Baby Face, Vicious Heart

Anna is twenty-six years old, yet she insists on referring to herself as Baby.

She calls my boyfriend Daddy and refers to my future mother-in-law as Nana.

Baby wants the pink Barbie doll. Daddy needs to buy it for me.

Baby wants dinosaur chicken nuggets. Nana needs to make them for me.

My boyfriend's entire family coddles her. Whatever she wants, she gets.

Until the day she threw a tantrum about wanting to celebrate Children's Day.

My boyfriend agreed without missing a beat, then turned to comfort me.

"You know Anna has that Little Girl Syndrome. Don't overthink it."

I gave a soft chuckle and plucked his car keys from his hand.

"I'm a preschool teacher. Nobody understands babies better than I do. I'll be the one spending Children's Day with her."

I drove her straight to my preschool. I made her play games with toddlers, perform on stage, and line up for a lollipop.

She was absolutely furious. Her sanity finally snapped, and she screamed at the top of her lungs.

"Hannah, do you really think I'm a three-year-old? I'll kill you!"

Her hands were wrapped tightly around my throat when the heavy velvet curtain was suddenly yanked back.

Everyone was standing in the doorway.

In a fraction of a second, the adorable little "Baby" had transformed into a twenty-six-year-old assailant.

...

Anna had posted on Instagram again.

"Three days left until Children's Day!"

She tagged my boyfriend, Liam.

"Baby wants a super huge celebration this year! Is Daddy ready?"

Attached was a selfie of her wearing a frilly lace nightgown, her hair styled in twin pigtails, flashing a peace sign at the camera.

I set my phone face down on the table and glanced at Liam, who was eating his breakfast across from me.

His fork paused in mid-air. He let out a dry cough.

"You know how Anna is. She's got that Little Girl Syndrome."

I knew exactly how she was.

Liam and I had been together for three years. We were at the stage of discussing marriage.

He always told me he was an only child. I never expected him to come with a precious "Baby" sister attached.

Anna was the exact same age as me.

But she didn't work. She lived in Liam's family home, and she had been living there for twelve long years.

She spoke in a sickeningly sweet, high-pitched voice, always starting her sentences with "Baby wants" or "Baby feels."

She demanded to be spoon-fed at dinner. She needed her hand held when walking. She required endless coaxing whenever she threw a fit.

As an early childhood educator, I handled over a hundred actual toddlers every single day.

Not a single one of them acted quite like her.

My phone buzzed again.

This time, it was a group chat notification. The chat was named "The Smith Family plus Hannah."

Anna was the one who came up with that name.

"Daddy, Baby wants that limited-edition designer bag for Children's Day. Then a trip to the amusement park in the afternoon, and French cuisine for dinner. Baby has it all planned out!"

Another message popped up immediately after.

"Auntie Hannah won't mind, right? Baby just loves Daddy so much and wants to spend more time with him."

I lifted my gaze to look at Liam.

A helpless, fond smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as his thumbs flew across the screen.

"Alright, whatever Baby wants."

He typed those words without even bothering to look up at me.

I placed my fork down.

"Liam, I want to celebrate Children's Day too."

He finally raised his head.

"Huh?"

"I'm a preschool teacher. I deal with kids from dawn to dusk. I want to be a baby for a day too. Why don't you spend the day with me?"

He clearly hadn't anticipated my request. He stared at me in blank surprise.

"Look how old you are. Why are you trying to copy Anna?"

Look how old I am.

Anna was four months older than me.

I didn't say another word. I stood up and began clearing the plates.

Liam seemed to sense my sour mood. His tone softened.

"Hannah, don't read too much into this. How about I get you a gift too?"

I wasn't reading too much into it.

And I didn't want a gift.

I was simply thinking.

Thinking about how, or even if, he and I could keep going like this.

Later that night, Anna sent another text.

"Daddy, come coax Baby to sleep, please? Baby can't sleep alone. Baby needs Daddy's hugs to fall asleep."

Liam happened to be in the shower. I saw the notification light up his lock screen.

A moment later, the screen illuminated again.

"Has Daddy finished putting Auntie Hannah to sleep yet? Baby has been waiting forever."

"If Daddy doesn't come right now, Baby is going to cry. And Baby is very hard to comfort when she cries."

I rubbed my temples, sinking into deep thought.

Three years.

Every Christmas, the check Liam's mother wrote for Anna was twice the amount of mine.

Whenever Liam's father returned from a business trip, Anna got first pick of the souvenirs. I got the leftovers.

Even when the three of us went out for dinner, Liam would always place the best cut of meat onto Anna's plate first.

The excuse was always the same.

"Anna is a poor thing. She lost her dad when she was little. Just be the bigger person and let her have her way."

I had no choice but to yield.

Because Anna's father was a firefighter.

Fifteen years ago, during a horrific apartment fire, Mr. Davis pulled Liam and his parents from the blazing inferno. But he never made it back out.

That debt of gratitude was a crushing weight, a mountain pressing down on the shoulders of everyone in the Smith family.

Twelve years ago, Anna's mother passed away from a severe illness.

From that day on, Anna moved into the Smith household and officially became their eternal "Baby."

If I hadn't firmly insisted that Liam move out into an apartment with me, they would probably still be living under the exact same roof, breathing the same air day in and day out.

The bathroom door clicked open. Liam walked out, drying his hair with a towel, and instinctively reached for his phone.

"Go to her."

My voice cut through the silence.

Liam froze, then quickly forced a laugh.

"Anna is just joking around. Don't say things out of anger."

"You know exactly whether she's joking or not."

I walked into the bedroom and locked the door behind me.

In the end, Liam didn't go.

He sat on the living room sofa for the entire night.

But I knew the truth. He didn't stay because he wanted to. He stayed because he lacked the courage to face my wrath.

Early the next morning, my phone rang.

Anna's voice came through the speaker, thick with fake tears.

"Auntie Hannah, are you mad at me?"

"Please don't fight with Daddy. Baby won't call him Daddy anymore. Baby will be good. Baby will behave."

Her tone was so sugary sweet it made my stomach churn.

I forced my voice to remain completely steady.

"I'm not mad. Didn't you say you wanted to celebrate Children's Day?"

Excitement instantly spiked in her voice.

"Are you going to help me celebrate, Auntie Hannah?"

"Exactly. I'm a preschool teacher. Nobody understands babies better than I do."

"Really? You're the best, Auntie Hannah!"

She cheered through the receiver.

"Baby loves you! Mwah!"

"I'll pick you up at seven in the morning on the holiday."

"Okay! Baby will be waiting!"

She hung up, her voice brimming with absolute joy.

Liam looked at me, hesitating, as if wanting to say something but swallowing the words.

I tossed the car keys in my hand and flashed him a smile.

"What? You don't trust me?"

He paused for a long moment.

"Just don't push her too hard. She's emotional. She can't handle being stimulated."

"I know."

I patted him on the shoulder.

"You and your parents can come by later. You'll see for yourselves whether I bullied her or not."

"That's not what I meant."

Liam tried to explain.

I waved my hand, cutting him off completely.

"Liam, take these next few days to really think things through."

"Think what through?"

I looked him dead in the eye, enunciating every single syllable.

"Think about whether we are still getting married or not."

He stared at me in stunned silence, rooted to the spot.

On the morning of the holiday, I pulled up to the Smith family home right on time.

Anna was dressed in a puffy princess gown, a crystal tiara pinned in her hair. She looked as meticulously styled as a porcelain doll in a shop window.

"Auntie Hannah, why didn't Daddy come with you?"

Her eyes sparkled as she peered into the empty backseat of my car.

I held the passenger door open for her.

"He'll be here later."

She slid into the seat, buckled up, and chattered non-stop the entire drive.

"Baby wants to ride the carousel today. And eat cotton candy. And Daddy has to buy Baby a giant balloon."

She clapped her hands together, then suddenly turned to look at me.

"Auntie Hannah, you aren't jealous, are you? Baby is just a little kid. You're an adult with a big heart, so you won't hold a grudge against Baby, right?"

"Of course not."

I smiled.

"I'm a preschool teacher. Why would I hold a grudge against a baby?"

We drove for forty minutes. She scrolled through her phone for a while before finally glancing out the window.

"Wait, this isn't the road to the amusement park."

"Of course not. We aren't going to the amusement park."

The color drained from her face.

"We're here."

I parked the car right in front of the preschool gates.

It was my workplace.

A massive red banner flapped in the morning breeze. It read: "Happy Universal Children's Day!"

"Auntie Hannah, why did you bring me to a preschool?"

Panic made her voice pitch even higher.

"To celebrate your holiday."

I unbuckled her seatbelt and tilted my head to look at her.

"Didn't you want the most authentic Children's Day experience? Is there anywhere on earth more authentic than a kindergarten?"

Her expression instantly froze.

"I don't want to go to preschool! I want to go to the amusement park!"

She was shrieking now.

"I want Daddy! I'm calling Daddy!"

"Liam and his parents will be here soon. Don't worry, they won't miss your performance."

"What performance?"

I stepped out, walked around to her side, and pulled her door open. I leaned in with a bright, professional smile.

"Every baby has to perform on stage today. It's the holiday pageant. Come on, hop out. Teacher will take you inside."

She didn't move an inch.

I held out my hand and waited with infinite patience.

Three seconds. Five seconds. Ten seconds.

Her lower lip jutted out. Her eyes pooled with red, looking like she was on the verge of a genuine sobbing fit.

"Hannah, are you trying to humiliate me?"

"Humiliate you?"

I put on my best face of mock surprise.

"Why would I do that? Didn't you say you wanted to celebrate the holiday?"

I nudged my hand closer to her.

"Come on. Be a good baby."

She bit her lip, holding my gaze in a silent war for three brutal seconds. Finally, she surrendered and placed her hand in mine.

I reached into the backseat, grabbed a small item, and pinned it directly to her chest.

She looked down. It was a standard-issue name tag.

It read: Senior Class, Anna.

I dragged her toward the main gates.

"Today, you are the newest student in the Senior Class. You are the cutest little Baby, so I just know you're going to love it here."

She dragged her feet, muttering something vicious under her breath as she followed me.

I didn't catch what she said, and I didn't care to.

Because I knew the real show was just getting started.

I pushed open the door to the Senior Class.

Twenty-five toddlers were sitting obediently in their tiny plastic chairs.

"Boys and girls, we have a brand new classmate joining us today to celebrate the holiday. Let's give her a big round of applause."

A smattering of confused clapping filled the room.

Anna stood in the doorway, her face twisted in pure agony.

Twenty-five pairs of wide, innocent eyes locked onto her.

"Whoa!"

A little girl in the front row dropped her jaw.

"That's a really big baby."

"That's a grown-up! Why is a grown-up coming to preschool?"

A little boy stood up and inspected Anna with absolute seriousness.

"Are you a teacher?"

Anna let out a strangled, awkward laugh.

"No, big sister is just here to..."

"She is a new student."

I cut in smoothly, patting Anna on the shoulder.

"Her name is Anna. She is... three and a half years old. She just transferred from another school. Everyone play nice with her, okay?"

Anna whipped her head toward me, opening her mouth to protest.

I leaned in close, dropping my voice to a harsh whisper.

"I thought you were a baby? Don't tell me you're backing out now."

Her mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water.

I assigned her a seat.

Our classroom furniture was built for toddlers. A fully grown adult woman cramming herself into a tiny plastic chair meant her knees were practically shoved against her chest. She looked like a tangled knot of limbs.

The kids' gazes swept over her like searchlights.

"She's so huge."

"Can she even fit?"

"Is she going to break the chair?"

A little girl with pigtails trotted up to her, tilting her head back to stare at Anna's face.

"Big sister, do you not want to be in preschool? My mommy says babies who don't want to go to school are bad babies."

Anna's eye visibly twitched.

"Big sister doesn't hate it."

"Then why do you look so grumpy?"

The little girl tilted her head the other way.

"You need to smile. You only look pretty when you smile."

The surrounding toddlers nodded in unison.

"Yeah! You have to smile!"

Anna forced out a smile that looked more painful than weeping.

The first period was arts and crafts.

I taught the class how to make origami frogs, handing out a square of colored paper to everyone.

The kids launched into action. Within five minutes, the floor was littered with colorful, deformed paper shapes.

Three minutes into the activity, Anna's piece of paper sat perfectly untouched on her tiny desk.

"What's wrong?"

I walked over.

"Does Baby not know how to fold it?"

She kept her voice low, her words grinding out through clenched teeth.

"Hannah, what the hell are you trying to do?"

She wasn't even calling me Auntie Hannah anymore.

"Teaching you how to grow up."

I kept my voice equally low, my bright smile never wavering.

"If Baby doesn't know how, Baby has to learn."

She glared at me, seething in silence.

I picked up the paper and physically guided her hands to fold it.

She remained entirely rigid, letting me manipulate her fingers like a lifeless wooden puppet.

Twenty minutes later, a horribly mangled origami frog sat on her desk.

"Ew, it's so ugly."

The little boy next to her delivered the brutal truth without an ounce of hesitation.

Anna's face flushed an ugly shade of dark red.

The second period was recess. I directed the kids out to the playground to use the slides.

Anna stood stiffly by the fence.

"I'm not playing."

"Why not?"

"This is for little kids to play..."

The sentence died in her throat.

I kept my beaming smile in place and amplified my voice to address the playground.

"Boys and girls, our new classmate says she's too scared to go down the slide. Let's cheer her on, shall we?"

Twenty-five toddlers chanted in unison.

"Go Anna! Go Anna! Go Anna!"

Their high-pitched voices echoed across the entire yard.

Anna's face cycled rapidly between red and pale white. Finally, a couple of overly enthusiastic kids shoved her toward the steps of the play structure.

She stood at the very top, peering down.

The plastic slide was built to the exact width of a toddler's hips. For an adult woman, it was physically impossible.

"I can't go down."

Her voice was weak, trembling.

"Yes, you can! Be brave!"

I yelled from the bottom, backed by twenty-five pairs of highly expectant eyes.

She took a deep breath, shifted her weight, and slid down an inch. She immediately wedged tight in the opening of the tube, stuck completely fast like a cork jammed into a wine bottle.

The kids instantly began whispering.

"She's stuck."

"I've never seen anyone get stuck on a slide before."

"That's so embarrassing."

Anna was practically suffocating from sheer mortification. She looked like she wanted the earth to swallow her whole.

In the end, it took me and another teacher physically hauling her by the armpits to pop her out of the slide.

The moment her feet hit the ground, her face was completely scarlet.

She shot me a look of unadulterated, venomous hatred.

At three in the afternoon, the Children's Day Pageant officially commenced.

The audience was packed with eager parents.

Liam and his parents had arrived and taken their seats.

The second Anna spotted them in the crowd, her eyes welled up with thick, dramatic tears.

"Daddy."

She opened her mouth to cry out to him, but I grabbed her arm in a vice grip.

"Hold on. It's your turn to go on stage."

She froze.

"On stage?"

"Every student has to perform. You are the star of the Senior Class today. You're our grand finale."

Her expression twisted into ugly outrage.

"Why? You didn't tell me this beforehand."

I gave a light chuckle.

"It's just a simple nursery rhyme. Do you really need to rehearse?"

I paused for effect.

"If you do a good job, there's a huge prize waiting for you."

Anna furrowed her brows, clearly calculating the odds in her head.

Before she could form a counterargument, I shoved her toward the backstage curtain.

Five minutes later, her name was called.

As she stepped out under the bright stage lights, Liam's family immediately broke into loud applause.

"You can do it, Anna!"

Anna gripped the microphone, taking a deep, dramatic breath.

She chose to sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." A song any breathing human could manage.

"Twinkle, twinkle, little star..."

The first line was somewhat on key.

By the second line, she was drifting. By the third line, she was screeching in a completely different galaxy.

The expressions on the parents' faces in the audience morphed from polite anticipation, to profound confusion, to people desperately biting their lips to hold back laughter.

Anna clearly knew she sounded terrible, but she didn't care.

Halfway through the verse, she suddenly twisted her ankle with a loud "Ouch!" and dramatically collapsed onto the stage floor.

Her eyes turned glassy. Fat tears hung on her lashes as she looked pitifully down at Liam in the front row.

I knew that look entirely too well.

I had been forced to watch it for three years.

Liam's heart immediately bled for her. He gripped the armrests of his folding chair, his body lifting to rush the stage.

I was faster. I stepped out and blocked his path.

"It's perfectly normal for babies to make a little mistake on stage. As adults, we need to give them the space to grow."

I turned to address the bewildered crowd, keeping my professional smile perfectly intact.

"Parents, we have to trust that our kids can stand back up on their own, don't we?"

The thoroughly confused parents nodded along. One father started clapping, and soon the entire auditorium erupted into supportive applause.

"You can do it! Stand up and finish the song!"

"It's okay, sweetie! You've got this!"

Anna lay sprawled on the floorboards, sheer disbelief plastered across her face. Her carefully orchestrated damsel-in-distress routine had completely imploded.

Taking my cue, Liam slowly began to clap.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith joined in, offering encouraging nods.

"Come on, Baby Anna! You can do it!"

Anna bit her lip so hard it nearly bled. She awkwardly dragged herself off the floor, gripped the microphone stand, and choked out the final two lines of the nursery rhyme.

Her singing, much like her entire existence in that moment, was utterly pathetic and completely ridiculous.

The pageant finally wrapped up, leading right into the award ceremony.

I stepped to the podium holding a cheap paper certificate and a single strawberry lollipop.

"And for Anna from the Senior Class, who showed immense bravery during today's performance, we present the Ultimate Encouragement Award!"

The audience clapped politely.

Anna stomped onto the stage, a dark, thunderous cloud hanging over her face.

She snatched the certificate and the lollipop from my hands, glaring down at them.

"This is it? This is the huge prize you promised?"

"Honor is the greatest gift of all."

I smiled brightly and pointed toward the front rows.

"Look how happy all the other babies are."

Every toddler in the room was holding an identical lollipop and an identical cheap certificate, grinning from ear to ear.

Anna looked like she was going to throw up. Her entire body was vibrating with unfiltered rage.

She barely managed to wait until the curtain dropped before sprinting directly into the backstage area.

"Hannah!"

She crumpled the paper certificate into a tight ball and hurled the lollipop violently at the wall.

"How dare you play me like this!"

The backstage area wasn't empty. A few toddlers were still milling about.

But Anna didn't care. She lost her mind, shrieking without a single shred of dignity.

"I told you, I wanted the limited-edition designer bag! I wanted French food! I wanted the amusement park! Are you completely deaf?"

I dropped my smile entirely. I stared at her with dead, cold eyes.

"Those are things adults ask for. Don't tell me... you aren't actually a baby?"

A little boy standing nearby nodded vigorously.

"Yeah. My mommy asks for designer bags and fancy dinners. Babies don't even know how to use forks and knives."

"And she just called Teacher Hannah by her first name. She didn't say Auntie."

"She's just a grown-up. She's really bad at pretending to be a baby."

Anna's chest heaved.

The last remaining thread holding her sanity together violently snapped.

"So what if I'm faking it?!"

She lunged forward and shoved me hard in the chest.

"You dared to mess with me, Hannah. I'll kill you!"

She took another step, her hands flying up to wrap aggressively around my throat.

Right at that exact second, the heavy velvet curtain to the backstage area was yanked back.

A row of people stood in the doorway, staring in absolute horror.