12. Labyrinth (2018)

(the playlist)

From the moment we met, I hardly wrote about him. For the most part I was still hung up on the wrong things and did not believe in my own future, definitely not one with a good guy. But once I was helped out of the years-long tunnel, it was easier letting streetlights shine upon me.

There was where I sat waiting the first time, underneath the dim lights by a Domino's. The least romantic place you could think of, what more with the abundance of ghosts sitting right there, old friends and boys alike.

My bedroom window has view of his block, we'd taken the same feeder bus to school years back, his brother married one of my past best friends' sister. We met for the first time after texting for weeks and living opposite each other for years; and that was how he came to clean the taint that was my life.

I believed wholeheartedly in montages that would never last. I believed the neighbourhood I was living in deserved to burn to the ground for the bittersweet memories given by both family and peers. I believed that the strongest form of love was only for life when you have nothing.

The walk to the beach after sundown, skipping along kerbs and sitting by breakwaters. At the time I felt like it was just a crossover of my new and old lives, that we weren't alone and the ghosts of my past would always be surrounding and following me. 

But the good dominoes already fell into place when he showed up that night, and with it a brighter side of pasir ris. He brought me on a version of the expressway that was less lonely, out in the road with my clothes fluttering and with no choice but to hold on to him. It was the second time I stayed out late, but this time, there was no reason to doubt anything.

He gave me none to doubt or fear, and from the very first night he was always easily making me laugh. Just as well for the other way around, I still think it strange that he finds me funny. He brought me new friends who lifted the dark out of me in their own ways, and he still manages to remain the brightest one.

Of the many things I've said about him, both the bad and the good, this rings the truest: He's everything I never thought I deserved. There was no hesitation to trust him, and he jumped in with me instead of pushing me off first, and that was how I fell in love with someone new after years of hurricanes. 

I always knew my mind was a labyrinth, but it was only when I met him that I knew there was a way out after all.