I don't particularly remember what it is about anymore, but I know when I woke up, the only thing running across my mind is "the City Hall rose scene" and how great it would be as a song.
Then hours later, I found the last rose.
It wasn't the City Hall rose. But it was one that someone folded me just because I mentioned that I liked rainbow roses. He set out to make the daintiest paper color rose he could and I loved it. I didn't know I kept it. I found it today while humming a tune for my imaginary song. And I broke down.
Then Gabriel came and saved my day.
I showed him my childhood drawings.
I was prepared for the feigned interest and the halfhearted smile. I thought he'd browse it through as quickly as he can to get it over with. I didn't expect anyone to pay attention to what I drew when I was 8.
But he did.
He delicately looked through my drawings, page by page. He ooh'ed and aah'ed at all the right drawings. He remarked how acutely aware I was of my surroundings at age 8, and how bad I was at math.
Just to clarify I am not bad at math back then, I was all primed to enter the special stream but I ended up only scoring a (still) cool 237 for my PSLE because I fell in habbo love YES I AM ASHAMED STOP IT. Moving on.
I had this series of drawings that I worked on a lot.
Initially my sister was a part of it but she got tired of drawing so it was just me. I planned a great adventure where my grandma and my siblings and my cousins would uproot and move to. I calculated everything. I wrote down the cost of travel, cost of living, cost of expenses.
I drew how my luggage would look like, how my modest home would look like, how our school looks like, how our little stall looks like, I drew everything right down to the detail. I had this little adult knowledge that was adorable. I substantiated my drawings with as much fact as I could.
He noticed it all.
He read aloud one of my adventures, where I had to plan out a work timetable. I wrote that MOE subsidized me and my family's education because we were below income and I drew a tiny house to show for it.
And it was so.. endearing.
It felt like in a second, I was rushed back to my grandma's house in Choa Chu Kang.
I am in the orange armchair against the window and I am sneakily putting away my drawings as my grandma comes back with my paddle-pop ice cream. I am watching my Chinese Pokemon VCDs while planning my next drawing. My sister is busy doing her own jam. But for a minute I wasn't so lonely -- for a minute, Gabriel was right there with me watching my tv and watching me draw.
I think that's the last frontier.
I have never let anyone into my past. Or rather, my childhood years. The past seven years have been nothing but a trauma. I truly faced the worst of Singapore -- perhaps that's why I always think about leaving.
A lesser women would have killed herself. I know I tried to. I tried to so, so many times. I would watch worthless girls kill themselves over a man and wonder: what if they knew my heartbreak? What if they knew my loss? I didn't try to kill myself over a man.
No,
I lost someone I never had.
There is no happy memory for me to walk into. There is no sadness that ebbs eventually into comfort. The loss I endured was permanent, scarring and jarring. It guaranteed the ruin of my childhood dreams. And my beloved country, my blind justice court, let the perpetrator get away scot-free.
Everything I have felt since that fateful day is just a shade. I think I'm sad now, no I'm not. Please. There was a time where just looking at myself made me want to tear my eyes out. I think I'm angry now, no I'm not. Please. There was a time when red was the color of everything I saw.
Most days it is the doubt that eats at me.
What if it was the other one?
If it was him, would I have walked out of my sorrow sooner? If it was him, would I be less broken by every happy.. person I see? If it was him, would I have forgiven him as easily as blinking?
But I'll never know.
I'm sorry, back to my intended.
My childhood was the final frontier.
I have been through so much pain that it gets hard to remember my happier life before that. My parents did a fantastic job sheltering me up till I was 12. And those are the memories I delve back into when my current world threatens to crash on me. And I've never let anyone in.
Till Gabriel.
And now he shares my warmest memory.
He is a part of my life, a period of time before I knew better, before I saw the world for how fucked it was. He is a part of a memory that I left untainted in the clearest part of my mind, and like a secret he'll stay there forever.
We didn't have a good night. A fight started and we couldn't end it in time. I tried to love him but it was painful. He asked if I loved him. And I shook my head. And he asked again. And I shook my head again. And he asked for the last time. And I nodded my head finally.
The rest of the night passed like a ghost.
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