The Hurtful Past

"This machine is tricky to operate…I have the manual somewhere around…Ah, here…" He opened the manual. "First you have to…"

Tony paused as she pressed the buttons, rotated the knobs and the machine started to run. She looked at him. "It's not that complicated," she said.

She hadn't used this machine before but it was not that hard to figure out how a washing machine works, was it? That's what she thought. But looking at the bewilderment of Tony as he checked the machine and the manual, she figured that it might be tough for some people to figure out how certain machines works.

Maybe that's why his laundry habits are different.

Cute, she thought, seeing the big man with a generous smile on his face as he admired her "intelligence". No one had ever praised her for her intelligence before. Aiden used to call her dumb. He would add "in a cute way" when he called her dumb. She never liked it. The "cute" he mentioned was not enough to soothe the pain she felt when he called her dumb.