Summary
In a year when I could barely support myself, I found a brilliant but poor student in a filthy alley, broken and violated.
His eyes were empty. “Do whatever you want with me,” he said.
I did nothing of the sort.
I just cleaned him up and put him in a fresh, white shirt.
And stuttered earnestly, “J-just… live.”
Later, he taught himself, got into the best university, and became its youngest doctoral advisor.
On a typical summer night when I went to pick him up, he coldly rejected a girl whose smile was as bright as the sun.
And for the first time, I heard him ask me, lost and anxious:
“What is love?”
When I saw the expensive brooch she had given him in his hand,
I knew it was time for me to leave.