happy endings are for fairy tales // kiani au

EIGHT: WILL

4 april 2017

it's funny: how the brain works such that you will always remember the person who hurt you the most. every. fucking. painful. detail. it will always stay with you, no matter how much it hurts you. and it will definitely hurt you, a lot.

i was walking back home when i thought of this. the paint of the wood had faded by then, planks creaking under my footsteps as i approached the ajar door. flowers that had wilted lay dead on the unkept grass, mini corpses drained of colour. it used to be beautiful when we'd moved in. now it was just.. dead, like everything i had once loved.

i shouldn't have been here. not after i moved out almost a year ago. but there was something i had left here which kept bugging me, and i needed to take it back.

it's dark. of course, nobody had moved in, nobody willing to revive the liveliness in this house which once flourished. the lights don't work anymore, but natural lighting is just fine, i assure myself.

cautiously entering the bedroom, i stifle my own scream. it's exactly the same, bedsheets still baby blue and closet still next to the lamp. it was all coming back now. the scene. the memories shared here. the last place she ever was. i want to scream and throw up and cry at the same time.

i stop myself by grabbing the box under the bed and rushing out. i'm at a lost of breath and everything collapses like a mountain during a landslide. my legs are screaming for me to stop but i run.

i have to pass by jordan's house. i look away.

—

by the time i reach my current house, my shirt is sticking onto my back with sweat. the box is hard against my chest as i try to catch the breath i had lost, ricocheting with my heartbeat, a pounding rhythm.

i strip off my drenched shirt and toss it into the nearby laundry basket. coldness grips and numbs my exposed chest immediately, but it's better than the uncomfortable feeling of cloth on wet skin.

my hands are shaking when they touch the cold edges of stale cardboard. the surface is slightly dusty from the neglect it had suffered. one finger slithers under the lid, but i quickly pull it back out, bracing myself for what i was about to reveal.

was it a good move to retrieve back this stupid, stupid item of memory? i was starting to doubt myself. the confidence, which i never really thought was there in the first place, was totally drained out. it was the spur of the moment that instilled confidence in me for that short few minutes. thinking back about it now, maybe this was all just a huge mistake.

i open it anyway.

there's cigarettes, phones, papers of notes. i already knew what would be inside, but how come i'm so shocked? tears fall from my eyes, leaving dark circular imprints on the tape attached to each item. 29/3, said the first one, the second curve of '3' smudging. i wipe it off and the '3' ends up looking like a '2' with a long line at the end. i'd already ruined this fragile part of us.

i tear everything open and place each item individually on the marble floor, one after another in a perfectly straight line. then i refer to the dates and rearrange them to their correct chronological order. then i stare.

i stare. for a long time.

slowly, my hands cup under the phone with 29/2 written on its tape. i cradle it next to my chest. i press it hard against the bone of my heart. before i know it, i'm sobbing, holding it so close to me, trying to squeeze out a little morsel of the old life i had once lived.

i feel.. nothing.

—

jordan.

of course, this would be about him. i've thought of him so many times by now. he fucked up everything in my life. he's the one that impacted my life the most, and he did it badly.

we met in detention. i always felt like we had met before that; not physically, but somehow in the depths of our minds.

he confessed to having placed the cigarettes in my bag to avoid having two offenses, which would wind him up in a suspension. and as funny as it sounds, that's how our friendship started.

at that point, it felt right. we'd had this inner connection of silent eye contact and strange compulsion to be closer to each other. then, it was as if fate had finally seen our mutual growing curiosity and brought us together. because he had showed up unknowingly in my class, had put the packet unintentionally in my bag. it was too coincidental; at least that was how it was in my mind.

so that's where it all started: the beginning of the end. i got back at him, buying a fake phone for our incredibly meticulous and strict chemistry teacher to find. eventually, it became a game for us. we began plotting against each other, trying to get the other trapped in detention. we used whatever we could think of: fake phones, cigarette packets.. the list went on. and if one of us was sent to detention, the other would wait for him to come out, just so we could walk home together, laughing and making fun of the victim all the way home, as if we were drunk without the alcohol.

nothing could recreate the feeling i felt then. was it excitement? the notion of finally talking to someone i felt like i had met a long time ago must have been something. was it the pure anecdote of it? nerd and bad boy, engaging in such a childish yet fun tug of war. the experience was not the same, both for me and for jordan.

what remained in the box was our failed attempts. ones that we had found before the teacher did. we had a pact for those, too. collectively put them in a box, exchange each failed attempt for 10 bucks, something like a winning prize for the one who "defeated" the other.

our little game sounded so stupid, but it worked. it grew on us, pushing aside our different lifestyles and creating a mutual grey between what used to be white and black.

opposites attract, huh?