Girls, a mix of artist and dancer and academic. One of them stood out for all the wrong reasons, with the accidents she spilled, be it the muffin she spat out from laughing too hard or the horrors she faced alone the year before.
None of them wanted to know. But they were playing a game where they passed a corn cob around in their circle, pretending it was a microphone and taking turns to update each other about their lives. She just had to tell them the one thing that made them squirm on the insides. She told them about Black.
They didn't want to know. You could see it clear on their faces, but the one girl who confessed didn't notice. She just wanted to let them know the biggest change in her life. Not school, or her boyfriend of eleven months, but the boy who was using her when she was down.
That girl regrets it now, looking at that very scene more than four years later. How could she be so blind? No wonder they aren't here anymore; they all took the same train and left, telling each other that she missed it on purpose and will not be thought of anymore.
Eight months ago there were four.
They weren't against the world, with no floods to make them huddle the way fire ants do. They weren't against each other either, despite the differences in their kinds of depth. One girl still stood out though, with the long scar down her left arm.
But their peace was made yet threatened with rounds of Uno, the grease from their pizzas making the corners of the cards oily. Just the day before they already spent twelve hours together, facing the same threats: unreasonable customers and mountains of stocks. The day afterward they did the same, keeping their picnic secret from the others who slaved away in their absences.
They took pictures against the sunset, with arms around each other's shoulders and waists.
Since then, two of these girls have resigned, finding other full-time jobs outside their safe little bubble.
The girl who stood out wanted to love those girls forever, but despite taking the same train, they still alighted at different stations. That was when she realised they will separate the same way she did with the six girls from years before. Who knew that their own differences came to be the flood that she thought missed them?
Six months ago there were two.
A boy and a girl, pasts so different and futures both bleak.
They stood beside each other for four years but never touched. The world could only end if they ever did. He meant everything to her but was about to wonder for the rest of her life if she ever did to him.
He carried her in the rain that afternoon, lifting her up so swiftly and walking with her in his arms. Nobody could stop them but themselves, and it was the hardest lesson she would ever learn: that the weakest thing like a vine came to be the tightest boundary to pull them apart.
For these two, the flood hit them hard and she tried to hold them both above the water until she realised he wasn't even affected by it. She Let him go, and he swam so smoothly because he never needed her.
Marina Bay. Where the seven girls danced in the darkness; where the four girls hugged in the setting sun; where the boy and the girl loved in the rain.
Next station: NS26/EW14
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