EW1

Pasir Ris.

The extreme east is no mystery, so let's just get its name out of the way.

I've tried everywhere to write this, from bus 21 to Bishan library to my workplace; but there's no better setting than my own bedroom. The photographs hanging on my corkboard are so still, which is strange, with how their flapping from the fan is the only thing I hear when I'm trying to sleep at night.

There's a gap between my colleagues and cousins, where the shots of you and I once resided. A few days ago you still hung there, for I was too afraid to look at or touch you. Why is his picture still there?, my older cousin was just scoffing, a few days after you left yet again.

This town is irony at its best, from the best classmates of my life to the worst year of secondary school. From the sweetness of childhood to the demons residing in my mind and bedroom. From a reunion kiss at my bus stop to one last goodbye at yours.

As much as I loved the expressway, I dreaded separating from you at Woodlands. The moment I took my next bus, once it touched down in this neighbourhood, everything was familiar yet dangerous. It got worse when you found a room here, a little after you got a job as a steward.

You were the key that locked me in the eight-stations box, from Pasir Ris to Paya Lebar and back again. I did not have reason to leave this octagon, not much, not when the only person I knew outside it suddenly resided four bus stops away.

Perhaps that was the reason I met your best friend secretly, on the fourth day of February. He held on to two bikes as I walked towards him, his left hand holding on to the handlebars of a stray Mobike. Maybe you don't remember, but when he posted a picture of his cracked screen on his Instagram? I was there when he dropped his phone, bending down to collect it as the green man started flashing.

He brought me around Woodlands, giving me a new perspective and a new scene in the novel I am writing. Down a hill towards the waterfront, where I kept up with him and rambled on about the colour red.

I had no guilt meeting you that evening, with the intricate lies I'd built up. I went to eat Eighteen Chefs at Nex with my family, my battery is about to die, I don't want to charge it because my parents will keep calling me.

My grudge was stubborn, and it grew with every image you posted on your story. I hated that you had the world on your side, that you had a whole life ahead of you. I hated being invisible in comparison, with the words that everyone who knew us didn't even say. I hated that you were right: being a writer will always be hopeless.

Somewhere along the way it became hatred for you. It all accumulated, going way back four years, when you left me behind. Another spot on the map that held both beginning and ending, Jurong East; the years following our reunion only turned my own hometown into the same paradox.

True, sometimes I loved you less than obsession. I loved you on bus 53, with my hand on your knee after a long day in training. I loved you when you said hello to a cat, when we bought your groceries, when you made us four packets of maggi goreng.

But I admit now that night, it all dissipated when you kept going after I said no. We lied in your mattress afterwards, where you quietly asked me, E'indah, do you love me?

At that moment, I did not. You remember my response: silence, loud enough to coax you asleep. I packed up and started to leave but it woke you, and while I was putting on my shoes, you quietly said, You don't love me, do you?

Our first time: Paya Lebar, in my home outside home. Our last: Pasir Ris, in your home outside home. Sometimes I didn't want to, but the word 'no' was never enough. 'I don't feel like it', 'I don't want to', 'I'm telling Luqman', none of it was strong enough to make you stop pulling on my pants.

For that one night, I didn't want to talk to him. I let the phone ring once, twice, then panicked and hung up. I wanted to talk to a girl. My cousin, my older cousin, my long-lost best friend from secondary school; they all flashed to mind. I needed a girl more than anything that night, but for some reason no one seemed right. I didn't want someone who would just baby me.

Soon they became your secondary school friends. Your ITE classmates. The girls you met on Tinder months before. I wanted to talk to them all. I didn't care about being told that I was the villain, or accused of hidden intentions. But the saddest part was you believed I had something up my sleeve, when one of those girls reported to you about me following her on Instagram.

I was never the victim, with the army behind you. I did tell your best friend (or was he still?), when we went cycling around the north; I warned him against saying Kau dah tahu dia macam gitu, asal kau pergi rumah dia? He spoke with disdain about how you would never change, but we all know that he will always stand with you anyway.

Pasir Ris, the town of irony. 

At the bus stop where I always take 88, we went from two kids talking about the past three months without each other, to a couple who refused to give in, eating their McDonalds in silence. 

In this very room I've stared at your number flashing on my screen, ignoring every sudden call. Less than a year later I was the one desperately calling, pushing the same familiar numbers on my house phone when you ended up blocking me. 

Here we are again, you deciding that you don't want me anymore. Me, trusting you for the tenth time for naught. Five years ago you were the reason I loved the red line with all I had, but even that ends in the south. 

The stations from the west to the east just gave us thirty-one more reasons to break up, sirens burning every time the doors closed shut. From our first departures at Clementi to the tattoos and drinks at City Hall, or the long legs I struggled to keep up with at Raffles Place and the girls you met for the first time at Tampines. 

Simply the entire line, where I would ramble on while you listened. Where I would mimic announcements only to have your hand clamp over my mouth. Where I looked out the windows in wonder and you stared at me, doubting if you could ever stay long enough to understand. 

On the red line we ignored the announcements that warned us of an ending in Jurong East. This time, the warning came a little too late, only ringing when the train finally departed the second last station. We didn't know what to do, stay or leave? Is the train at this platform for boarding?

In the end, I decided on the former and you, the latter. 

And then train service begins again, back to the west, only this time without you.