank away from anyone who came near.
Only then did I learn he wasn’t a little boy. He was a man with dwarfism.
After that, my sister never went out. She grew worse and worse. Our parents quit their jobs to stay home and comfort her, but she kept hurting herself.
Two months later, she slipped out while they weren’t looking and jumped into the river.
In the guest room where he had been staying, the police found page after page detailing her daily routine, along with a pile of invasive photographs taken without her knowledge.
He’d planned it all.
Then I opened my eyes, and I was six again.
He stood at our door, smiling up at me in that thin little voice.
“Xingxing, I’ve come to play.”
My sister looked out from the living room and smiled. “Come in. It’s hot out there.”
I planted myself in the doorway.
“I don’t like you. Go away.”