“Okay,” Jacky muttered, then closed his eyes, obviously trying to think of something to say.
I stared at his closed eyes. Why have I told him so much? Maybe it was to tell him the reason why I did not like the idea of an impromptu play. Maybe it was also to tell him that my quietness was not my fault. Maybe to let him paint a better image of me in his mind.
“Remember your promise just now?” he suddenly said, interrupting my thoughts.
“Yeah.”
“Okay, believe in me now. Say this after me, ‘I don’t have a curse.’”
“But I—”
“Remember your promise!” he exclaimed. “Now, repeat after me. Say, ‘I don’t have a curse.’”
I guessed I just had to play along to humour him. “I don’t have a curse. Silly.”
“No! Just say, ‘I don’t have a curse.’ No ‘silly’. Come on, try again.”
I shrugged. Is he childish or am I too mature? “I don’t have a curse.”
“Good. Now say, ‘I am just having a minor mental illness that can be cured after seeing a psychiatrist.’”
“No!” I yelled. “No, I, you…you—” I stopped myself at that very moment. I was going to say, “You idiot,” but that would equate to cursing him. I just glared at him, wanting so much to scold him. “I’m not sick.”
“Believe in me. Remember your promise? Believe in me! Say after me!”
“I’m not sick.”
“Believe in me. Believe me! You’ll not fail if you believe!”
“I’m not sick. I’m cursed.”
“Believe me!”
Once again, I fell into silence. A minute later, I decided to give in. “I don’t have a curse. I am just having a minor mental illness that can be cured after seeing a psychiatrist.”
Jacky nodded. “Good. I’ll call the psychiatrist tomorrow, and we’ll book an appointment, okay? I’ll accompany you to the psychiatrist.”
“What?” I yelled instantly. “No way!”
“Look, Joanna, there’re still five more minutes to the hour. You should still believe me, okay? You need a doctor.”
“No, I don’t!”
“Then prove me wrong! If the doctor can’t cure you, then I’ll give up!”
I had never seen a psychiatrist before. To me, a psychiatrist looked like the beautiful Kelly Chen, the actress who acted as one in the movie Infernal Affairs. She would just listen and the patient would do the talking. The patient would feel better after taking some medication and he or she would be cured. Silly, isn’t it? How can anyone’s mental illness get better after saying something and popping a few pills? I could not believe that Jacky had just suggested me to do that.
“No,” I said.
“I’ll go with you. Every appointment. Please.”
He will go with me? I pondered on that. For the longest period, I had always been alone. Suddenly, a silly weirdo had just proposed to accompany me for those silly appointments. I frowned, lowering my eyebrows.
“Are you trying to break my routine? Change my life?”
“Yes. I wanna break your routine. I wanna change your life.”
That was getting sillier. What could he possibly do? I guessed the best he could do was to mess up my life. Like suggesting that I should see a psychiatrist. Silly, silly Jacky. Really silly. Asking me to believe in him, to believe that he will be able to change my life…
“… for the better,” he added suddenly.
For the better? I looked up. Maybe I was trying to avoid him. But all of a sudden, I said, “When is the first appointment?”
Wait…what the hell?
He told me he had to check everything first. Upon our agreement, we descended the pyramid and made our way to the bus stop. After waiting for a few minutes, we realized that it was close to one in the morning.
“Sorry, I don’t have enough cash with me,” he said.
“Me neither.”
His face brightened up. “Then I’ll walk you home, and I’ll walk home after that!”
I wanted so much to smile. To laugh at his silly antics. However, I just nodded. We were at West Coast and my house was at Jurong West. It would take more than an hour.
We started the long walk talking about many things. This was the first time I had spoken so much to another person other than Landy since my parents’ death. Jacky said that he was the only child in his family. His father had died of cancer when he was just seven; hence, he had a very close relationship with his mother.
He said he had learnt many things when his father was dying. He told me how precious life could be, and said that we all came into this world for a purpose. “Happiness and sadness are not caused by your surroundings. They’re caused by your thinking,” he reasoned.
When I asked him about his plans for the future, he gave me an answer that surprised me. “My plans for the future? Make you smile. Do something meaningful.”
We reached my house after an hour. He was totally exhausted: His forehead was peppered with beads of sweat, but he was still smiling despite his tiredness. “I’ll call you,” he said. “I’ll call you and tell you when we’ll meet up for the appointment. I’ll…see you around, eh?”
“Yeah,” I said. I realized he still had a long way to go from my house to his house at Jurong East. “You want me to get some cash for you to take a taxi?”
I had expected him to say yes. He was massaging his neck and looked as if he wanted to vomit. However, he kept his pride and muttered, “No, I’ll walk home. It’s good exercise.”
Silly.
“Well, good for you. See you.”
After he left, I took a bath. Landy was in my room, sleeping soundly on my bed. After my bath, the doorbell rang. It was 2.15 a.m. Who could it be? I looked through the peephole. It was Jacky.
“Hey,” he said, resting his back on the wall. His face was ashen, as if he had just seen a ghost. His lips seemed to be wet and he smelled of puke. “Can you lend me twenty dollars? I’ll return it to you tomorrow.”
I passed him the money. “Return me something else. Not the twenty dollars. Something else that is worth twenty dollars.” What am I talking about? Sometimes, I felt that I said stupid things to him.
“Okay,” he said, saluting. “I’ll return you something else. Something that twenty dollars can’t buy.”
With that, he went off. I stared at the last of his shadow and, before I closed my door, I did something I had never expected myself to do.
I smiled to myself.
6
I could not sleep that night, so I began to count sheep, drink warm milk and study my economics notes. It did not help. After playing a loud slow song that woke Grandma up (she called it a din), I decided not to sleep. After all, I had to wake up early the next day for school.
It was, by then, four in the morning. Several flats were lighting up, getting ready for the day. I looked at my handphone to check for new SMSes. There was no new SMS. I frowned and SMSed Jacky, “Good night, good morning, Mr Wu.”
Why the heck have I done that? For fun? No; in my dictionary, the word “fun” does not exist. Argh.
I spent the next two hours surfing the Internet, checking my handphone, watching television, checking my handphone again, playing online games and checking my handphone once more. At last, at six, I received an SMS. It was from Jacky.
“=)”
I deleted the SMS and then spent the next ten minutes trying to restore deleted SMSes. There was no such function. Silly me.
* * *
Jacky was “pretending” to be normal to me in school.
It was as if the long conversation we had had never occurred. He put on his trademarked smile to class as usual and joked his time off. When lunch break came, he bought me my soya bean milk and I could avoid the strangeness no more. I asked, “Why are you acting so strangely today?”
“Strangely?” he said. “I’m not! I’m not even acting.”
“You are,” I retorted, wondering if I had just acciden
tally “cursed” him. After thinking about it, I figured I had not, so I continued, “You used to be so…” I stopped. It was not him. It is me.
I had suddenly wanted him to pay more attention to me. To talk to me more. To joke with me more. He was just being himself. What is wrong with me?
“I’m sorry,” I said as I looked at my plate of rice, ashamed to face him. Something was wrong, but I chose to ignore it. “So, when is the…appointment?”
“I’m calling them later.”
“You’ll…come with me, correct? As you promised?”
Although I was not looking at him, I knew he must have been showing me that silly toothy grin again. “I promise. I’ll come with you for every session. Every single session. Every…”
“Good,” I said, “good, damn good.”
* * *
“Hey, Joanna.”
I woke up from my doze. The tutor’s monotonous voice was amplified to the entire hall. I took a few seconds to register my situation and looked up. It was Michael, one of my classmates who wrote the script for the play. He was sitting in front of me, his head turned. Jacky was snoring beside me, his cheek kissing the table. He was always sleeping in lectures.
“Hey, Joanna,” he repeated, as if I was still napping. “You there?”
I nodded.
“Are you okay?” he whispered.
I nodded again. “Why?”
“Well, it’s because—”
Jacky jumped out from his sleep and grabbed Michael’s neck. I had never seen him moving so fast before. “Don’t harm her!” he shouted.
His outburst attracted everyone’s attention. Students who were sleeping woke up. The tutor stopped talking and stared at Jacky with his eyes wide open, obviously surprised by Jacky’s action. Michael did not struggle. He was staring at Jacky in disbelief.
After a few seconds of silence, Jacky let go and sat down while Michael scratched his head. They did not exchange a single word. A few whispers from the students killed the silence.
“As you all can see, the point when demand is…” the tutor continued as if nothing had happened.
“Hey, Mike,” Jacky whispered. Michael wheeled round and faced Jacky. He did not seem afraid. “I’m sorry. I had a silly dream. You know, Mr Tan’s voice can turn a sweet dream into a nightmare.”
“I know. I understand. That’s why I dare not sleep when Mr Tan is lecturing. By the way, what dream did you just have? Who’s the ‘her’?” Michael asked.
“Yeah, who’s the ‘her’?” I asked as well. Must have been out of curiosity.
“I…forgot. It might be a ‘him’ or an ‘it’. You know, you always forget your dreams.”
Michael laughed. “Yeah. Anyway, Joanna, I was about to ask you…are you okay?”
“What’s wrong?” Jacky and I said together.
“Well, it’s just that…you’ve smiled five times today. And, I’ve seen you smile less than ten times despite knowing you for more than six months. It’s a bit…unusual?”
“Well, Michael”—Jacky licked his lips in delight—“she’s going to smile more in the future. I promise you that.”
And, all of a sudden, I smiled.
* * *
“It’s called Child Guidance Clinic, commonly known as CGC. This psychiatric clinic provides consultation and treatment to people aged nineteen and below. It’s under the Institute of Mental Health. The price is cheaper as the Government will subsidize a large portion of the cost. I’ve booked an appointment for you.”
Jacky passed me a sheet of paper. There was a map, a date and a time. “The clinic is in Singapore General Hospital. Pretty close to our school, so we’ll have no problem getting there after school. And this.” He passed me another sheet of paper. It was an official appointment letter issued by the clinic. “We’ll need that to enter the clinic.”
“Isn’t that place meant to be for children?”
“No, that’s the misconception that most people have. The CGC also accepts teenage patients, as long as you have the will to be cured. The age requirement is nineteen and below. And you qualify. Okay?”
I read the official appointment letter. The first appointment was on a Tuesday morning when we had school.
“No worries about that. We’ll be applying for an official leave from our school.”
“Official leave?”
“Well, on that day, we will both be ill. And we’ll ‘buy’ MCs from two doctors so that you can see another doctor, the psychiatrist. Isn’t that official enough?”
I laughed.
“And when the psychiatrist asks you to choose the next appointment date, give him a date that you and I can go together without missing any lesson. Okay?”
I nodded.
“Great.” As he was about to leave, I stopped him. “Huh?”
“Look, Jacky…” My eyes met his and I whispered, “Thank you. For everything.”
“My gosh, you’re close to tears.” He took a step closer to me and tapped my head. “Come on, it’s nothing much, okay? Cool it.”
“I…”
“Hey, Joanna.” He turned serious. “You must understand, I’m doing this because I wanna help you, okay? I want you to believe in yourself and others. Just that. We cannot be a couple. You cannot be my girlfriend. I have my reason. So, don’t you ever fall in love with me, okay?”
Fuck. Damn. Ass. Bastard. Idiot. Silly, damn, fucking bastard ass idiot!
“I’ll never fall in love with you!” I yelled back at the top of my voice. “I’ll never love you! And you!” I pointed at his chest, and then pounded his chest repeatedly. “Don’t you fall in love with me! Don’t you turn back and tell me, ‘I love you!’ You hear me, Jacky Wu Zhong Xian? You hear me? I, Joanna Fung Wai Gwan, will never, ever fall in love with Jacky Wu Zhong Xian!”
“Calm down,” he whispered.
“And you, Jacky Wu Zhong Xian, you’d better don’t fall in love with me, 'coz I’ll never love you!” I gave him a final punch before I stepped back. My heart was beating a lot faster and my body was jerking up and down uncontrollably. “You cannot be my boyfriend! I have my reasons! Okay! Don’t fall in love with me!”
I turned and ran off. A few tears fell. And as I ran, I tore up the two sheets of paper that Jacky had given me.
7
Of course he could not fall in love with me. I had this curse that could harm him. It was to save him! However, why did he still do all these things when he did not like me? I wondered if he did that to all the girls he knew, then told them that he did not like them. He must be that sort of person. A bastard who likes to see girls cry in front of him. A playboy.
I hate him!
I went home with my eyes still red. Landy was reading a magazine on the sofa. When she saw me, she frowned, knowing that something had happened. I told her everything within fifteen minutes.
“He sucks,” she said, sharing my exasperation. “He just sucks. But he’s just so…nice, isn’t he? So romantic…so…nice.”
“Idiot. I hate him. I hate him!”
“You love him, Joanna. It’s the other way around.”
Her sentence sent me into a whirlpool of thoughts. I cried so hard when he said he could not fall in love with me. Was it because I liked him? I had not cried that much since Mum’s death.
My handphone beeped. There was an incoming SMS. Landy passed me the phone and said, “It has to be Jacky.”
I opened the SMS and it was really from him.
“I’m sorrie if I say anything wrong…you will still come for the appointment, won’t you?”
I read the SMS aloud to Landy. She beamed and exclaimed, “Say yes!”
I did not follow her advice. I replied, “No.”
“I’m not keen anymore,” I told Landy. “I don’t wanna go out with an idiot.”
“My gosh, you’re going for the appointment, not going out with Jacky!”
I was still trying to control my tears. I should not cry in front of my best friend. I had always b
een the strong independent girl. I will not cry for a guy!
A new SMS came in.
“Let me fetch you on that day, okie?”
I replied a “no” again. I had enough of this guy. Trying to help me? Or, maybe, he is just doing all this so that he can skip school! That bastard!
“Come on, relax and let’s look at it objectively. It’s very obvious, Joanna, that you’ve fallen in love with Jacky. Why not just admit that, and we’ll have an easier time deciding on whether to go or not?” Landy said, but I was not paying attention. I was looking at my phone, wondering whether Jacky would reply or not.
When the reply did not come after two minutes, I digested Landy’s words. It was clear. It was just too clear. Maybe I just dared not admit it. Finally, after fifteen minutes, I dropped my first tear. I wiped it off instantly. Landy, somehow, had seen it.
“Cry it out, Joanna. Cry it out.”
A new SMS: “Only you can help yourself. come on, reply a yes…”
I replied a “no”.
“I know you’re going to the clinic because of him,” Landy said.
“I’m not!”
“Then,” Landy whispered so soft that I had to read from her lips, “why are you not going anymore, after he said all that?” And she made sense.
A new SMS came in. “Vent your thoughts to others please…it’s the only way out.”
I replied, “No,” and looked at Landy. I was lost for words.
Jacky replied, “Ease your illusions! let me help…”
I shrugged. I did not know what to tell Landy, and I did not reply to Jacky. I was caught at a crossroads, not knowing where to go. Landy was quiet, eyeing me, as if waiting for me to say something. Jacky sent three more SMSes in five minutes.
“You’ve gotta go for it!”
“Only you…yourself can help yourself…”
“Understanding yourself is most important…”
I stared at the SMSes. Landy was frowning, obviously curious about the SMSes that Jacky had sent me.
I crossed my legs, then my arms. Then I threw my handphone onto the sofa and closed my eyes. My mind had dealt with too many emotional battles within a day: It needed a long rest.
* * *
Avoiding Jacky was one of the toughest things to do in school.
He was everywhere. I tried not looking at him, but realized I could not. I wanted to see his expression: Was he angry, guilty or happy? Or, maybe, he was indifferent?
There was no change. His trademarked smile still lingered on his face. He still greeted tutors as if they were his best friends. He even tried to joke with me, but I did not laugh and he did not continue the conversation.