Chapter 12

I cried throughout the whole journey home. The taxi-driver did nothing. He must have had picked up crying girls all too often.

When I reached home minutes later, I called Landy. Strangely, all I did was to press the last dialed number and Landy’s voice came.

“Landy, can you do me a favour? Come out now. I need your help.”

A few minutes later, Landy and I were out on the streets. It was nine at night, but the market place was still teeming with people. I approached the auntie who always sells fish soup to me.

“Hi, auntie.” I said. She was an old frail lady, but when I greeted her, her eyes sparkled. She must be surprised, for I had never greeted her before.

“Oh, hi ah girl.” She replied after some hesitation.

I pointed to Landy. “This is my best friend, Landy.” I said in Chinese.

She looked at Landy. I knew I was right all along. But after a few seconds, she took a step back and bit her lips. “What? Huh?”

I started to shiver. This can’t be… “This young and pretty lady here,” I rested my hand on Landy’s shoulder. “…is my best friend.”

The auntie was lost for words. “I…” Then she took out a yellow paper from her wallet and clapped her hands together. I stared in disbelief. She started to pray to her surroundings. “God bless…” then she said something in Chinese that I could not understand. Before I could say anything, she turned to me and said aloud, “Bye, girl.”

She then rushed off as if she had just seen a ghost. And Landy was still smiling.

I did this experiment a few more times with some other people. They either told me to stop joking, or thought I was possessed by some spirit.

None of them could see Landy.

Except me.

And just when I was about to probe Landy about this, she was gone. Just like that. Poof, gone without any warning. And, as expected, I tried calling her but I could not get through.

Oh. Bastard Jacky. He should have just shut the fuck up and left the truth unrevealed.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I felt so lonely.

I went to school as usual the next day, this time, however, feeling like it was the first day of school. I was trying hard to avoid Jacky, but he was, as usual, as sticky as glue. He tried to start a conversation but I would cut him off with these two words: “Shut up.”

Finally lunch break came. This was the first time that I was not looking forward to it. Jacky bought my drink, but I went off and bought my own. “Joanna-”

“Shut up.” I said it for the tenth time.

“Let me help-”

“Why are you doing all this?” Now I was boiling with anger. Could it be the laksa in front of me that spurred me? When I looked at Jacky, I realized it was not the laksa. It was his face: his compassionate face that fueled the anger within me. “Why are you doing all this, Jacky!?” I was half-yelling.

“I want to do something meaningful-”

“Fuck you!” I screamed. The whole canteen went quiet. Only the sound of the fans’ whirring could be heard. “Don’t give me that fucking excuse anymore! There’re more than a thousand people in this school: Why me? Why!?”

He was quiet and seemed to be on the verge of tears.

“Is it because you pity me!?” If he was facing me, I could have given him a tight slap. “Is it because you think I need sympathy, that’s why you’re doing all this!?”

“Yes. Maybe because I pity you that’s why I’m doing all this.” He said softly. People were bending forward, trying to make out what he had just said.

“And when you knew that my best friend is an imaginary friend, you pitied me more?! That’s why you held my hand!? Be nice to me, because the best remedy for imaginary friends is to make me happy and socially involved? That’s why you said all those fucking idiotic things at my void deck!?”

I could tell that he was thinking. “Maybe.” He answered softly again. “That may be the reason.”

“You bastard.” A whisper this time. I splashed my glass of Diet Coke onto his face. Then I smacked his cheek hard. “You bastard.” I said again, and then walked off.

I was expecting him to give chase. But he did not.

He must have stopped pitying me. I went straight to the toilet. No one bothered to come forward to console me. After washing my tears off, it was time to go back to class. I was dreading having to see Jacky again.

We did not say anything more for the rest of the day. I confined myself to my notes and he was absorbed in the lecturer’s voice.

Gosh oh gosh. What the heck had just happened? What the heck had I just done? An imaginary friend? A one-sided love story?

Suddenly it occurred to me. Now I knew why Jacky could not be my boyfriend. That night, when he said we could not be together, I had cursed him. I had cursed him not to fall in love with me when I was angry.

My. Gosh. It was my fault. My fault!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I went back to an empty house. My grandmother came home after a few hours. Had she been seeing things as well for the past four years?

“Grandma,” I asked in Hokkien. “Do you remember Landy?”

“Of course.” She replied.

I looked around the living room. It was empty except for her and me. I pointed to the empty sofa and said, “She’s here.”

She made an effort to look at the sofa then turned back at me. Her answer sent chills down my spine. “Yes, she still looks so beautiful. I’m going back to my room. You have a nice chat with her.”

“Can you… chat with me?” I requested. Since my mother’s death, I had not had a decent chat with my grandmother. We had a “hi” & “bye” relationship. She had earned her living through collecting cans and donations from the residents. All my allowances came from her and from my auntie.

My grandmother rolled her eyes. She ambled to the sofa and sat down, patting the seat beside me. She must have forgotten that Landy was “there”.

Jacky had called me a few times but I rejected all his calls. I felt that he was just putting on a mask.

“I’m feeling very lonely.” I told my grandmother. It was just so weird. I meant, my grandmother had always been so close to me, yet I had always consigned her to one side, as if she did not exist.

“How old are you already, Gwan?” she suddenly asked. Gwan was the name that my parents used to call me. It had such a forgotten history that I nearly couldn’t remember that was my name.

I told her almost everything about myself. My age, my school and my life in general. I did not tell her about Landy and my curse. Instead, I found myself talking to her about Jacky. It just came out of nowhere.

“He’s a very nice and handsome guy.” I said. “Tall, tanned and always smiling. I always tell myself that I had not fallen in love with him.”

“Why?”

“Because… I don’t know. I knew I couldn’t love him. Grandma, what does love feels like?”

My grandmother took a very long breath. However, I could tell that she was not thinking. She was preparing for a very long chat. “Easy. Tell me, two hours ago, who were you thinking of?”

I thought back. “Jacky.”

“Who are you thinking of now?”

“Jacky.”

“And if you’re still thinking of him two hours later, you’re in love. Gwan, love is a simple thing. It’s either you love, or you don’t. You can try everything, almost everything to prevent yourself from loving, but it all boils down to this: Either you love, or you don’t.”

I pondered on her words.

“Doesn’t matter how long the love lasts. You’ll be contented once you know you were in love before. Have I told you about the magnet theory?”

I shook my head.

“You’re like the North Pole of a magnet bar, and Jacky is also like the North Pole of a magnet bar. There’s no way for both of you to be close together. There’s a force that’ll always push you both apart. This force is called the obstacle, like interest differences, communication problems and etc."

“However, if you put a metal bar in between, both you magnets will stick to it. And you’ll be close to each other. That metal bar dissolves the force that pushes both of you away. And that metal bar is what we called love.”

What a load of bullshit.

However, when I realized I was thinking of Jacky two hours later, I began to ponder her words again. Our metal bar… where can we find it? I wanted so much to ask my grandmother about it again, but she was asleep.

And so I went to bed as well.

Chapter 13

Sometimes, it is so hard to say just three words.

I smelled the rich aroma of Jacky’s coffee. The scent was overbearing. Jacky was sitting beside me, taking another sip of his coffee. I stirred my diet coke with my straw and yawned.

He still sat beside me in class as per his routine, and I did not oppose him. And at lunch break now, we had our lunch in silence. Jacky did not buy my drink; instead I bought his for him. Yet he just passed me the money without saying a word.

Through the corner of my eye, I could see that he had finished his coffee and was coughing as if coffee would create phlegm. On the contrary, my diet coke was still full. There were still about ten more minutes before we had to head back to class.

Come on, say it, Joanna!

I turned to Jacky. Stunned, he returned my look. His hair was disheveled and his eyes were bloodshot. Despite downing the whole cup of coffee, his lips still looked dry. “You look pale.” I suddenly said and instantly regretted it.

“Is it?” he twisted his neck. “Lack of sleep. Been thinking…”

I wanted so much to crack a joke so that he would regain the redness on his cheeks. But I did not. I must say it now, or never.

Come on, be brave, just three words!

"Hey.” I muttered, softer this time. I did not want others to hear me.

“Hey.” He replied. That idiot. Can’t he see that I’m struggling to say something to him?

“Hey.” I said again.

“Hey.”

“Hey, hey.”

“Can I…” he stopped.

“Wait.” I felt as if this conversation was going nowhere. “I-”

“Hold your-”

“Love-”

“Hand?”

“You.”

When we both finished our sentences, his head dropped on the table slowly, creating a loud “bang”. His body began to sway towards me. I leaned forward to hold his shoulder, trying to break his fall but he was too heavy. He went tumbling onto the ground and all I could do was to lessen the impact of the fall.

His eyes were closed and his cheeks were drained of colour. I shook his shoulders violently. Bewildered students crowded around us, whispering yet doing nothing.

“Jacky!” I was shaking him, but he gave no response. “Jacky!”

A lecturer came, dispersed the students and sent Jacky to the hospital.

And I went along with the ambulance, my heart beating so fast that I could have had a heart attack anytime.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Jacky’s mother was a beautiful woman – it was obvious now where Jacky’s striking features had come from. She sat in the waiting room, muttering things that I could not understand.

I was with Michael and Jacky’s other friends, all waiting anxiously as he was wheeled into the ward. Michael was trying to console all of us, and he was the one that introduced us as classmates of Jacky to his mother.

The wait was over in about fifteen minutes. The doctor came out and talked to Jacky’s mother for a while. He was not smiling, nor was he frowning. When he finished, the nurse spoke to Jacky’s mother as the doctor went off.

We went forward. I was trying to discern something from Jacky’s mother’s expression. She seemed relieved.

“Jacky’s fine. Thanks a lot for all your concern. He just fainted due to stress over his studies. And he’s not fit to see anyone now. Come back another day, alright?” Jacky’s mother told us after the nurse had left.

Everyone left but I stayed. I could sense that something was wrong. Jacky’s mother did not seem worried when talking to us. What left me dumbfounded was why Jacky should be hospitalized when he was merely under too much stress.

I entered the ward. Jacky’s mother’s eyes were red-shot. She had been crying. When she saw me, she cupped her eyes for a while before opening them.

“Didn’t I ask you all to go back home first?” she said, a bit impatiently.

“Can I talk to you?”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Instead of talking at the hospital’s cafeteria, we went to the park.

Jacky’s mother was a reserved lady. Throughout the whole journey, she said nothing. When we reached the park, we sat beside an old man. The old man was wearing a patient’s uniform, and he kept smiling at me as if he knew me.

“It’s not just over-stress, right?”

“It is.”

“Being hospitalized for over-stress? Not waking up till now simply because he’s under too much stress? I’ve-”

“Please don’t act as if you know Jacky very well. You’re just his classmate, a friend, or whatever. Please, I don’t want to start a quarrel or whatever. When I said over-stress, it’s over-stress. What more can I say?”

“But-”

“He’s just under too much stress. If you don’t believe me, fine with that. I’m going back to my office. I don’t want to be over-stressed myself.” With that, she went off, leaving me alone with the old man.

“Young lady,” the old man suddenly asked. “Are you just his classmate, a friend?”

He must have been eavesdropping on our conversation. However, I saw no harm in telling him the truth, so I said, “I believe I’m more than that.”

“Alright then, love him while you can. In love, there’s only love or don’t love. Since you love him, do it now.” The old man said.

Why do all old people say the same thing? For a nanosecond, I wondered if he was my long-lost dead Grandfather or not.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Suddenly, it all made sense. It all made so much sense that I bought a pack of cigarettes and lighted one before going back to the ward.

“I wanna help you. To see you smile.”

“I want to do something meaningful while I can.”

Jacky had said that before. To do something meaningful while he could. I shivered at that thought. I really hoped that it would not be what I had expected.

I walked up the stairs with my head spinning. The cigarette had made me giddy. Jacky had awakened when I reached the ward. He was smiling.

“Hey.” I said.

He just nodded weakly, and pointed to the flask of water beside him. I poured him water. “I like coffee better.” He smiled.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I said. I was biting my lips, taking deep breaths. I could hear every single beat of my heart, and it was so fast that I was unable to count.

“You know?” Jacky mouthed.

“Your mother told me all about it.”

“Can’t be. I asked her not to tell anyone. She promised.”

“How can a matter like this be kept a secret?” I said. I realized I was smiling. Gosh. “So, how many months more do you have?” I suddenly asked, and then whispered very, very softly, “Fuck.”

Jacky was avoiding my gaze.

Please, say I’m wrong, say you don’t understand what I mean… please. Please.

It was a long wait. My hands were clutched and I felt the shape of my lips: I was smiling.

Fuck, I’m fucking insane. I’m smiling. I’m smiling. I’m smiling!

Then he did the most astonishing feat I had ever seen in my life. He grabbed a lump of his hair, shook a bit, and pulled it out. Almost all his hairs were in his hand now. His scalp was nothing but few strings of thin hair.

“Two more years, to be exact if I don’t have the operation within this few months.”

Fuck.