The first time I saw Shen Yu was downstairs from his office.
It was pouring that day. He had no umbrella and stood beneath the eaves, staring at the curtain of rain like a tree stripped of every leaf. I walked over and held my umbrella above his head. Before I could finish speaking, he turned and walked out into the rain. He didn’t even spare me a glance.
Later, I learned he was the eldest son of the Shen family. He had a father who was cruel and violent, and a cage he had hated for twenty years but couldn’t escape. He didn’t believe in love. He was afraid of it. To him, being loved was the most dangerous thing in the world, because his mother had been trapped in that house by “love” and had nearly lost her life.
Everyone told me to stay away from him. My best friend said, “Have you lost your mind? He’s pushed you away a hundred times!”
But I knew the hand he used to push me away was trembling.
He was afraid: afraid he carried the abuser’s blood, afraid he would become the person he hated most, afraid that if he really fell in love with someone, that person would become the next target.
So I didn’t run.
Every time he pushed me away, I moved one step closer. When he said, “Get lost,” I said, “See you tomorrow.” When he left me standing outside his door with a cold face for four hours, I stayed there, waiting for his shadow to move behind the curtains.
I was prepared for him to push me away a hundred times.
But I never expected that, the hundred and first time...
He wouldn’t push me away.
He held out his hand to me.
That hand was trembling, palm turned upward, the pads of his fingers marked with old scars from years of digging his nails into himself. He looked at me with red-rimmed eyes, his voice hoarse, as though twenty years of courage were just enough to say this one thing:
“...Do you still dare to take it?”
