At this point I've watched 6 episodes of Thirteen Reasons Why and already starting to see a little of myself in Hannah Baker. You'd think we would kill ourselves without telling everyone what had been done to us first? Grab a snack, as she would say, because you'll be here on this post for a while. I am writing this in one shot and I hope whoever you are you'll read it in one too.
By the time you are able to read this I should be long gone. I've slit my arm from my semi-colon tattoo all the way to my inner elbow, cutting through all the tinier cuts that go across my wrist. These words are the blood that came dripping out, after all these years of being clogged up in my system.
Where do we start this story? Is the starting point of our life truly the day we were born? I don't believe we deserve to mix our innocence with our mistakes and havoc--I've always seen a line cutting through my life somewhere, I'm just not sure of its exact location.
Does my life start from the day I left my best friends in 2012? Or the first day of school, the day I met them all, way back in 2008?
Does this story start from the day I lost her? Or maybe the day I found out I had her?
Does it start from the day I last kissed the wind? Or the day we had our first kiss, back in 2013?
Does it start all the way back to the day my parents were making me?
Let's go to the day her parents were making her.
The 31st of January, 2015.
The idea was mine. This whole mess started with me. You were working the night shift at Ibis hotel, and I'd gone to fetch you. It's weird to think that I have a vlog from that very day, when we'd visited the cat cafe above Burger King. The calm before the storm, wasn't it?
The place we went to was called Mayo Inn, and there was a Cheers opposite. We got sandwiches there, remember? They weren't doing hourly charges, and we paid a hundred for a night; they didn't accept nets, and I waited for you at their lobby while you went to withdraw money.
My heart still quickens when I think about that day; when I think about any of the days we'd gone to a hotel. You know the truth of how I got pregnant, right? You took yourself out before you came, but you went back in after for some reason. I was so in love with you I didn't take notice or think there was anything wrong about that. We were stupidly in love, joined together again after one year of being absent from each other's lives.
Maybe I still am, but I need to force myself to write every single thing I've missed out. I have diary entries from the year, but when I read them back anyone could see how badly I was trying to cover up for you. My own way of protecting you. Maybe not anymore, right?
I already wrote the whole story of my pregnancy, but this shall be a clearer one.
My previous post titled "Unborn" was written in late 2015, but just only published a few days ago. That wasn't the whole truth either.
We went to Universal Studios on the 4th of March, 2015. At the time I was living at my Paya Lebar house, my granny's place. The day after my mom came over and we went back to our Pasir Ris house together, took a cab all the way on the Pan Island Expressway and Tampines Expressway.
When we were passing by Ikea I already felt like throwing up. I felt that wetness in my mouth, you know, right before you're about to throw up. That's when I furiously tapped my mom on her knee and somehow she understood, but she was too late. I'd thrown up all fucking over. It was funny though, because my mom actually took out a piece of tissue to pass to me. Like that pathetic piece of tissue could hold in all my vomit?
Do you remember my nephew? On 10th March, I was following my mom to her regular bakery supplies shop when she received a phone call. I heard her saying the prayer that a good Muslim says upon the news of someone's passing. It was my cousin and his wife's first child, a son. He passed away a day after birth.
I couldn't stop crying, even though I'm not that close with this cousin. Just bawling, endless tears. Maybe it was the life that was starting to form inside me at that time. Maybe it was already giving me a motherly instinct. Nobody will ever know.
A few days later we had a wedding to attend to, all the way in Kuala Lumpur. My grandmother is from Malaysia so my mom has lots of cousins and relatives from there. Everyone mistook my vomiting episode as fever, even me. From young, I will always throw up whenever I was sick. It was nothing to be worried about at all. Still, they got me those asam things to suckle on if I felt like throwing up.
At the time I had this favourite shirt, the one that's grey in the front and checkered green down the back and the sleeves. I was wearing it on that road trip to Kuala Lumpur. We had our lunch at a pit stop, the one with Baskin Robbins opposite the toilets, I'm sure you know that one.
I didn't have appetite to eat rice, and my mom got me porridge. I threw it up when we were walking to the car. If you brought me to that pit stop again, I could show you exactly where I'd stood, hunched over with my granny rubbing my back.
One of the relatives got us a villa to stay in, my family and the others who came from Johore. That night upon reaching I had dreams of that house, I dreamed of a family of three, a little daughter sleeping in a crib in that very room I was sleeping in. They weren't white per se but their skin was so, so pale. I told my cousin about it, when she arrived with her husband; I'm not sure if she remembers.
The day of the wedding my mom and I got into an argument. It was so stupid and insignificant; she was mad at me for not waking up on time and kept yelling at me. I called her a bitch when I was walking to the bathroom, and she gave me one hard hit on my back. Such a tiny detail, but how would she feel if she'd known I was pregnant at the time?
On the trip back to Johore we made a stop at the place with a bridge, the one with A&W on it, I think. Or was it Marrybrown? I can't recall for some reason. But I can remember using the Wifi there and seeing lots of messages from you; the way you said you couldn't stop thinking of me and you couldn't sleep from missing me and "I really can't live without you".
When we got back to Singapore my mother brought me to a clinic for my rashes. I'd developed some on my legs at the time, and after explaining about them to the doctor, she mentioned my nausea to him as well. He said they weren't related to each other, and then asked me, Could you be pregnant by chance? And I said no.
I made a video called Document Your Life for March 2015; I made it on my brother's 15th birthday, and when I went to dinner with the family I texted you: Do you think I might be pregnant? My period didn't come for the whole of February and it's not coming for March either.
You were so scared, you panicked. You begged me not to ever mention such a possibility. It was clear from then that you never wanted her. That you never had the intention to stay whether or not I gave you what you wished for.
My sister-in-law got me the test kit thing, and when it showed up positive I was deadly calm. I called you, and I lied to you, saying it was negative. You were so relieved, you said Thank God, and I was already holding back my tears. I really wanted to protect you, you know. I was planning to keep it secret from you until I aborted it.
Half of the reason why I didn't want to keep her was because of my parents. They already had a granddaughter outside of marriage, and I didn't want them to think there was something wrong with the way they raised their children.
You were still most of the reason. I loved you so much, I still do and I always will even if the whole world tells me not to. I wanted you to be happy, more than anything. I honestly daydreamed about keeping it from you, but I couldn't. I was a terrible liar and you were already suspicious of me, you were almost accusing me of cheating on you. You called me the worst girl you ever met, do you remember?
I cracked, and I told you a week after I took the test. You were terrified, and I regretted telling you immediately after. I hated the things you were saying to me but I hated seeing you so scared. I wanted to protect you from it, so so so fucking bad but I failed at it, like I always do.
Remember the few days when I was badly craving for pancakes? You brought me to the Gelare at One Km Mall, where I got banana pancakes. I'd worn my maroon shirt tucked into my black skinnies and had my hair in a ponytail, and you told me I looked like a minah from behind.
You stared at me while I ate my pancakes, with that in-love look on your face, and you told me, "I'm just gonna stare at you right now."
You sent me a song that you were obsessed with at the time; it couldn't have been more perfect. If all we have is time then we'll be alright / it's not much but it's better than nothing / We're running on fumes but we'll make it through the night / it's not love but it's better than dreaming.
You went to meet your friends that night, one of them coming back from Australia after two years. You confided in them about your situation, and one of them, the one who never really liked me the most, asked you "How sure are you that it's yours?"
And you came to ask me. You came to fucking ask me, "Are you sure it's mine?"
We argued again that night. I couldn't fucking believe you asked me that.
That question started everything. It started all my fucked up thoughts and all the feelings I had for my fucking baby.
We talked about getting jobs--you'd just ended your internship at Ibis hotel, and we were both just freeloading at home and not having much income. Talked about the abortion and realised how badly we needed money at the time.
I contacted an agency on the 30th of March, 2015 and they told me to come down to their office the next day. That night I'd gone to visit my grandfather at hospital with my mom, and we slept overnight. I slept on the cold hard fucking floor; such a tiny detail but to have done so while pregnant. It actually hurts to think about; I never cared much about her didn't I?
At that time I was reading a book called My Heart And Other Black Holes. It revolved around a website where people meet to make plans for suicide together. The protagonist meets someone who wants to do it on April 7th. What an eerie coincidence, wasn't it? I'd already had ideas then: I daydreamed about dying together with the life inside me. Maybe I was already starting to fall into depression then, but we'll never know.
The next day I went to the agency at Bishan. I got a job at Popular One KM, starting on the 1st of April, 2015. I was terrified, but little did we know it turned out to be my second home. But that shall maybe be a story for another day.
Here's another part where I need to rewrite my story.
I never mentioned much of this in my diary entries or blog posts.
There was a night when I listened to this one song repeatedly: Breathe, by Taylor Swift. It's such an old song, I'd listened to it on a CD player back in sec two. It was way past midnight, and I mentioned keeping it to you. I didn't want to do it, I didn't want to abort it, I wanted so badly to keep it.
And you said "Sure, you can keep it. But just know that you won't have me around anymore if you do."
Do you remember?
I also vaguely remember you mentioning that you would give me money every month as financial support. But you made it clear that if I kept it, you would leave my life. You made it clear that it was a choice between a life with you, and a life without you.
And you wonder why I always asked you to choose me over your friends.
There's nothing else to blame but my stupidity, the love I had for you. I loved you so much and I was so, so, so willing to do anything to make you happy. There was never anyone else to blame but myself. I should have seen by then that you never had any intention to keep me.
You promised me that you would give me another baby in the future. You kept telling me that you did want to keep it too, 'trust me I want it just as much as you do', but that 'it just isn't the right time'. And when I brought up the topic of adoption, you got angry, you told me "I'll never let anyone else have what's mine, ever. I'd rather let God have it than someone else."
I cried almost every night, and when I told you, you said my tears were like tap-water to you, 'so common and meaningless'.
Do you remember? Because I do. So clearly.
I started work at the place which turned out to be my most favourite place in the world. During my lunch break I called you, you were at home, and you told me not to carry heavy things. I said okay, but unfortunately I had to, because it was my job. I didn't want to complain about anything when my colleagues told me to do this, or carry that, I didn't protest. I was doing my job.
On my first day, one of my best friends now taught me how to do Housekeeping duty. You know what that's about, right? Whoever's on duty has to open and close the doors when the time is right, and throw the rubbish down at Basement.
Maybe it's nothing much to you. But imagine being four months pregnant and pushing a trolley filled with cartons and carrying bags of rubbish. Lifting that huge metal divider that goes between the shutters and using all my energy to slot it into that fucking gap at the top of the store. You won't know how annoying that thing is unless you work here. And I did it until I was four months in. I could do anything you know?
In early May there was World Book Day and we had to hang the posters on these metal bars that are suspended from the ceiling. They made us part-timers do it, and I climbed up right to the top of the ladder to hang those stupid posters; at the time I was three and a half months pregnant.
I didn't complain, not once. But I was scared. At the time I'd grown over-attached to it, and I was grateful that it wasn't showing much because it was easy to hide. But I was scared if there was anything wrong with it because it was so unusually small. I was never a healthy person to begin with and I started thinking of my every little action because I know everything I do will affect it.
Remember the day I'd fainted at work? During morning briefing when my vision started to blur and my knees went weak and my hearing slowly disappeared. When I realised what was happening my Chinese Department colleague and manager were carrying me to the office.
I was
so
fucking
scared.
And where were you? You were at home, sleeping. We were arguing that day, I remember. I tweeted that I'd collapsed at work and a girl from your secondary school replied to it, asking if I was alright. It's funny how I remember the smallest details, but I always do.
I brought myself to the polyclinic when I came to. My best friend from secondary school, the one with a gem for her name: she had to take an injection for a trip she was taking too, so we'd gone together. We had to wait for more than an hour, so we got donuts and bubble tea and sat at the community centre in the meantime.
And I told her. It was difficult too, but way easier than if I'd told any of the other girls in the clique. All of them were so pure at the time, never having boyfriends and never knowing the feeling of giving a boy your everything. I've always been sickly involved with boys back in school, and I knew deep down that if I'd told any of them about it, they would have secretly thought I deserved it.
That day at the polyclinic was my first time talking to a doctor on my own, without my mother even waiting for me outside. So insignificant, but it was a sign of my growing up, wasn't it? They made me pee into a stupid little tube, and when the doctor confirmed again that I was pregnant, he asked: "Are you keen on this pregnancy?"
I shook my head because what else was there to do, right? And so he referred me to KKH Women's Hospital.
Life wasn't very nice to me during my pregnancy. I had to hear the news of my nephew passing away a day after birth. I had to go through Mother's Day with my sister-in-law telling me I have a baby and that I am a mother too. I had to let my niece come near me and smile at me and then later hearing my sis-in-law saying that babies can sense when you're pregnant.
And I never told you this but there was a time when my mother walked into the room and asked me if my period was here. She knows whenever I get mine, because I would have soaked and hung my underwear in the toilet, something I hadn't done for a long time. She told me that my granny asked her to ask me, and then she told me to stand up. She said I looked fatter, and I was so fucking terrified that day and I don't remember what lie I'd said to get her off my back.
I hated the nausea. Everytime I had my lunch at work, I would lean over the toilet, waiting for whatever to come spilling out of my mouth. Most of the time it refused to come out despite the nauseous feeling in my stomach being so damn fucking strong. I developed a habit of poking my finger down my throat to force myself to puke, I just couldn't stand it.
Imagine not being able to talk to your own best friends about it. We once all met for dinner, where I stuffed my face with lots of ice-cream, and my stomach was bloated afterwards; they started joking that I was pregnant, and pretended to talk to my stomach. Only the girl with a gem for a name knew there was something growing in me for real. The way the life inside me was being talked to, but as a joke. "I may be a mother but I sure am a cruel one." a line from my diary entry that day.
You didn't make it any better. We hung out around Pasir Ris one time in May, bought ourselves hotdogs from the 7-11 at Downtown East and sat at the stairs between the escalators. You wanted to make out, asked if we could go to the toilet in the middle of Pasir Ris Park. Your exact words being "You're already pregnant, what's the worst that could happen?" And whenever we argued, I'd ask you to remember what I'm doing for you; you'd say "What are you even doing for me?"
I remember the day we went out and watched Child 44 at Jem, how I tried to tell you again that I wanted to keep it. You told me, I will always remember, "We can't have it, not right now. Trust me I want it just as much as you do, but now is not the right time. I promise I'll give you another one in the future." You, the wind, the hurricane, will always be cruel. I never wanted 'another one'; just my first. But of course I listened to you, I loved you too much, me and my stupidity.
That one day, when you knew how much I wanted to keep her and you were so scared that I would do that; your words: "I keep wishing you will fall and have a miscarriage," but at least you apologised for that, right? The word 'sorry' solves everything doesn't it?
This one time, when I was on the way to work on the train; this Indian woman had boarded the train with her son, and she took the empty seat beside me. Her son started to squeeze between her and me, and that day I was honestly not feeling well at all, I think I was past three months at the time. I really needed that fucking seat; but of course everyone stared at me, waiting for me to get up and offer my seat to her fucking son. So I did.
And I so badly wanted to scream: I'M
FUCKING
PREGNANT.
This post is getting so hard for me to write right now.
When did I start falling in love with my child?
Imagine being a worthless person your whole life, beaten by your elder brother as a kid and by your father as a teenager. Being disliked by all the kids in your secondary school, not belonging with the people at polytechnic, being the girl who makes her boyfriend's friends say "Aamir you deserve someone way better."/"Aamir why did you go back to her, why are you licking back what you've spat out?"
I'll never forget 8th April, 2015. The way I'd cried like an idiot on the bus going home from work. I started tearing up at the bus stop, and one of the other part timers was passing by and saw me cry. He's long gone from Popular now, but I'll always remember him as the one person who knew then that something was wrong with me.
A song that goes: Turn off the lights when you leave / 'Cause we've got everything we're gonna need / We're gonna run we're gonna run we're gonna run child / We're on the run we're on the run we're on the run child giving me ideas, making me daydream about running away with my second soul but making me cry, knowing it was more than impossible.
I wanted it so, so, so, much. And I kept it to myself because I didn't want you to say things that would hurt me. I had to pretend that I thought keeping it was never an option. But I never stopped daydreaming about disappearing from your life and bringing it along with me.
I fell sick in mid-May, exactly on the day I was supposed to go KKH for my scan. I really wanted to see my baby, but tried as I could I didn't have the strength to get out of bed. I cried the whole day, I refused to eat and I ignored all the texts and calls from you. I hated that I loved you so much, I wanted my child so damn fucking much.
I called KKH and made a new appointment for the 2nd of June, 2015. My heart expanded and shattered at the same time that day, seeing that monochromatic screen. The past twenty years of my life, I'd been so useless, not worth shit in this ever-moving world. So tiny and insignificant on earth and the afterlife--and then being blessed with a life growing inside me.
Do you know how it felt?
You wouldn't, unless you've been pregnant yourself. Unless you've been shunned by society and ignored or hated by everyone around you yourself.
I was stunned, looking at that screen. I started tearing up, definitely, and then I hesitantly asked the nurse: "Is it possible to tell if it's a girl or a boy?" She said she'd try to see, and while watching her pinch and zoom in the screen here and there, I held my breath.
I always thought having a girl first is perfect. I grew up believing elder brothers are pieces of shit, and I didn't want my first to be a boy.
And then she said the one word that shattered me in all ways: girl. It was more than enough to make me so excited and at the same time deflated because I can't fucking keep her. But she moved, I saw her move, and I didn't know whether I'd wanted to laugh or cry at that moment.
I also wished you'd been there to see her for yourself too. Maybe you wouldn't have moved on so quickly then. It was amazing, she was amazing, I was amazing.
The nurse asked if I wanted to keep a picture of it, which of course I wanted to, more than anything. Just one shot of her, the life growing inside me, the heart beating next to mine. A mere piece of paper already curling at the sides that I carried with me wherever.
I had my last counselling session afterwards. I was constantly asked Where is your boyfriend? I told the counsellor you couldn't make it because you lived in Johore. She said there was no excuse, but I tried to defend you by telling her that you'd be there during the procedure. Then she said the sentence that rang in my head constantly after it was all over: "The guy can be there throughout everything but at the end of the day it's only the girl who suffers."
Again, she tried to talk me out of the abortion. I didn't cry throughout all the counselling sessions I'd had thus far, would you believe it? I kept composure and just smiled through all the talks with the people of the hospital.
Only one exchange cracked me, when I said I was doing it for my mother, remembered up until now:
"Would you rather hurt your mother or hurt your baby?"
"My mom is more important."
My first tears shed after all the interactions with counsellors, nurses, doctors.
My last room for the day: a doctor who gave me the final appointment. I was told to report to Admissions at noon, the 8th of June, 2015, and expected to stay for at least two days. And that for 19 weeks, it could not be by vacuum anymore, but a 'slightly more painful method'.
I took the North East Line back to Outram Park, and then all the way to Pasir Ris. I went to Ikea on bus 58, bought myself a corkboard. How normal life seemed to be, huh?
I informed my manager that I was going to take MC for two days, on the 8th and 9th June. I was a part timer then, and I told her I was supposed to get some sort of bullshit surgery for my spine. I didn't know what the fuck else I was supposed to say.
And then I told my parents that my best friend, the one with a gem for her name, was going to be alone at home for a few days because the rest of her family was on holiday. I told them that she didn't go along with them because she had school and assignments to finish, and could I accompany her with a sleepover?
You'd informed your mom that you were sleeping over at your best friend's place, the best friend that we weren't even talking to at the time, but that shall be a story for another time too.
All was set.
The remaining days between my last appointment and my admission, I slept on my left side, so I wouldn't be lying down on her head. I listened to Two Of Us On The Run and Fumes on repeat and cried myself to sleep whenever I could and I kept it all from you. I didn't want you to tell me again, "Your tears are like tap-water to me, so common and meaningless."
And on the day itself, the 8th of June, 2015; I was calm. Taking the train to Bugis, walking to the bus stop with the shuttle bus to KKH, it was all becoming a norm. I didn't really feel any fear, it'd felt like any other day. Maybe it was just me surrendering the one thing that mattered. Maybe it was like how an old man would be calm on his deathbed.
Lucky for us it was the day of my salary, so we managed to make a payment of 800 bucks. Just a complete sweep of my bank account, but it was all we could do to make sure no letters were sent to my house. They mentioned sending a bill over to my address if I still owe the hospital anything.
I was brought to Ward 42, Bed 10. A bed by the window, how perfect huh? I was a mother, but also still the girl who loved looking out windows and sitting on windowsills.
They made me change into a red-brown garb that hung to my ankles, and you probably said I looked cute in it. Then two nurses tried to hook me up to that machine thing, but they couldn't find any veins big enough for it or something, so they started hitting my hands. In the end they hooked me from my right hand, rendering me completely useless and not being able to feed myself or sign all the stupid documents they made me sign afterwards.
One last counsellor came over to my bed, still trying to get me to change my mind. It did me more hurt than anything, because of course I wanted to run from that hospital and run from the country and maybe from the world, anything at all as long as I could keep her. And she told me: "Don't ever feel like you have no choice."
Of course I had a choice. And now, thinking back, I made the choice between my daughter and a boy who never had any intention to stay. My stupidity, my love for someone who would leave in two years' time over someone who would have spent her whole life believing I was beautiful.
A doctor explained to me that she will be putting in pills into me from down below, one pill every five hours for five times. Before she started, she told me: "Are you sure you want to do this? It's still not too late for you to change your mind, at this point of time. But once I put in the first one we can't go back."
And I just wanted to die.
It would have been so much easier.
But I nodded.
And she drew the curtains over my bed, told me to lift my knees and spread my legs, and then she placed a pill inside me. And it hurt like hell and when she left, I looked at you and at my best friend with a gem for her name, you both looked at me, and then I started to cry. Was it from the pain, was it from the fear, was it from the longing to keep her?
We never expected it to be a slow, painful process. I guess the pills part wasn't so bad, because we were just waiting for it to slide out. They told me I'd just have the normal discomfort of wanting to pass motion, but they really underestimated that one. I kept walking to the toilet in my bare feet, sitting on the toilet bowl but having nothing come out at all. One of the nurses also mentioned that it would be exactly like giving birth.
The only difference? I wouldn't be getting my baby.
You left for a while to eat at Mac, but then you couldn't come back in because visiting hours were over. And I was so miserable, wanting you around but at the same time not being able to care if I was alone or not. You told me you walked around Bugis, that it was a walking distance from KKH.
I didn't have much appetite by the second day. The makcik who gave us patients our food came over, asked me to choose what did I want to eat, or something right? And I didn't pay attention to anything and you answered for me, but I hated you and everyone and everything so much. I just remember having the strength to say thank you to whoever aided me, that much I know.
It was the day the new Mockingjay Part 2 trailer came out. I watched that and then went to watch the music video for Safe And Sound, and for the whole day afterwards that song was stuck in my head. You sat next to my bed the whole time, stroking my hair and occasionally falling asleep with your head touching mine, both of us jolted awake when nurses came to check my blood pressure.
They were constantly changing the doctor's nameplate that hung above my bed, and you told me Look, there are so many people here looking after you. And I said yeah, but none of them are my parents. Remember?
By that evening the five pills were already inserted but nothing was happening. The doctor came and told me they had to start a new procedure, a much more painful one. And I thought the five pills was the most painful it could get???
I couldn't even pay attention to what was happening anymore, I was so tired. But I remember the doctor putting a stick-like object into me from below, and this one hurt like hell and I even tried to pry her hands away. It was needed to hold my womb open so the fetus could slide out easier.
I thought the pills were bad enough, but this one was a million times more slow and painful. Time didn't seem to move at all, and I couldn't bring myself to eat or talk, and I kept making these whimpering sounds because it was all I could muster. My stomach was as hard as stone, and you were resting your hand on it and agreeing, that's when you moved your hand up and did what you'd always liked to do.
Don't you remember? In midst of all my misery, you slid your hand under the hospital dress and groped me, fondled my breasts and fingered my nipples. You never learned, did you, oh, Aamir Bin Kamsari. I should have known then that you would never go to the right path no matter what I wore or what I did or how I became. And we both just constantly blamed me for it. The harder I tried to bring you away the angrier you got for bringing you there in the first place.
I am drinking all the coffee I can in order to stay awake and write this in one shot, even though it's getting difficult. I would never have the composure to record tapes like Hannah did, and you would never have the balls to listen to my voice saying all that I have written here. You're afraid of me, my voice and my words, just the same as how I am afraid of you, your hands and your actions.
You left shortly after visiting hours that day. You told me you missed your mom, and while you were going home to her, I was texting my father, telling him I was staying over my friend's house for one more night. Of course he got mad, so I turned off my data and threw my phone to the side and curled into a ball beneath the blanket.
I opted for the lowest class ward, and there were just these weak fans turning round and round above our beds, but it was still freezing, even after I turned mine off. The painkillers they gave me earlier were fading and the pain was coming back. Imagine feeling like all of your organs might slide out of you anytime soon, that's how it felt, but a million times more.
Again, I kept walking back and forth to the toilet. But nothing came out. It hurt like hell, and they gave me more painkillers but I threw them all up.
I don't know what time the extreme pain started. The time just crawled by when I felt it starting to slide out, and my whimpers turned to groans, which later turned to screams. I looked for the emergency button, desperately pressing it to call for the nurses or whoever the fuck could help me, even if it was a fucking angel coming or God himself coming personally to take me the fuck away. Anyone, anything, anyhow, just make it fucking stop make it fucking stop I'm so so so sorry I didn't want to do this I want her I want her I want her.
Just close your eyes, the sun is going down. You'll be alright, no one can hurt you now. Come morning light, you and I'll be safe and sound.
I woke the whole ward up with my screaming. I'd really gone through it all at that point of time. You could split me in half with an axe or run a chainsaw through me or twist my head until it snapped off my neck and it would all be nothing to me. It was nothing compared to going through hours-long labour and getting an undeveloped, bloody body between my legs instead of a breathing, living baby girl, and knowing it was my choice.
I looked at my phone shortly after, I don't know why. But I saw the time and I'll always remember it: 5:32 in the morning. The last thing I saw was that, and the last thing I heard was 'Muslim cemetery', before I closed my eyes and finally fell dead to the world of slumber.
Later on, a few months after, we both found out together what was verse 5:32 in the Qur'an. I'm sure you remember, but I don't know how you could continue living after reading that.
When the sun started rising, patients started waking up and nurses started bustling out and about. I woke up too, but not fully as I watched one of them checking my blood pressure again. The narrow tube that ran from my hand to the drip was all red, my blood running from my veins and through the tube. I don't know what the fuck happened there but it was a sight I would never forget.
I used the last of my energy to text my manager that I was still at the hospital and couldn't make it to work that day.
The doctor came and talked to me but I just wasn't hearing anything. I was slipping in and out of sleep, or oblivion, or my dreams, or anything that sits between this reality and the next. I heard her voice saying, "I think she's very tired." and that again was the last thing I heard.
You came a few hours later, and they transferred me to a stretcher-like bed, brought me to the operations theater or whatever it was called. You later told me that my bed was all bloody and there were bits of meat, probably remnants of the umbilical cord.
I was injected at near the base of my spine, and I couldn't feel my legs afterwards. They had to vacuum my down below, to clean it and rid it of whatever's left from the fetus or whatever shit, I couldn't be bothered to listen. They wheeled me back to my bed hours later, and told me I can't go home until the anaesthetic is completely gone.
They told me not to get up and to call them if I needed to pee, and my passing urine would be the indication that the anaesthetic is faded. Never in my life have I tried so hard to pee, you remember that don't you? We drew the curtains over my bed and you helped me up, carried me against you and pretended we were dancing. We got scolded for that, and also for carrying me to the toilet to pee.
I kept asking the nurses to let me go home that night. They told me I had to stay for another day at least, but I wasn't having it. The doctor tried to talk to me again and that's when I told her, My parents don't even know I'm here, I really need to go right now.
They made me sign more documents, or more like scribbled on because my right hand was still useless, gave me medicine, gave me brochures about post-abortion care and all the things which I couldn't bring myself to give a shit about. We finally left the hospital about half an hour before midnight.
I got back to work a day later, with my first period after 5 months. Actually I'm not sure if it was technically my period, because I started bleeding below when she came out, and it never completely stopped.
All my life, I have been rude to my parents, yelling at my mother and fighting with my father, making them both cry, running away from home, disappearing overnight and feeling no remorse looking at my own grandmother cry for me, I have been a flame, letting you fuck me in handicap toilets and going down on you in staircase alleys, walking past donation boxes for mosques and people needing my help and beggars needing money for their meals. I've done so much sin, and the only one that I will ever ask for forgiveness for is when I made the choice to throw her.
My biggest mistake in life was not having her. It was losing her.
And I'm so sorry.
She would have been so beautiful, despite having such an ugly mother you know? Even til today, I would do anything to hear her cry again. Just cry, I'm not scared anymore, I just want to hear her again. It's been two weeks since I lost you, Aamir, but everyone knows getting over you is the easy part. It's getting over her that's difficult, even after two years. I never stopped the habit of protectively placing a hand over my stomach. A heart beating next to mine; my only purpose in life, after twenty years of being useless and never belonging anywhere.
I already felt a bit of the depression even before I lost her. It worsened afterwards, even though I was so deadly calm to you all the time. I couldn't look at people the same way again. I couldn't hear my niece cry or see her laugh without feeling a million knifes stabbing into me. I always disliked children my whole life, but after the whole episode I couldn't help staring at little Malay girls in public, wishing I had mine.
We'd built the lies so damn carefully and intricately during the whole hospital stay. But one time in mid or late June, when I was sleeping over at my grandmother's place, she received a call from my mom. She hung up and asked me, "Kak, surat apa tu kak?" KKH had sent a letter to my address, because I forgot that technically I'd overshot my stay and owed them for it. I tried to shut her out, I didn't answer her and ignored her until I fell asleep.
The next day I was going off to Popular Headquarters to sign my contract because I was converting to full-time. My bank account was completely gone, and I think you'd just started working at Domino's around that time, right?
I was living on two dollars a day and constantly worrying about our finances to the extent of you saying: "If you're so worried about money why don't you just sell yourself on Geylang then?" Why did I get so hurt over that? I'd gone through so much worse, it shouldn't have fazed me. But of course I added it to my collection of things that made me want to die.
When I was taking the bus back to Jurong East MRT from Popular HQ, my father texted me, about the damn letter. I tried to ignore it, I get my anger from him so you could only imagine the things he was saying to me. And you, where were you? Sitting at home with your mother, the mother that still thought her middle child was so perfect, not knowing about the potential granddaughter she'd almost had.
You were there a few days or weeks later, when my father texted me again, being so angry and accusing me of exactly what I'd stayed at the hospital for. You read his texts together with me, your head leaning against mine, while waiting for 168 at the old Woodlands interchange.
I cried in front of you, but you never felt the pain. Your parents didn't know, and I think they still don't even until today. I cried on buses 168 and 88 home, wiping my eyes and nose on the sleeves of my stupid black cardigan. I cried myself to sleep, woke up the next day with swollen eyes. I kept wondering why they couldn't understand that I did it for them.
My father never talked to me after that, never did all the way to Hari Raya 2016. And you realise, despite knowing about it all, he accepted you when you came over to my open house last year. My grandmother, the one who's cried so many times for me, accepting you whole-heartedly and constantly asking about you even though it hurt her a million times more than you can imagine. Don't you feel any remorse at all?
When you enlisted in August 2015, I felt so alone. Being on my own in the outside world with the loss still fresh on my mind and body. I can just remember 31st of August, 2015, when I bought some pathetic bottles of alcohol, drank while watching If I Stay and cried and cried and cried. And then I went out and got my first tattoo, listening to Habits (Stay High) on repeat the whole time.
I got her initials and the date I lost her. I gave her a name, you know, but of course giving her a name is nothing because I didn't even give her a chance to live. You tried persuading me that we saved her, that it was better letting her go heaven an innocent soul than be born in a cruel world. Your sweet tongue, and I thought I was the one with the gift of words.
A memory from a lifetime ago: one of my best friends from work coming over to me while I was doing my stocks and somehow the conversation floated to superstitions and futures and the like. She took my hand and squeezed it, did the thing that would apparently tell you how many children you will have in the future. She told me my hands indicate that I would have only one child: a girl.
Here's something you wouldn't believe: I tried to cheat on you once in December, while you were in camp. I tried to cheat on you with death himself. I had lots of leftover medicine from post-abortion, and maybe I did it wrong or something because after swallowing about eight random pills, I fell asleep and woke back up, not dead but with a weird stomachache. How the fuck did I even survive that, I don't fucking know, or maybe I am a failure at dying like I am at everything else.
If a woman ever died during childbirth, she would be deemed beautiful. She would be granted a place in heaven. I kept wishing I'd died during my own version of labour; how beautiful for a woman to die giving life to another. It only seemed fitting for me to die taking the life of another.
Everytime I told you I missed her, you snapped at me: Then what the fuck do you want me to do? / You want a baby so fucking much? Get another guy to fuck you and give you a fucking baby.
I ruined your 19th birthday, by crying endless tears the whole time. I lost my secondary school best friends the previous night; add that to the mix of my believing I was ugly, my missing her, my feeling worthless to you. I felt so ugly all the time with my short hair, with my scars, my empty womb, my lack of friends, my blood, my blood, my blood.
Earlier on I couldn't decide where to start this story from but now where does it end? I started this off not knowing how you could move on so easily from it, from her; now after I've written it all down, I can see why. I finally understand how you feel about it all.
You weren't the one who carried her, that much is easy to see.
You weren't the one who saw her move during the scan.
You weren't the one whose organs threatened to slide out.
You weren't the one who was given silent treatment from your father for a year for doing something you thought was a sacrifice for him.
You weren't the one who dreamed of little girls and woke up looking for someone who was long gone.
You weren't the one with a growing niece whose smile always made you think of your own girl.
You weren't the one who listened to love songs and suddenly thought they were for daughters, not lovers.
You weren't the one who had to live knowing that your biggest mistake was your own choice.
You weren't the one being told What sacrifice? You call that a sacrifice?
You weren't the one whose parents can't look at the same way anymore.
You weren't the one who felt so, so, so worthless to the world and society and even to your supposed other half.
You weren't the one who lost friends time and again and only having the life inside you as your purpose.
You weren't the one who so badly wanted to die from both physical and emotional pain.
Even until today, I always feel a gap in my arms but not from missing the way I would wrap them around your neck. It's from wanting so badly to hold her. My elder brother recently got a new baby boy and while I was so scared from holding my niece when she was just born herself, I'm now a million times more terrified to hold my nephew, because I miss mine so much. There will always be that gap in my body, my heart, my life, and there's never anyone I could talk about it with, not my colleagues, not my family, not my flower. Because they weren't the ones who brought me here.
And you know something? Thinking about it, seeing my elder brother rocking his newborn son back and forth, I realise that this person I've hated more than anything is better than you, the person I've loved more than anything. Because at least he was responsible, at least he loved his daughter enough to keep her. And you? You supposedly pray five times a day but you wanted so much to get rid of her. An 'it' to you, because you once told me, your exact words being: "Right now there's nothing it's just meat." You think I would ever forget?
Maybe you don't remember, and you will say I am lying, making up words. Of course you would think that, and I don't blame you for it because you weren't the one on the sharp side of the knife.
Of course there are thirteen sides to every story; their Hannah had the thirteen people who treated her in different ways that led to her suicide. And here, now, your E'indah has her thirteen reasons too, thirteen things you've said in the year 2015 alone that have made her want to die.
Your tears are like tap water to me, so common and meaningless.
Why can't you be more decent?
You're the worst girl I ever met.
Are you sure it's mine?
I keep wishing you would fall and have a miscarriage.
Right now it's nothing it's just meat.
Sure you can keep it, but just know that you won't have me in your life anymore if you do.
What are you even doing for me? What sacrifice, you call that a sacrifice?
If it weren't for me you'd be fucking a lot of guys right now... Probably selling yourself on Geylang or something.
If you're so worried about money why don't you sell yourself on Geylang?
Nampak baby kat advertisement pun nak nangis.
You want a baby so much? Get another guy to fuck you and give you a fucking baby.
Depression is just a passing cloud, get over it.
This post is one step towards my closure for 2015. These words are my blood, and I'm not sure if I would survive again or die finally or lie comatose, but wherever I go, I hope your love, or whatever feelings you'd had for me is completely gone so you wouldn't be affected by it at all. I hope you don't look for me the way you did when you first left three years ago. I hope I am just a stranger to you by the time you see me on the news, be it as a successful local writer or as a body of 22-year-old found.
And if you ask me; of course I've forgiven you. I've forgiven you for all your sharp words, for the times you would drag me to staircases and toilets, for the time you persuaded me to go a hotel with you and then tell me right afterwards "I wonder what it's like to date someone who can bring me to the right path." And as long as you were with me, you would always blame me for it.
I'm sorry I wasn't enough to bring you back, but I've learned that no matter who I am you'll always blame me for bringing you off, you'll always use me however way you want and even getting me pregnant wasn't enough to teach you a lesson; the only way I could have stopped it was by letting someone else have you.
And I'm sorry I never had the courage to leave you, but you've done that for us andyou'll I'll be safe now and you deserve another bird who is just as tiny and shallow as you, not a flame, a sun who will always be swimming in the galaxy and its infinity. I'm much too powerful for you, I am the universe and you, the wind, do not take much of it at all.
I just wish I'd realised it all sooner.
I don't want to carry any grudge against you wherever I go; the weight of the guilt, the loss, is more than heavy enough. And maybe if God is kind enough to let me see her when I die, I hope to Him that you will never set eyes on her yourself. But you know, however old you live to be, there will always be the two girls that you once gave life to; the two girls whose lives you ripped out just the same.
I am drinking all the coffee I can in order to stay awake and write this in one shot, even though it's getting difficult. I would never have the composure to record tapes like Hannah did, and you would never have the balls to listen to my voice saying all that I have written here. You're afraid of me, my voice and my words, just the same as how I am afraid of you, your hands and your actions.
You left shortly after visiting hours that day. You told me you missed your mom, and while you were going home to her, I was texting my father, telling him I was staying over my friend's house for one more night. Of course he got mad, so I turned off my data and threw my phone to the side and curled into a ball beneath the blanket.
I opted for the lowest class ward, and there were just these weak fans turning round and round above our beds, but it was still freezing, even after I turned mine off. The painkillers they gave me earlier were fading and the pain was coming back. Imagine feeling like all of your organs might slide out of you anytime soon, that's how it felt, but a million times more.
Again, I kept walking back and forth to the toilet. But nothing came out. It hurt like hell, and they gave me more painkillers but I threw them all up.
I don't know what time the extreme pain started. The time just crawled by when I felt it starting to slide out, and my whimpers turned to groans, which later turned to screams. I looked for the emergency button, desperately pressing it to call for the nurses or whoever the fuck could help me, even if it was a fucking angel coming or God himself coming personally to take me the fuck away. Anyone, anything, anyhow, just make it fucking stop make it fucking stop I'm so so so sorry I didn't want to do this I want her I want her I want her.
Just close your eyes, the sun is going down. You'll be alright, no one can hurt you now. Come morning light, you and I'll be safe and sound.
I woke the whole ward up with my screaming. I'd really gone through it all at that point of time. You could split me in half with an axe or run a chainsaw through me or twist my head until it snapped off my neck and it would all be nothing to me. It was nothing compared to going through hours-long labour and getting an undeveloped, bloody body between my legs instead of a breathing, living baby girl, and knowing it was my choice.
I looked at my phone shortly after, I don't know why. But I saw the time and I'll always remember it: 5:32 in the morning. The last thing I saw was that, and the last thing I heard was 'Muslim cemetery', before I closed my eyes and finally fell dead to the world of slumber.
Later on, a few months after, we both found out together what was verse 5:32 in the Qur'an. I'm sure you remember, but I don't know how you could continue living after reading that.
When the sun started rising, patients started waking up and nurses started bustling out and about. I woke up too, but not fully as I watched one of them checking my blood pressure again. The narrow tube that ran from my hand to the drip was all red, my blood running from my veins and through the tube. I don't know what the fuck happened there but it was a sight I would never forget.
I used the last of my energy to text my manager that I was still at the hospital and couldn't make it to work that day.
The doctor came and talked to me but I just wasn't hearing anything. I was slipping in and out of sleep, or oblivion, or my dreams, or anything that sits between this reality and the next. I heard her voice saying, "I think she's very tired." and that again was the last thing I heard.
You came a few hours later, and they transferred me to a stretcher-like bed, brought me to the operations theater or whatever it was called. You later told me that my bed was all bloody and there were bits of meat, probably remnants of the umbilical cord.
I was injected at near the base of my spine, and I couldn't feel my legs afterwards. They had to vacuum my down below, to clean it and rid it of whatever's left from the fetus or whatever shit, I couldn't be bothered to listen. They wheeled me back to my bed hours later, and told me I can't go home until the anaesthetic is completely gone.
They told me not to get up and to call them if I needed to pee, and my passing urine would be the indication that the anaesthetic is faded. Never in my life have I tried so hard to pee, you remember that don't you? We drew the curtains over my bed and you helped me up, carried me against you and pretended we were dancing. We got scolded for that, and also for carrying me to the toilet to pee.
I kept asking the nurses to let me go home that night. They told me I had to stay for another day at least, but I wasn't having it. The doctor tried to talk to me again and that's when I told her, My parents don't even know I'm here, I really need to go right now.
They made me sign more documents, or more like scribbled on because my right hand was still useless, gave me medicine, gave me brochures about post-abortion care and all the things which I couldn't bring myself to give a shit about. We finally left the hospital about half an hour before midnight.
I got back to work a day later, with my first period after 5 months. Actually I'm not sure if it was technically my period, because I started bleeding below when she came out, and it never completely stopped.
All my life, I have been rude to my parents, yelling at my mother and fighting with my father, making them both cry, running away from home, disappearing overnight and feeling no remorse looking at my own grandmother cry for me, I have been a flame, letting you fuck me in handicap toilets and going down on you in staircase alleys, walking past donation boxes for mosques and people needing my help and beggars needing money for their meals. I've done so much sin, and the only one that I will ever ask for forgiveness for is when I made the choice to throw her.
My biggest mistake in life was not having her. It was losing her.
And I'm so sorry.
She would have been so beautiful, despite having such an ugly mother you know? Even til today, I would do anything to hear her cry again. Just cry, I'm not scared anymore, I just want to hear her again. It's been two weeks since I lost you, Aamir, but everyone knows getting over you is the easy part. It's getting over her that's difficult, even after two years. I never stopped the habit of protectively placing a hand over my stomach. A heart beating next to mine; my only purpose in life, after twenty years of being useless and never belonging anywhere.
I already felt a bit of the depression even before I lost her. It worsened afterwards, even though I was so deadly calm to you all the time. I couldn't look at people the same way again. I couldn't hear my niece cry or see her laugh without feeling a million knifes stabbing into me. I always disliked children my whole life, but after the whole episode I couldn't help staring at little Malay girls in public, wishing I had mine.
We'd built the lies so damn carefully and intricately during the whole hospital stay. But one time in mid or late June, when I was sleeping over at my grandmother's place, she received a call from my mom. She hung up and asked me, "Kak, surat apa tu kak?" KKH had sent a letter to my address, because I forgot that technically I'd overshot my stay and owed them for it. I tried to shut her out, I didn't answer her and ignored her until I fell asleep.
The next day I was going off to Popular Headquarters to sign my contract because I was converting to full-time. My bank account was completely gone, and I think you'd just started working at Domino's around that time, right?
I was living on two dollars a day and constantly worrying about our finances to the extent of you saying: "If you're so worried about money why don't you just sell yourself on Geylang then?" Why did I get so hurt over that? I'd gone through so much worse, it shouldn't have fazed me. But of course I added it to my collection of things that made me want to die.
When I was taking the bus back to Jurong East MRT from Popular HQ, my father texted me, about the damn letter. I tried to ignore it, I get my anger from him so you could only imagine the things he was saying to me. And you, where were you? Sitting at home with your mother, the mother that still thought her middle child was so perfect, not knowing about the potential granddaughter she'd almost had.
You were there a few days or weeks later, when my father texted me again, being so angry and accusing me of exactly what I'd stayed at the hospital for. You read his texts together with me, your head leaning against mine, while waiting for 168 at the old Woodlands interchange.
I cried in front of you, but you never felt the pain. Your parents didn't know, and I think they still don't even until today. I cried on buses 168 and 88 home, wiping my eyes and nose on the sleeves of my stupid black cardigan. I cried myself to sleep, woke up the next day with swollen eyes. I kept wondering why they couldn't understand that I did it for them.
My father never talked to me after that, never did all the way to Hari Raya 2016. And you realise, despite knowing about it all, he accepted you when you came over to my open house last year. My grandmother, the one who's cried so many times for me, accepting you whole-heartedly and constantly asking about you even though it hurt her a million times more than you can imagine. Don't you feel any remorse at all?
When you enlisted in August 2015, I felt so alone. Being on my own in the outside world with the loss still fresh on my mind and body. I can just remember 31st of August, 2015, when I bought some pathetic bottles of alcohol, drank while watching If I Stay and cried and cried and cried. And then I went out and got my first tattoo, listening to Habits (Stay High) on repeat the whole time.
I got her initials and the date I lost her. I gave her a name, you know, but of course giving her a name is nothing because I didn't even give her a chance to live. You tried persuading me that we saved her, that it was better letting her go heaven an innocent soul than be born in a cruel world. Your sweet tongue, and I thought I was the one with the gift of words.
A memory from a lifetime ago: one of my best friends from work coming over to me while I was doing my stocks and somehow the conversation floated to superstitions and futures and the like. She took my hand and squeezed it, did the thing that would apparently tell you how many children you will have in the future. She told me my hands indicate that I would have only one child: a girl.
Here's something you wouldn't believe: I tried to cheat on you once in December, while you were in camp. I tried to cheat on you with death himself. I had lots of leftover medicine from post-abortion, and maybe I did it wrong or something because after swallowing about eight random pills, I fell asleep and woke back up, not dead but with a weird stomachache. How the fuck did I even survive that, I don't fucking know, or maybe I am a failure at dying like I am at everything else.
If a woman ever died during childbirth, she would be deemed beautiful. She would be granted a place in heaven. I kept wishing I'd died during my own version of labour; how beautiful for a woman to die giving life to another. It only seemed fitting for me to die taking the life of another.
Everytime I told you I missed her, you snapped at me: Then what the fuck do you want me to do? / You want a baby so fucking much? Get another guy to fuck you and give you a fucking baby.
I ruined your 19th birthday, by crying endless tears the whole time. I lost my secondary school best friends the previous night; add that to the mix of my believing I was ugly, my missing her, my feeling worthless to you. I felt so ugly all the time with my short hair, with my scars, my empty womb, my lack of friends, my blood, my blood, my blood.
Earlier on I couldn't decide where to start this story from but now where does it end? I started this off not knowing how you could move on so easily from it, from her; now after I've written it all down, I can see why. I finally understand how you feel about it all.
You weren't the one who carried her, that much is easy to see.
You weren't the one who saw her move during the scan.
You weren't the one whose organs threatened to slide out.
You weren't the one who was given silent treatment from your father for a year for doing something you thought was a sacrifice for him.
You weren't the one who dreamed of little girls and woke up looking for someone who was long gone.
You weren't the one with a growing niece whose smile always made you think of your own girl.
You weren't the one who listened to love songs and suddenly thought they were for daughters, not lovers.
You weren't the one who had to live knowing that your biggest mistake was your own choice.
You weren't the one being told What sacrifice? You call that a sacrifice?
You weren't the one whose parents can't look at the same way anymore.
You weren't the one who felt so, so, so worthless to the world and society and even to your supposed other half.
You weren't the one who lost friends time and again and only having the life inside you as your purpose.
You weren't the one who so badly wanted to die from both physical and emotional pain.
Even until today, I always feel a gap in my arms but not from missing the way I would wrap them around your neck. It's from wanting so badly to hold her. My elder brother recently got a new baby boy and while I was so scared from holding my niece when she was just born herself, I'm now a million times more terrified to hold my nephew, because I miss mine so much. There will always be that gap in my body, my heart, my life, and there's never anyone I could talk about it with, not my colleagues, not my family, not my flower. Because they weren't the ones who brought me here.
And you know something? Thinking about it, seeing my elder brother rocking his newborn son back and forth, I realise that this person I've hated more than anything is better than you, the person I've loved more than anything. Because at least he was responsible, at least he loved his daughter enough to keep her. And you? You supposedly pray five times a day but you wanted so much to get rid of her. An 'it' to you, because you once told me, your exact words being: "Right now there's nothing it's just meat." You think I would ever forget?
Maybe you don't remember, and you will say I am lying, making up words. Of course you would think that, and I don't blame you for it because you weren't the one on the sharp side of the knife.
Of course there are thirteen sides to every story; their Hannah had the thirteen people who treated her in different ways that led to her suicide. And here, now, your E'indah has her thirteen reasons too, thirteen things you've said in the year 2015 alone that have made her want to die.
Your tears are like tap water to me, so common and meaningless.
Why can't you be more decent?
You're the worst girl I ever met.
Are you sure it's mine?
I keep wishing you would fall and have a miscarriage.
Right now it's nothing it's just meat.
Sure you can keep it, but just know that you won't have me in your life anymore if you do.
What are you even doing for me? What sacrifice, you call that a sacrifice?
If it weren't for me you'd be fucking a lot of guys right now... Probably selling yourself on Geylang or something.
If you're so worried about money why don't you sell yourself on Geylang?
You want a baby so much? Get another guy to fuck you and give you a fucking baby.
Depression is just a passing cloud, get over it.
This post is one step towards my closure for 2015. These words are my blood, and I'm not sure if I would survive again or die finally or lie comatose, but wherever I go, I hope your love, or whatever feelings you'd had for me is completely gone so you wouldn't be affected by it at all. I hope you don't look for me the way you did when you first left three years ago. I hope I am just a stranger to you by the time you see me on the news, be it as a successful local writer or as a body of 22-year-old found.
And if you ask me; of course I've forgiven you. I've forgiven you for all your sharp words, for the times you would drag me to staircases and toilets, for the time you persuaded me to go a hotel with you and then tell me right afterwards "I wonder what it's like to date someone who can bring me to the right path." And as long as you were with me, you would always blame me for it.
I'm sorry I wasn't enough to bring you back, but I've learned that no matter who I am you'll always blame me for bringing you off, you'll always use me however way you want and even getting me pregnant wasn't enough to teach you a lesson; the only way I could have stopped it was by letting someone else have you.
And I'm sorry I never had the courage to leave you, but you've done that for us and
I just wish I'd realised it all sooner.
I don't want to carry any grudge against you wherever I go; the weight of the guilt, the loss, is more than heavy enough. And maybe if God is kind enough to let me see her when I die, I hope to Him that you will never set eyes on her yourself. But you know, however old you live to be, there will always be the two girls that you once gave life to; the two girls whose lives you ripped out just the same.
