You Must Fall In Love

Chapter Twenty-Five

"How many times do I have to tell you? Your fortune says that you'll be married by the age of twenty-one."

To Christine, that memory of her mother in the hawker center was so familiar that she sometimes found herself wondering if she had made it all up. If she closed her eyes, she could see it. She could recall almost everything that had happened on that day, from the taste of the cold fishball noodles to the sound of the ceiling fan.

It was the day she had decided that she would fight fate. It was the day she had decided that she would never, ever get married.

"There are no straight lines in this life. Only transitory points which we wander through, like moths around fireflies."

As she'd grown up, lost Jen, muddled her way through school, she'd realized that she was different from everyone else. Her classmates were set on the future. They were determined to work hard, pass all their A-levels with flying colors, get into a good uni, and then graduate into a good stable job and let the boys play catch-up after National Service.

They looked forwards to growing up, to becoming good, independent working women.

But Christine feared the future, because in her mind her life ended at twenty-one. Her bridegroom would clap his hands around her waist like a vise, and whisk her off to a dark castle, and she would grow old and haggard in the shadow of sacred matrimony, all because Mum had looked in some tea-leaves when she was born.

She couldn't grow up. She could never be independent. She could never become a real person.

"Some people hide away because they're scared of being hurt. I think Ming was just scared of being pretty."

Yes. She was hiding. She was a kid, a kid who threw tantrums and refused to come out of her room.

"Your heart is crusted, Christine Lam Siew-Fong; hard and cold as a rock."

Why try to find something that you'd lose, anyway?

Why...

"My, my. Aren't we sentimental?"

She jerked her head back.

"You!"

"Me indeed," said August Jordan. He was wearing red this time around, a royal burgundy t-shirt, and a pair of brown trackpants. He was still incredibly handsome. "Why the long face?"

Christine directed all her fury in a devastating glare, both for interrupting and for being so incorrigibly coy. He put his hands together and smiled sweetly.

"Come on," he said coaxingly. "You can't possibly be that moody. I'm just trying to comfort you."

"You don't even know me," said Christine. "Get out of my room."

"Your room?" smiled August. "Fine words, for someone who just moved in yesterday. No, I think I'll stay."

He hopped on the table, swinging his legs with a deliberately boyish air. Christine tore her eyes away from his chiseled calves.

"Are you here to gloat?" she asked. "Do you get off on invading people's privacy?"

"Not at all," said August. "You see, Christine..."

"That's Miss Lam to you."

August gave an insouciant shrug.

"You see, Christine," he continued, "I have a terminal case of boredom."

"I can't imagine why," said Christine. "Maybe it's because no-one wants to be around you?"

"Perish the thought," said August easily. "On the contrary, everyone wanted to be around me. In my home, I was given all the delights that Faerie had to offer. Droplets of sweet dream, the bread of nightmares, ham carved from the King of Pigs and a royal crown for dessert. Very twee, if I may say so myself."