Everybody has a story to tell. Some stories may be more tragic, more poignant than others. Some stories involve heartwarming moments that make others break out in tears.
This is my story.
The very first boy I fell in love with was in Secondary Two. Naturally I had met him because we were pushed to the same class in Sec One. It was peculiar really. The class was filled with people that had brains. The difference between them is whether they would use these brains in their tests and exams. I was one of the people who competed to be the top of the class. M was one of the people who’d rather just let school life fly by.
Secondary One was a hectic time for me. My mother ran a family business which I was forced to help out in. On weekdays, I would go to school. On weekends, I spent time with my mother at her stall in a hawker centre. Between studies and family, I had no time to think about my social life. My free time was spent either doing more revision or playing one-player games on the computer. My social life revolved around the girls in the class, since I naturally spoke to them as if they were comrades. I shunned away from the boys in an attempt to keep myself sane.
Things changed when my mother was diagnosed with Stage Three cancer in April when I was in Sec Two.
Throughout the time of my mother’s illness, many changes were made. Her shop closed down. Most of the time was spent at home, spending time with my mother. Often, we’d sit around on her bed and talk about life. She knew her days were numbered, yet she would smile every single day. At the time, I took everything for granted.
It was around that time that I realised I had fallen in love with a classmate.
I would not paint a rosy picture of M. He was on the school’s newly formed soccer team. His grades were above sub-par at best. He lied to get out of uncompleted homework. He was temperamental, violent at the peak of his tempers. He had insomnia.
I had no idea what attracted me to him. Somehow or the other, I was able to look past every one of his negative idiosyncrasies and focus on the positive charms he possessed. He had a smile with killer dimples. His steps were strong, confident. He moved with an uncontrolled grace.
Around that time, rehearsals for the Singapore Youth Festival celebrations were up. I found myself standing on the set for my show and dreamily watching M teaching the toy soldiers of the play how to march. Being a teenager, I found myself approaching random girls that talked to him and questioning their moves freakishly.
When SYF was over, I was in a state of calm. My mother had many businesses to attend to as life was about to change.
It was around that time that I discovered the boys in my class was turning to a game for social purposes. League of Legends served as the source of interest between them. Knowing that M was playing, I desperately created an account in order to get closer to him. Perhaps, I thought, if we gamed together, I could talk to him more, feel him more.
Many a times, the school left classroom doors open for us to complete our projects in the classrooms. Without a proper ban on the school server, most of the guys would stay around in the orange classrooms when the last lesson ended to game. Since I had more free time in my life at the time, I found myself staying back when I never had to, to watch M game. I found him all the more adorable while gaming. I specifically remember that he would play a lot of characters that allowed him to control little pets.
There was this one time when I tried to lean on his shoulder from the back while watching the screen. He thought nothing of it, and brushed my hand away.
Of course, gaming with the guys meant that I would further understand them better, while leaving the girls behind. I never really thought about it, but it now feels that I made the right choice.
I adored those few months when I would think about M every single day, and wished that we could be closer.
I loved sending him instant messages while helping him in Physics. I realised then, that he was struggling through his studies simply because of his personality and not his IQ. I would beam whenever he shouted, “I didn’t fail!” whenever he got back his test results, because I knew it was both our hard work that resulted in that simple happiness.
After SYF was over, I had a new instructor for CCA. Her name was Ms C. Once, Ms C brought a little poem to class, and made a junior read it out. It was something really impactful -- “I Do” by Andrea Gibson.
I think it was this poem that gave me the courage to do what I did.
I would recite the lines of the poems to myself very often, mesmerized at the quality of the poet’s words.
And that was what happened. I sent M coded messages in poetry about how I loved him.
At that was when it all came crashing down.
I had never considered the possibility that he would shun away from me after all that. He thought I was insane, an abomination.
He showed every single person in the class my poems. The girls were appalled, especially.
I became self-destructive.
I mourned for a loss, as if M had actually died, because it actually felt that way. M would never speak to me ever again. I refused to do homework, up to the point where grades for Sec Two EOY went down the drain.
No matter what I tried, no matter how hard I tried, M would never speak to me.
I was truly desperate. Bitter. Alone. He had turned all my friends from class against me in one gesture.
And yet, I would still care for him.
My mother fell prey to cancer in December that year. I remembered how I used to write poems in the hospital, thinking of M, watching my mother’s ashen face.
It was a double whammy when she once opened her eyes and could not recognise who I was.
I could say that I was prepared for her death. On the other hand, I knew I wasn’t. When she left, in early Sec Three, I was still mourning for M.
So, I had to mourn for both.
I’ve lost two people in my life. One dead, one alive. I would sometimes wake up to look into my mother’s old picture. Not the ones right before she left, but the ones taken when she was much younger, with a fuller face and rosy red lips.
I’d speak to her. I’d tell her about M, because that was the one secret I kept from her.
And today, I’ve moved on from my mother. Life goes on. Yet, I still think of M. Every single day.
I’m in Sec Four. It’s been almost two years since we last spoke. Whenever I try, he would walk away.
Please. Let me speak to you. Tell you I’m sorry for whatever wrongs I’ve done. Whatever sins I’ve committed in your eyes.
Let me speak to you as if you were that one beacon of light in the sea of hopelessness in the impending doom. Because that was what you were to me.
Please.
