𝐅𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐓𝐫𝐮𝐭𝐡

𝐟 𝐢 𝐟 𝐭 𝐲 - 𝐨 𝐧 𝐞

"What are you getting?"

"I'm going to get laksa," I turned to look at Sha, "You?"

"Curry chicken with rice. Looks we're both craving for something spicy," and we chuckled to that.

The man in front of me walked off which means my turn next. The young man at the counter greeted me and I did so in return before telling him my order. The name of the place is called Toast Box, it sells all the Singaporean famous local dishes. It's pretty busy, considering that it is a weekday, but it also shows that locals love coming here. Five minutes later, our food arrived and we dug in.

"Hmmm," Sha let out a moan as she took her first mouth, "This is so good, I should come here more often."

I took a mouth of my laksa noodles with a little bit of the soup. "It tastes a little similar to curry," I commented.

"Yeah, but laksa has the samba flavoured added in it as well," Sha explained, "You like it?"

I nodded, "Yeah, it's good. But I prefer curry over this."

We spent the next fifteen minutes talking about the food and gossips in school, Sha insisting she'll bring me all around the country when holidays start- which is in a month. Crazy to think that I've been in school for more than a month now and thankful to have met these wonderful people, especially Sha. I hadn't felt this connected to a person since Zari.

I miss her so much.

"You're most definitely Ms Zhang's favourite student!" she exclaimed. "She always pays special attention to you."

"You jealous?" I teased her.

"No, but it would be nice to be a teacher's pet for once. I swear all teachers hate me," she pouted.

"Well, there was this teacher I had back in Russia who absolutely hated me. Like to her core," I scoffed, thinking back to those unpleasant memories.

I could see Sha's eyes light up a little, probably because I just opened up about my past to her. "How was she like?"

"Really young at the time, probably just came out of university. She must've had a horrible teacher because she treated us like we were in the army," I said with distaste, and Sha listened closely. "If we were late to class or didn't hand in our homework on time, she would ask us to do push-ups and stand at the back of the class for an entire month during her lessons. And if we get three strikes, she'll not mark any of our work for three months."

"Wow. That's insane," Sha responded.

Before I could continue, Sha's phone vibrated and a text notification popped up on the screen. And from the look on Sha's face, I can tell it is from the girl I saw her with at the party.

"Who is it?" I asked even though I knew, because that's what a normal reaction would be.

She looked up from her phone, and I seem to snap her out of her thinking zone. "It's just this... girl."

"Oh."

I take it as she still isn't ready to share, so I'll just go back to what we were talking about before to ease the tension.

But before I could start, Sha beat me to it and said, "Can we get out of here? I want to tell you something."

I nodded and it took us ten minutes to pay for the bills and leave the stall, exit out of the shopping mall and making our way to the bus stop. We were mostly silent, just occasionally making small conversations about the stalls we walked passed as I'm sure she was nervous for later.

She was the one who started the conversation. "That girl was my... ex-girlfriend." She didn't make eye contact with me as she said that and inhaled in a huge breath before saying, "I'm a lesbian."