Yesterday

"Shall we go?" I smiled at her. Beautiful, blushing, dark-haired and brown-eyed. My beautiful bride. She smiled at me and I knew, that our decision was correct. Gazing ahead at the building, I stepped forward, her gloved hand on my arm. And we stepped together into the place we used to visit as children.

"Why are you crying?" I peered down at the girl hiding in the benches. Red-eyed, her pigtails messy and huddled in a small corner, as far down as she could reach. I was annoyed - I was in charge of cleaning out the benches for talking back to Sir again, and I had to miss my soccer game with the boys. The last thing I really needed was a crying junior to pacify. She sobbed harder when I talked to her, so I left her be and continued sweeping hard at the church benches. I didn't really believe in a God - my parents were divorced and when I stayed up at night to pray to him to stop their divorce, it didn't happen. The divorce was messy, painful, for everyone. I slept at night at my grandparents' house and refused to talk to anyone about it. It was ironic, then, I studied in a Catholic school and morning assembly was an hour's long of praying and singing. Everything I hated, and I made it known to Sir this morning how much I hated all of it.

The recess bell rang and I sighed, feeling upset at the wasted hour. Glancing back at the girl, I saw she had climbed out from her hiding spot and was watching me warily. "Are you coming?" I moved towards the door, not caring if she answered. The warmth of her hand surprised me, and I startled. I had never held anyone's hand apart from my mother's at 15, and it was a strange feeling.

“What are you doing…” I pulled my hand away, turning to look at her, and as my eyes swept downwards I saw the tiny cuts on her upper arm, starting from her wrist and stopping at her elbow. She saw me looking and tugged at her sleeve, though the short sleeves did nothing to cover her cuts. "Come on, let's get you back to class." I said gently, and she nodded. Together, we headed back to class. 

That night, I couldn't stop thinking about the cuts on her hand. Like most boys my age, I had started to notice the girls in my class changing overnight. From being our playmates, they started to smell good, move in strange, surprisingly touching ways that caught me off guard. Min, the class president, and a favourite of all the boys in class, held my attention the most. The way her hair fell on her face, the sunlight that streamed in and illuminated her dusky hair, the lilt in her voice when she asked a question - all of these details stopped me in my tracks -as it did all the boys in my class. But the girl at recess was different. There was something haunting and strange in those eyes that I couldn't unsee. And the cuts? Did she cut herself? Was she being bullied? She didn't look like a victim, those feral eyes and the protective way she huddled didn't seem like she was a victim at all. Unable to find answers to my questions, I slept instead.

"Depression is not something that is bad. Sometimes people can feel sad when something unhappy happens. That is normal. But some people may feel so sad after the moment, that they resort to ways of making themselves feel better, and those ways are unhealthy. Or some people can't feel happy at all even when things are going well for them, and this is very serious. They may actually need medical help. So if you feel sad all the time, don't ignore it. Get help." Miss Li's soothing voice rolled over the classroom, as she clicked through the slides with big size 18 font words. I usually slept during Character Education lessons, and woke up when Miss Li called me, but today I was actually paying attention. When the bell rang for the end of class, I went over to her immediately. "Miss Li, I have a question." She smiled at me, nodding. "Can someone feel so sad that they try to hurt themselves?" When Miss Li frowned, I knew the answer already. "It's possible, and it's dangerous. Someone can hurt themselves to feel good in a short instance because those small cuts are real physical pain, and they're very distracting. It may be a way to distract themselves from the real pain they feel inside." I thought back to those small cuts on her on the girl’s wrist. 

“Miss Li, I have to go!” I ran off, turning back to bow quickly at her before sprinting off. 

I ran as quick as I could across our school field, headed towards the school church that was just right next to our field. The back of her head faced me, and I dropped to my knees, offering a quick thanks to deities who I no longer believed in. At the sound, she whipped around quickly. 

“You’re here.”

“Yes, I am here. I have to sweep the church benches, you know?” I said quickly, picking up the broom beside the door and jabbing at the benches like I was trying to defend myself from the dust. 

“Okay.” She turned back, and I glanced at her from the corner of my eye. 

The girl sat with her back straight, her blouse collar sharp and stiff. Her hair was still in pigtails, and she was staring straight ahead, eyes unblinking. The corners of her mouth trembled slightly, but yet no tears rolled down her cheeks. I cleared my throat. “What…” The jarring sound of the school bell silenced my question and I sighed in defeat.

“Let’s go back to class.” Again, she placed her hand in mine, and silently, I walked her back to class, all the way taking side glances at the angry scars that marked her wrist. If she noticed me looking, she said nothing, only running off when we reached the entrance of the class blocks. Laughing schoolmates peered at us curiously - it was unusual to see a senior and a junior mixing, and I shuffled uncomfortably, shoving my hands in my pockets. If they had seen us, I thought, the rumours will spread. I better be careful. Nodding like I had just seen someone, I took out my mobile and pretended to send a message, waiting for the disciplinary mistress to yell at me. “Thomas Tan, switch off your phone now!” Her loud, scary voice dispelled the crowd, and everyone scattered in the direction of their classes. I strolled off, smiling.

That night, I searched the Internet for wrist scars and a ton of suicide information turned up. Suicide? What was the girl trying to do? Should I alert someone? What if she had just fell and I was making a fuss over nothing? Who was I to say anything? As I sat at my keyboard pondering, my grandmother switched off my room lights, grumbling under her breath over a spoilt grandson. Indeed, why did I care about someone else’s problems? Here I was, my mother overseas and my father, probably too busy with his new family to care about me. I was as good as an orphan, stuck in my paternal grandparents’ house, at the mercy of my relatives who gossiped behind my parents’ back. Like clockwork, my grandmother’s grumbles got louder. “That boy ah, take after his mother. Wasteful. Don’t know how to save money. No wonder our son wants a new wife. Now, what happens? She runs off and lets us take care of her son.” I clutched my fists tightly, balling them at the side of my head. “Miss Li says to count…Count 10, 9, 8…” I breathed in deeply and counted all the way to zero, and as her grumbling faded off, I found myself thinking about the girl’s scars again. 

Tomorrow, I’ll ask her, I thought to myself sleepily, the glow of my laptop in the darkness blurring before my eyes as I drifted off into a dreamless space. 

The next day, at the school church, she was nowhere to be found. 

Where was she? My heart clutches. Was I too late? Her scars that jig jag down her wrist were burnt in my memory. I ran to her classroom to look for her. “Excuse me, where’s -?” I waved to the photo of her on the class board, the petite girl with feral brown eyes. “Oh, she? She transferred out today. Hmm…I think they said that she was having some…mental problems.” The boy that answered me chuckled, waving his fingers around to indicate that she was crazy. The force of my punch reeled me back as well and I let bystanders tug me aside, already hearing the scream of my discipline mistress and the howls of the stupid classmate that said she was crazy before I realised that I had finally, Caused Trouble.

Mother returned from her trip today and came straight to the Principal’s office. My father was there too. I was in for behavioural problems, anger management issues, and post-divorce trauma. In for weekly counselling sessions, tons of people asking me if I was okay, smiling plastic faces nodding at me weekly. Of course I was okay, nothing really changed and if I couldn’t be okay, the adults around me could not do anything about it anyway. 

Finally, it was time for me to enlist into the army. I had waited for this day for so long. The two years of army meant I could now leave my family behind. I planned to enlist as a regular soldier. The soldier life suited me. The strict rules and discipline meant that I didn’t have to think about the world at large, my anger tucked neatly in and spent on regular military exercises. 

Only the weekends were tough - I hated having to go out into the real world. While the rest of my platoon mates rejoiced, excited at meeting their girlfriends, I lingered in the camp till it was clear that if I didn’t go out, I could not come back in time. So on a beautiful clear Friday night, 21 year old me stepped out into the hot tropical weather, ready to wander around the city for fun.

It was then that I saw her. It was her laughter that I heard first. I had just gone into the convenience shop to buy a beer when I heard the laughter. It was a harsh, hackling laugh, foretelling pent up sadness. I turned, and I met those feral brown eyes again.

“Oh, it’s you!” Just beside the entrance of the convenience shop, standing there with a lit cigarette in her hands, she appears again, just like she did years ago in the school church.

“Where did you go, after all these years?” I approached her, the question in my head. Instead I said, “Hi, you look familiar.” As I talked, I glanced at her hand, a cigarette perched between long elegant fingers. Her wrist now spotted a swirl of tattoos, instead of angry scars. The friends around her teetered. Sleek long hair, dresses form fitting and showing off new curves, 19 year old her was a young woman no longer afraid of the world. She throws the cigarette into the bin, and nods at the motorbike helmet in my hand. “Let’s go for a ride?” Her friends groan and she pushes them off, laughingly. I nodded and handed her the helmet. I was ready to find out more.

It turned out that she was an orphan. She was cutting herself a lot as she moved from one foster family to another. “I never really belonged, you know?” She glanced at me, “And so, I cut myself a lot. But knowing you were there every recess time, helped. Like someone was finally showing up for me.”

“I see. Why did you stop coming to our school.?”

A frown. “They didn’t tell you? My last adopted family took me to me Switzerland.” She laughed, the smoker’s laugh, a coarse hack. 

We spent a lot of time together from there on. Finally, I had someone to look forward to on the weekends. She was the opposite of how I expected her to be, and I knew - she was the one, and I had to tell her.

Two years passed by fast, and on the day of my passing out parade, I told her to be there. I had to tell her before I lost courage. “Wow, you look so fit as a soldier!” She hugged me, and the scent of roses flitted past my nose. “Hey - wait.” I gently pulled her wrists down. “I’ve something to tell you.” 

“Don’t say it.” She turns away quickly, but not before I see her eyes mist over. “I know what you want to tell me. No, don’t say it.” 

“Wait, please. Why?”

“I don’t want your love. I don’t want someone who’s seen me like this. You’ve always been here at the right time for me, and I don’t want your love, or your pity.”

“It’s not-…” Before I could finish, she steps away and extends a hand. “Be my brother. Please. My older brother.” She smiles and I took a huge breath. Looks away. She frowns and drops her hand. “Congratulations, anyway.”

Years passed, and we went our separate ways. I finally could get my own apartment and I gradually forgot about her. Was it pity or was it love? The reflection of all those years as an adult made me realise that perhaps she was right. In my dreams, I extend my hand and shake her hand on it. Then one day, my doorbell rang. 

I opened it to see her standing there again, this time older, but still with those wild eyes.

“Hey brother, I am getting married.” 

I was the official bridesmaid for her and 20 years from when we had first met, we went back to the same school church where we had first met to give her hand away. Her husband did not know her past, and to him she was unspoilt, someone who had came straight out of a warm loving family, not an orphan who cuts herself. I smiled. When he looked at her, his eyes were full of love. 

I now know she was right. It was better to marry for love, not for pity.