Felicia

Chapter 2

I take the LRT to Petalin. A 20 minutes train ride home. I’ve never taken the LRT this late, alone. It’s almost 9. The CWC meeting took longer than I expected. But it was worth it. The meeting was to launch Chilax. I had this awesome idea to run a college magazine for Newcastle. It would be run by the CWC. The club was running dry and I had to come up with something. I had this idea planned for a week and Sarah was the only one I shared it with before the meeting today. She was pretty excited. So is everyone else in the club. It’s going to be a busy month ahead for the CWC, now with a magazine to launch.

The train is all packed inside. I drag myself to the nearest pole and cling to it as if for dear life. My mental radar goes active. It detects weird people around me so I can keep an eye on them. Just in case. Most of the people on board are working class, too bent over their smart phones to notice anyone surrounding them. The only two people not hooked over a gadget are me and an old woman standing next to me. She has a huge bag of groceries placed in front of her. I want to knock off some dork bent over his gadget sitting in front to give the old woman a seat. She meets my gaze and mutters something in Malay. I don’t get a word of it but I keep nodding with a stupid smile. It’s been two years since I came here but I still don’t digest the language, nor the food.

There’s a man who looks like a sick dog two feet in front of me. Messy hair, faded T, bloodshot eyes that drool over girls in miniskirts surrounding him. He’s either on drugs or is terribly drunk. I don’t like the look of him. I wonder if anyone else detects something fishy in him. Then I notice I’m not the only person looking at him.

There’s a guy at the far end of the couch. I can see him because he is tall.  He too, is throwing a look of disgust at the drunk man. He’s either Arab or Pakistani, probably in his mid-twenties. I do a quick study of his appearance. Curly hair, long nose, round eyes, bushy eyebrows, and he’s wearing big round glasses which must be fake. He’s wearing a black T with some wordings on it. I search if he’s holding his gadget. He’s not. I’m impressed.

It’s always too late when it happens. When people realise I’m observing them. I’m usually good at this, observing people without them having a clue. But when they do notice, which hardly happens, it feels terribly awkward.

I must have held my gaze for too long because all of a sudden, he just looks at me straight in the eye. I quickly turn my head wishing so bad for something to happen. Why do I feel like a potato at times like this? To make things worse, half the people in the couch get down at the next stop. Great. Now he can see me much better. I wonder if I should get down with the rest of them but then it might not turn things better. Just stay composed and pretend nothing happened.

Now that the train is cleared, I and the old woman get a seat. So does the guy. He sits opposite to me, a bit to my right. I can feel his gaze sink down my veins. I pretend to study the sole of my shoes. God, he must have taken me for a douchebag.

Then it strikes me. I’ve got a book in my backpack. Thanking heaven, I nervously reach for the book. I don’t read but stare at just one spot. I can’t focus on the words. Not with that guy staring into me. Hiding behind the book, I roll my eyes to check if he’s still looking my way. Crap. He catches me this time. He looks as if he really wants to say something. And his eyebrows are drawn up and his mouth is about to drop a ‘hi’. But before that comes out and before he gets any chance to smile, I dig my head inside the book and pretend to read. I wish I never meet this person again in my entire life. Just two more stations to go. I flip a page to fake my reading and strictly focus my eyeballs on to the page. When the train stops at my station, I’m the first person out.

The street looks creepy at this time of the night. I’ve never walked alone before this late. The street is not totally empty but it’s full of weird people. I should have called my friends to wait for me at the station but I had no credit and none of them called to check on me either because they too never top up. My friends are pretty broke at all times.