at first i thought he was cute, til i got to know him better, and i grew to like him more. but he only noticed me a year after, and even then he only regarded me as nothing more than a little sister.
i liked his comfort, and he was the one who gave me my first hug and forehead kiss in such a long time. we were never together, but he gave me so many of those.
at that time my brother and Mother were going out together a lot, while my elder one kept himself shut in his bedroom as much as he could. granny had moved out to my aunt's place earlier that year, and Dad was, as always, busy with work.
you couldn't blame me. if i ever met my 2009 and 2010 selves, i would stroke their hair and tell them, "it's alright, i know how you feel. what you are doing isn't wrong."
he never knew my feelings for him, because i thought there was no need to; he already loved me even without knowing how i felt about him.
or maybe he never loved me at all.
we shared our first kiss in October 2010. it was sensational and it gave me a tingly feeling even days after. who wouldnt feel so blissed, having kissed their crush of one year?
our first kiss was the last straw. i decided that i had to tell him how i felt about him. i was so confident he would accept me, because he wouldnt have kissed me if he didnt like me, would he? i really thought we could finally be together the way i wanted us to be.
he avoided and ignored me after i told him. and a week later, i found out he had a girlfriend. a girl who was not me.
came 2011.
i did my N Levels, and once again i was all alone at "home", when who texted me but none other than him. we met at where we used to hang out, where we used to lie down under the evening sky and talk about everything beneath it.
we passed by where we had our first kiss, but neither of us said a word.
it was a November night. the night sky settled on us, the sound of the waves crashing being the only sound, his aura the only presence i could feel. and when i turned to face him, he was the only thing i could see.
he leant it, and we kissed. our second kiss, a year after our first. with a half smile he whispered, "be my girlfriend?"
2012.
it was the first day of my sec 5 year, and it had been two months since we got together; my crush of two years and i. just a few weeks before 2012 started, i was unsure of whether i should go to sec 5 or not.
i was Normal Acad while he, Normal Tech. he told me he'd take it if he had the chance, which he didnt. i got his point; he also told me he'd be there for me if i needed him, because he knew i was still not confident about doing my O Levels.
i believed him. and there i was, in class 5/1, partly under his persuasion.
a week after i started for the fifth time in my sec school, he started in his new one. he had less time for me, but i didnt mind. i just managed to spend more time with my seven girlfriends. the last time we watched a movie at the cinemas together was I Not Naughty.
about two weeks after he'd started his tertiary education, he left me. i still dont know why because he kept switching his reasons; first he said i was too immature, and then he said he didnt have time for me, and then he said i just wasnt up to his parents' expectations.
it didnt matter shit to me. all i knew was that he left.
there was an accompanying conflict regarding my blog, which i wont elaborate about, and my ex English teacher was there. she told him; "you know E'indah has always been good in her writing. maybe she used it wrongly this time but she's always been a good writer. "
he looked at me and he said, "yes, i know that. i know she's a very good writer."
that was the last time he looked so proud of me.
he turned on his heels, and he walked away, without once turning back. that was the last time i ever saw him, up to this day.
i stopped blogging after that. the whole incident hit me hard. it stabbed me in my chest and pulled my heart out. a dozen times i told myself i would move on, a dozen times i surrendered my tears to the memories.
i wrote him a dozen letters and i drew a dozen pictures of the him that i knew. i kept thinking he would come back again like he did but of course. he didnt.
to add to my misery, i decided to leave my best friends. all seven of them. i didnt know what logic i had and what was i thinking.
and i suppose that's when everything went downhill. with my best friends, i had people to eat with during recess. i had them to ask questions whenever i didnt understand a maths piece of shit. i had people to look forward to meeting every day in school.
without them, i didnt go to the canteen during recess. i lost a good deal of weight last year. without them, i didnt have anyone to clear my doubts for me, and if i got stuck at a question i wouldnt ask anyone; i'd just sleep.
well, that was IF i even went to school. you couldnt blame me; school felt like Hell without friends. you'd think everyone was looking at you. this was what i meant when i said best friends are important for your school days.
my discipline master would chase me for my MCs for the days i was absent. well i never had that shit, because i wasnt really sick, so i had to be suspended from class til i gave an excuse letter. i sat outside the HOD office nearly everyday.
most of my subject teachers were HODs, and everyday they'd pass me by and give me things to do and revise on my own. i didnt like it. i wanted them to not give a single shit about me.
"what's happening to you E'indah?" my Humanities teacher once asked me. "i'm so tired but i really dont want to give up on you."
"just give up on me." i'd said to her. "why should you put effort on me when im clearly not making any effort myself?"
she stared at me for a moment before saying quietly, "you know i really feel like giving you one tight slap across your face right now for saying that."
the only subject i gave a shit about was English. i wrote a lot during my suspension days, and i wrote compos which remained unsubmitted to my English teacher.
the discipline master was my English teacher, but he was rarely in class because he had cases to attend to. well he had an assistant, who took over the class when he couldnt make it himself.
this assistant, who is another teacher, was one of the reasons why i looked forward to coming to school.
she was the one who read my writing the most. she read my compos and my writing book, this book that we had to write in every Wednesday and Friday morning. whatever i wrote, she read; including a sadist little note she caught me writing during her lesson.
she called me after class and she said, "you're angry. you are angry at the world. why are you so angry at the world E'indah?" i kept quiet.
she told me she had something she'd like me to do. since i liked writing, i was to write in a journal for her. things i'd want her to know, things i couldnt write in my compos, things i'd want to tell someone but have nobody to.
it was her way of making me come to school. with that journal, i'd look forward to having someone read what i wrote and the only way that would happen is if i went to school and passed it to her.
i heeded her instructions. i went on another solitary escapade to Smiggle and i got myself a pink notebook with a panda on it. when i got to my room, i sat down, and i wrote.
however, i disappointed her. the next school day after i'd written my first entry, i decided not to go school. i woke up, shut down my alarm, decided "ok i'm not going school" and that was it. i went back to sleep.
i was expecting the enemy to invade my territory any second; in this case, my parents were gonna bang their way through to my bedroom and scream at me to go to school.
they knew i hated school but they didnt understand why. all they could think of was that i was losing interest in my studies. which was not true at all but i didnt give a shit what they thought.
i was prepared for my parents' thrashing, but i still got shocked and pissed when my dad literally dragged me out of bed.
i showered without a word, but i was still hell bent on not going school that day, and i took my time to get ready. my dad got frustrated i suppose; and when i was in the middle of slowly tying my hair, he came in and yelled at me to stop doing it on purpose.
i ignored him and continued tying my hair. i always sat on the floor in front of my full length wardrobe mirror while doing so.
my dad decided he'd had enough, and he pulled me to get up. i went against him, with all my strength, trying to get out of his grip. he ended up dragging me across the floor, and i grabbed on to my open wardrobe door.
i wasnt going to let go of that door even if my arms broke, and apparently my dad wasnt going to let go of me either. he pulled and dragged me across the floor, and nope. my arms didnt break. but the door did.
there was the crack of it coming off its hinges, and only when it dropped onto the floor of the living room did my dad let go of me. my mom saw everything and started crying. her sobbing was the only thing i could hear as all of us stared at the door lying on the floor.
my dad started hitting me again and again, and all i could do was hold up my arms in an attempt to shield myself. i remember yelling non-stop; "i hate you! i hate you! i hate you i fucking hate you!!"
he only screamed back at me; "so what? SO WHAT!? I HATE YOU ALSO LAH!"
i reached school an hour after morning assembly, with an aching and bruised body, with snot and blood all over my uniform sleeves.
well who greeted me at the HOD office was none other than my English teacher's assistant. she cheerfully called my name and asked, "so how? have you written for me?"
i slowly took out the notebook and passed it to her, and she exclaimed, "pink again!" and when she opened and saw that i had written in pink ink, she laughed, "oh you've got to be kidding me!"
i looked forward to giving it to her everyday so she could read, and i looked forward to reading her responses.
and she was the only one who noticed my sleeve. "is that blood?" she'd asked.
i nodded. "i had a nose bleed."
and she nodded in acceptance.
i never cut my wrists. and i told myself never to do so. those scars were not easy to hide. and out there, people who cut their wrists always got heavily judged for being "attention seeking". in a hot country like mine, the shoulders were the best place to slash because you don't have to cover the cuts with long sleeves.
you couldnt blame me. i was alone. my parents hated me, my elder brother was too busy with his outside stuff to give a shit about his little sister. and my younger brother was too young, and i could imagine he was scared when he heard my fights with my parents.
when i was younger, i used to sleep with my granny. during the weekends she'd sleep at my aunt's place to help with some things, and i'd sleep in my parents' room with them and my younger brother.
there was once when he and i woke up in the middle of the night to hear my parents fighting. and when i say fight, i mean fight. my dad was hitting my mom and he kept hold of her to keep her down and screamed for her to admit something.
he was referring to what my mom told me not to tell him. my mom was with another man outside, and she brought me to see him. they werent acting like normal friends, and when she told me not to tell my dad, i couldnt help but go against her.
it was 3 in the morning and my mom was crying under the hold of my dad, at the foot of the bed. my little brother was awake too and he looked at me with his bright eyes and i held him close. we pretended to be asleep. and the next thing we knew, it was morning.
i knew how scared my brother was. and so was i.
from then on i was a lot closer to my dad than i was with my mom. and you couldnt blame me. and i was with my younger bro a lot too. my elder brother had his society to please.
came September of 2012. my 17th birthday had passed; nobody came to save me. i was still asleep under the waters, when a hand jerked me awake and held out to me.
my sec 5 class had their own little cliques. this particular girl had never talked to me before, at least not a proper conversation. but that day when we got back our prelims results, i'd gotten the highest in class for English again. she approached me and asked how i got so good in the subject.
she invited me to study with her, and believe it or not i was so happy. i had butterflies in my tummy and i was so excited til i went to my mom and i told her "Mommy. i'm going out to study with a friend. a FRIEND!" she didnt give a shit but i was so excited i didnt care.
that was when i started going for recess. her friends had invited me to eat with them, and i was more than happy to join them although i was really shy.
school days were nearly over, and i'd spent my last two weeks of the school year with my classmates. although i still didnt hang out with my girlfriends, things were getting better.
i did my O Levels. and came December of 2012. the class chalet.
by this time, i was not talking with my parents at all. i was staying with my aunt on and off, and my classmates meant the world to me again.
you couldnt blame me. i didnt like being "home" alone. it was the period where i stayed awake every night and only slept at 7 in the morning. it'd be the first time i wouldnt be staying up alone, and i didnt think my parents would give a shit anyway. we werent on talking terms.
so i stayed at the chalet with my classmates. i did leave earlier with the intention of heading back, but i decided to gallivant, and i ended up back at the chalet at 1 in the morning.
and that was the last time i ever stayed up til the morning.
i bonded with a classmate of mine through out this period. he was a best friend of mine, who was there for me again and again no matter how many times i pushed him away.
i got back to my house at 10 in the morning, and i thought of getting a shower but i fell onto my bed and straightway went to sleep. i woke up to the sound of my door banging; it was noon, and it was my dad.
i had locked my bedroom door, because i knew he was gonna thrash at me in my sleep if i didnt. i opened the door, and he straightway slapped me across the face. the impact pushed me a little back, but before i had time to steady myself, he gave me a few more blows.
i landed on my bed and i told him to stop, and he did. he spilled his heart out to me but i couldnt focus on his words. i was curled up, still recovering from the hits and there were tears all over my face.
all i remembered was; "i think your aunt can take care of yourself better than i can. when i got you that cheap camera with my hard-earned money, she got you a better camera. you obviously love her more than you love me."
i didnt deny anything. even if i did love everyone at Guillemard more than Pasir Ris, it wasnt because she always got me things. it was because everyone at Pasir Ris didnt show me the right kind of care.
my dad told me to pack my things and to get out. it wasnt the first time he asked me to go to my aunt's place, but this one seemed serious. he took my house keys and my Nike shoes, saying, "you dont deserve to keep anything that i'd ever bought for you."
looking to the back of my wardrobe, i found a pair of black shoes. they were broken and collecting dust, but they still fit. i left the house with my dad telling my brothers never to make contact with me ever again.
my aunt and granny welcomed me with open arms. my granny listened to my version of what happened, and she and my aunt understood my wanting to stay at the chalet. they understood.
that was the last time i saw my dad.
until now i have no regrets that the class chalet is the reason why i'm even staying in my aunt's place.
however it still didnt cease my insignificance to my classmates. i rarely met my classmates in person but whenever i spilled my heart out on the Whatsapp group, nobody replied me. whenever i said something, nobody regarded me.
it was only after i left that everyone thought of me. i was shown the conversation they had after i'd left and it upset me. i cried every time i thought about it; the reason why i'm even living here is because i decided to spend the time with them.
time went on. and those classmates were replaced with other people from all over the country; gathered together as ECE 1A1.
i wanted to start anew. i wanted so badly for everyone to accept me. at that time i had scars, and i covered them with my long sleeves. i was too afraid to even roll them up because i knew they were not gonna accept me.
but they did. everyone was different, and i liked all of them. i was happy with them, and i showed it. it seemed like a good start to my poly life, and i thought it was gonna be fine.
i got too close with one of them in particular, and i really liked this friend a lot. but i dragged him into my mess again and again, and i forced myself to take care of him, despite the fact that i was nobody. he couldnt take it i guess. he couldnt breathe, and who else was suffocating him but a nobody. me.
and i realised my mistake. i focused too much on my friendship with him that i didnt mix with the rest. his every action affected me so greatly; he was a best friend and he was like my brother.
but he got too close to me, and i told him all my stories; the knowledge of my past being the link between the both of us. thats why i didnt want to let this friend go.
maybe the past still affected me. maybe i was too emotional. or maybe they just started to see my true colours and that they thought i was weird.
and here we are again, i am where i am now. one thing is for sure; writing may have saved me but writing also killed me just as much.
i've never told my story in one shot. there are a thousand more details i've left out but this is all there is i have for now. i could think of more things to add here once i've published this but it doesnt matter.
this is the outline of my story, and everything that i am or everything that i have now is a link to what i once was and had.
you couldn't blame me. if i ever met my 2009 and 2010 selves, i would stroke their hair and tell them, "it's alright, i know how you feel. what you are doing isn't wrong."
he never knew my feelings for him, because i thought there was no need to; he already loved me even without knowing how i felt about him.
or maybe he never loved me at all.
we shared our first kiss in October 2010. it was sensational and it gave me a tingly feeling even days after. who wouldnt feel so blissed, having kissed their crush of one year?
our first kiss was the last straw. i decided that i had to tell him how i felt about him. i was so confident he would accept me, because he wouldnt have kissed me if he didnt like me, would he? i really thought we could finally be together the way i wanted us to be.
he avoided and ignored me after i told him. and a week later, i found out he had a girlfriend. a girl who was not me.
came 2011.
i did my N Levels, and once again i was all alone at "home", when who texted me but none other than him. we met at where we used to hang out, where we used to lie down under the evening sky and talk about everything beneath it.
we passed by where we had our first kiss, but neither of us said a word.
it was a November night. the night sky settled on us, the sound of the waves crashing being the only sound, his aura the only presence i could feel. and when i turned to face him, he was the only thing i could see.
he leant it, and we kissed. our second kiss, a year after our first. with a half smile he whispered, "be my girlfriend?"
2012.
it was the first day of my sec 5 year, and it had been two months since we got together; my crush of two years and i. just a few weeks before 2012 started, i was unsure of whether i should go to sec 5 or not.
i was Normal Acad while he, Normal Tech. he told me he'd take it if he had the chance, which he didnt. i got his point; he also told me he'd be there for me if i needed him, because he knew i was still not confident about doing my O Levels.
i believed him. and there i was, in class 5/1, partly under his persuasion.
a week after i started for the fifth time in my sec school, he started in his new one. he had less time for me, but i didnt mind. i just managed to spend more time with my seven girlfriends. the last time we watched a movie at the cinemas together was I Not Naughty.
about two weeks after he'd started his tertiary education, he left me. i still dont know why because he kept switching his reasons; first he said i was too immature, and then he said he didnt have time for me, and then he said i just wasnt up to his parents' expectations.
it didnt matter shit to me. all i knew was that he left.
there was an accompanying conflict regarding my blog, which i wont elaborate about, and my ex English teacher was there. she told him; "you know E'indah has always been good in her writing. maybe she used it wrongly this time but she's always been a good writer. "
he looked at me and he said, "yes, i know that. i know she's a very good writer."
that was the last time he looked so proud of me.
he turned on his heels, and he walked away, without once turning back. that was the last time i ever saw him, up to this day.
i stopped blogging after that. the whole incident hit me hard. it stabbed me in my chest and pulled my heart out. a dozen times i told myself i would move on, a dozen times i surrendered my tears to the memories.
i wrote him a dozen letters and i drew a dozen pictures of the him that i knew. i kept thinking he would come back again like he did but of course. he didnt.
to add to my misery, i decided to leave my best friends. all seven of them. i didnt know what logic i had and what was i thinking.
and i suppose that's when everything went downhill. with my best friends, i had people to eat with during recess. i had them to ask questions whenever i didnt understand a maths piece of shit. i had people to look forward to meeting every day in school.
without them, i didnt go to the canteen during recess. i lost a good deal of weight last year. without them, i didnt have anyone to clear my doubts for me, and if i got stuck at a question i wouldnt ask anyone; i'd just sleep.
well, that was IF i even went to school. you couldnt blame me; school felt like Hell without friends. you'd think everyone was looking at you. this was what i meant when i said best friends are important for your school days.
my discipline master would chase me for my MCs for the days i was absent. well i never had that shit, because i wasnt really sick, so i had to be suspended from class til i gave an excuse letter. i sat outside the HOD office nearly everyday.
most of my subject teachers were HODs, and everyday they'd pass me by and give me things to do and revise on my own. i didnt like it. i wanted them to not give a single shit about me.
"what's happening to you E'indah?" my Humanities teacher once asked me. "i'm so tired but i really dont want to give up on you."
"just give up on me." i'd said to her. "why should you put effort on me when im clearly not making any effort myself?"
she stared at me for a moment before saying quietly, "you know i really feel like giving you one tight slap across your face right now for saying that."
the only subject i gave a shit about was English. i wrote a lot during my suspension days, and i wrote compos which remained unsubmitted to my English teacher.
the discipline master was my English teacher, but he was rarely in class because he had cases to attend to. well he had an assistant, who took over the class when he couldnt make it himself.
this assistant, who is another teacher, was one of the reasons why i looked forward to coming to school.
she was the one who read my writing the most. she read my compos and my writing book, this book that we had to write in every Wednesday and Friday morning. whatever i wrote, she read; including a sadist little note she caught me writing during her lesson.
she called me after class and she said, "you're angry. you are angry at the world. why are you so angry at the world E'indah?" i kept quiet.
she told me she had something she'd like me to do. since i liked writing, i was to write in a journal for her. things i'd want her to know, things i couldnt write in my compos, things i'd want to tell someone but have nobody to.
it was her way of making me come to school. with that journal, i'd look forward to having someone read what i wrote and the only way that would happen is if i went to school and passed it to her.
i heeded her instructions. i went on another solitary escapade to Smiggle and i got myself a pink notebook with a panda on it. when i got to my room, i sat down, and i wrote.
however, i disappointed her. the next school day after i'd written my first entry, i decided not to go school. i woke up, shut down my alarm, decided "ok i'm not going school" and that was it. i went back to sleep.
i was expecting the enemy to invade my territory any second; in this case, my parents were gonna bang their way through to my bedroom and scream at me to go to school.
they knew i hated school but they didnt understand why. all they could think of was that i was losing interest in my studies. which was not true at all but i didnt give a shit what they thought.
i was prepared for my parents' thrashing, but i still got shocked and pissed when my dad literally dragged me out of bed.
i showered without a word, but i was still hell bent on not going school that day, and i took my time to get ready. my dad got frustrated i suppose; and when i was in the middle of slowly tying my hair, he came in and yelled at me to stop doing it on purpose.
i ignored him and continued tying my hair. i always sat on the floor in front of my full length wardrobe mirror while doing so.
my dad decided he'd had enough, and he pulled me to get up. i went against him, with all my strength, trying to get out of his grip. he ended up dragging me across the floor, and i grabbed on to my open wardrobe door.
i wasnt going to let go of that door even if my arms broke, and apparently my dad wasnt going to let go of me either. he pulled and dragged me across the floor, and nope. my arms didnt break. but the door did.
there was the crack of it coming off its hinges, and only when it dropped onto the floor of the living room did my dad let go of me. my mom saw everything and started crying. her sobbing was the only thing i could hear as all of us stared at the door lying on the floor.
my dad started hitting me again and again, and all i could do was hold up my arms in an attempt to shield myself. i remember yelling non-stop; "i hate you! i hate you! i hate you i fucking hate you!!"
he only screamed back at me; "so what? SO WHAT!? I HATE YOU ALSO LAH!"
i reached school an hour after morning assembly, with an aching and bruised body, with snot and blood all over my uniform sleeves.
well who greeted me at the HOD office was none other than my English teacher's assistant. she cheerfully called my name and asked, "so how? have you written for me?"
i slowly took out the notebook and passed it to her, and she exclaimed, "pink again!" and when she opened and saw that i had written in pink ink, she laughed, "oh you've got to be kidding me!"
i looked forward to giving it to her everyday so she could read, and i looked forward to reading her responses.
and she was the only one who noticed my sleeve. "is that blood?" she'd asked.
i nodded. "i had a nose bleed."
and she nodded in acceptance.
i never cut my wrists. and i told myself never to do so. those scars were not easy to hide. and out there, people who cut their wrists always got heavily judged for being "attention seeking". in a hot country like mine, the shoulders were the best place to slash because you don't have to cover the cuts with long sleeves.
you couldnt blame me. i was alone. my parents hated me, my elder brother was too busy with his outside stuff to give a shit about his little sister. and my younger brother was too young, and i could imagine he was scared when he heard my fights with my parents.
when i was younger, i used to sleep with my granny. during the weekends she'd sleep at my aunt's place to help with some things, and i'd sleep in my parents' room with them and my younger brother.
there was once when he and i woke up in the middle of the night to hear my parents fighting. and when i say fight, i mean fight. my dad was hitting my mom and he kept hold of her to keep her down and screamed for her to admit something.
he was referring to what my mom told me not to tell him. my mom was with another man outside, and she brought me to see him. they werent acting like normal friends, and when she told me not to tell my dad, i couldnt help but go against her.
it was 3 in the morning and my mom was crying under the hold of my dad, at the foot of the bed. my little brother was awake too and he looked at me with his bright eyes and i held him close. we pretended to be asleep. and the next thing we knew, it was morning.
i knew how scared my brother was. and so was i.
from then on i was a lot closer to my dad than i was with my mom. and you couldnt blame me. and i was with my younger bro a lot too. my elder brother had his society to please.
came September of 2012. my 17th birthday had passed; nobody came to save me. i was still asleep under the waters, when a hand jerked me awake and held out to me.
my sec 5 class had their own little cliques. this particular girl had never talked to me before, at least not a proper conversation. but that day when we got back our prelims results, i'd gotten the highest in class for English again. she approached me and asked how i got so good in the subject.
she invited me to study with her, and believe it or not i was so happy. i had butterflies in my tummy and i was so excited til i went to my mom and i told her "Mommy. i'm going out to study with a friend. a FRIEND!" she didnt give a shit but i was so excited i didnt care.
that was when i started going for recess. her friends had invited me to eat with them, and i was more than happy to join them although i was really shy.
school days were nearly over, and i'd spent my last two weeks of the school year with my classmates. although i still didnt hang out with my girlfriends, things were getting better.
i did my O Levels. and came December of 2012. the class chalet.
by this time, i was not talking with my parents at all. i was staying with my aunt on and off, and my classmates meant the world to me again.
you couldnt blame me. i didnt like being "home" alone. it was the period where i stayed awake every night and only slept at 7 in the morning. it'd be the first time i wouldnt be staying up alone, and i didnt think my parents would give a shit anyway. we werent on talking terms.
so i stayed at the chalet with my classmates. i did leave earlier with the intention of heading back, but i decided to gallivant, and i ended up back at the chalet at 1 in the morning.
and that was the last time i ever stayed up til the morning.
i bonded with a classmate of mine through out this period. he was a best friend of mine, who was there for me again and again no matter how many times i pushed him away.
i got back to my house at 10 in the morning, and i thought of getting a shower but i fell onto my bed and straightway went to sleep. i woke up to the sound of my door banging; it was noon, and it was my dad.
i had locked my bedroom door, because i knew he was gonna thrash at me in my sleep if i didnt. i opened the door, and he straightway slapped me across the face. the impact pushed me a little back, but before i had time to steady myself, he gave me a few more blows.
i landed on my bed and i told him to stop, and he did. he spilled his heart out to me but i couldnt focus on his words. i was curled up, still recovering from the hits and there were tears all over my face.
all i remembered was; "i think your aunt can take care of yourself better than i can. when i got you that cheap camera with my hard-earned money, she got you a better camera. you obviously love her more than you love me."
i didnt deny anything. even if i did love everyone at Guillemard more than Pasir Ris, it wasnt because she always got me things. it was because everyone at Pasir Ris didnt show me the right kind of care.
my dad told me to pack my things and to get out. it wasnt the first time he asked me to go to my aunt's place, but this one seemed serious. he took my house keys and my Nike shoes, saying, "you dont deserve to keep anything that i'd ever bought for you."
looking to the back of my wardrobe, i found a pair of black shoes. they were broken and collecting dust, but they still fit. i left the house with my dad telling my brothers never to make contact with me ever again.
my aunt and granny welcomed me with open arms. my granny listened to my version of what happened, and she and my aunt understood my wanting to stay at the chalet. they understood.
that was the last time i saw my dad.
until now i have no regrets that the class chalet is the reason why i'm even staying in my aunt's place.
however it still didnt cease my insignificance to my classmates. i rarely met my classmates in person but whenever i spilled my heart out on the Whatsapp group, nobody replied me. whenever i said something, nobody regarded me.
it was only after i left that everyone thought of me. i was shown the conversation they had after i'd left and it upset me. i cried every time i thought about it; the reason why i'm even living here is because i decided to spend the time with them.
time went on. and those classmates were replaced with other people from all over the country; gathered together as ECE 1A1.
i wanted to start anew. i wanted so badly for everyone to accept me. at that time i had scars, and i covered them with my long sleeves. i was too afraid to even roll them up because i knew they were not gonna accept me.
but they did. everyone was different, and i liked all of them. i was happy with them, and i showed it. it seemed like a good start to my poly life, and i thought it was gonna be fine.
i got too close with one of them in particular, and i really liked this friend a lot. but i dragged him into my mess again and again, and i forced myself to take care of him, despite the fact that i was nobody. he couldnt take it i guess. he couldnt breathe, and who else was suffocating him but a nobody. me.
and i realised my mistake. i focused too much on my friendship with him that i didnt mix with the rest. his every action affected me so greatly; he was a best friend and he was like my brother.
but he got too close to me, and i told him all my stories; the knowledge of my past being the link between the both of us. thats why i didnt want to let this friend go.
maybe the past still affected me. maybe i was too emotional. or maybe they just started to see my true colours and that they thought i was weird.
and here we are again, i am where i am now. one thing is for sure; writing may have saved me but writing also killed me just as much.
i've never told my story in one shot. there are a thousand more details i've left out but this is all there is i have for now. i could think of more things to add here once i've published this but it doesnt matter.
this is the outline of my story, and everything that i am or everything that i have now is a link to what i once was and had.
Please continue to write.
ReplyDeleteYou write beautifully, babe.
ReplyDelete