Tangled Affections

8.

Freen's PoV

I know I did wrong. I can still see the hurt in Becky's eyes, the way her face fell when the ink splattered across her uniform. Those words I threw at her, they were like daggers, meant to wound deeply—and they did. But even as I stood there, watching the tears well up in her eyes, a part of me was disgusted with myself. I should have felt satisfaction, triumph even, but instead, there was this gnawing emptiness. A void that no amount of cruelty could ever fill.

Why can't I control myself? Why do I keep doing this? Is it just because of Heng? Because he's been paying more attention to her? No, that's not it, or at least not all of it. The truth is, it isn't just Heng's attention that bothers me. It's mine. I hate how she's always on my mind. How I find myself thinking about her even when I don't want to. She's just another scholarship student—someone who doesn't belong in my world. And yet, she does. In a way that I can't even begin to understand, Becky occupies a space in my mind that I can't seem to evict her from.

God, and those words I spat at her today... "You don't take away my attention." It might have really hurt her. No, I know it did. But maybe she deserved it. Yeah, she did, right? Or at least, that's what I keep telling myself. Maybe if I say it enough times, I'll actually believe it.

When I got home, the fake laughter and smiles I plastered on all day finally fell away. The facade I put up for everyone else crumbled the moment I stepped through the door. The truth is, my life is a mess. My home? It's a living hell. I know what people think—that I have it all together, that I'm strong, confident, untouchable. But the truth is far from it.

Mom isn't here anymore. She was the only one who truly understood me, who cared about me beyond the image I projected to the world. I lost her just last year, and since then, I've been on autopilot. That's when I started giving those fake smiles to everyone. Pretending to be okay, pretending to be the perfect daughter, the perfect student, the perfect fiancée. But inside, I'm broken, shattered into a million pieces that no one can see.

My dad... don't even get me started. He's so absorbed in his business that he doesn't even notice me anymore. I'm just another pawn in his endless game of profits and deals. And Heng... he's business too. My engagement to him is just another contract to seal a lucrative partnership between our families. The truth is, I don't even like Heng. He's just someone I have to pretend with, someone I have to keep at arm's length because that's what Mom told me to do before she died.

I can still hear her voice, weak and raspy from the cancer that was slowly eating her alive. "Freen," she would say, "you have to be strong. You have to carry on the family's legacy. You can't let anyone see your weaknesses. Not even Heng."

She died in my arms, her last breath slipping away as she spoke those words. I was with her day and night, taking care of her, watching as the cancer took everything from her. I was there when she gave up, when she finally let go of the pain and the fight. But it wasn't just her life that ended that day—something in me died too. The part of me that believed in love, in kindness, in anything good... it all died with her. Since then, I've felt nothing but anger and bitterness, a dark cloud that follows me everywhere I go.

But today, with Becky... there was something different. Something that scared me. For a moment, when I saw her tears, I felt... something. Guilt, maybe? Or was it empathy? I don't know. All I know is that it made me feel vulnerable, and I hate feeling vulnerable. I hate that she made me feel that way. That's why I lashed out, why I threw those hurtful words at her. Because if I can make her feel weak, then maybe I won't feel so weak myself.

But it didn't work. Even now, sitting alone in my room, I can't stop thinking about her. About the way she looked at me, like she was seeing right through the mask I wear. I hate that she saw me like that, that she made me question everything I've built around myself.

I take a deep breath, trying to push the thoughts away, but they keep coming back. I feel the weight of my mother's death pressing down on me, the guilt of not being able to save her, the anger at the world for taking her away from me. And then there's the loneliness. The crushing, suffocating loneliness that wraps around me like a dark, heavy blanket. I'm surrounded by people every day—classmates, teachers, even Heng—but none of them see the real me. None of them care about what I'm going through. They only see the Freen I show them, the perfect, untouchable girl who has it all. But inside, I'm just a scared, lonely girl who's lost everything that mattered to her.

And now, there's Becky. This girl who's come into my life and turned everything upside down. I should hate her, but I don't. I can't. Instead, I'm drawn to her, in a way that I don't fully understand. And that terrifies me. Because if I let her in, if I let myself care about her, then what does that say about me? About who I've become?

I close my eyes, trying to block out the thoughts, but they're relentless. I can't escape them, just like I can't escape the memory of my mother's death, or the emptiness that's been growing inside me ever since.

I don't know how much longer I can keep this up—this charade of being strong, of being perfect. I'm tired, so tired. But I have to keep going. I have to keep up the act, because if I don't... then what's left of me?

............