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2011-01-30 - 3:01 p.m.

"What do you think?"

"About what you wrote?"

"Yes."

"It looked like a string of apology letters. They looked like you were in so much pain alone and you couldn't bear it anymore. Your deepest love for him has been your own personal cancer all along. You thought you'd conquered it, but it was never really gone - was it?"

"I guess I've completely lost my own battle this time. I didn't mean to hurt him that way."

"I know. But then again, it's never really been easy on any of you."

"It was actually about my greatest fear. You know, the 'what would I fear the most if I were dying" kind of thing? But I guess it no longer matters now. He's taken care of that. After what I've done, I don't think we'll ever see each other in the real life for good."

"Maybe you two need some time off, away from each other. It's unfortunate that some friendships have to end, no matter how good. Sometimes two things just can't co-exist in one environment. One of them has to die, or else it'll become a poison to the other."

"Is there a chance in the future when he might see that I never really meant to cause him such pain?"

"People say and do a lot of things they don't really mean when they have problems or are in pain. I don't think you ever really saw him as someone bad. We all know nobody's perfect."

"I know. You're right. Maybe this is for the better."

"Things happen for a reason. We all learn from our mistakes. We have regrets. But life goes on. I know you'll be strong."

--- // ---

"I'm afraid the issues have been much bigger and more serious than that story you wrote."

I could barely meet Mz.D's sharp gaze.

"You can't write happy endings anymore. You keep working on the same theme. You like gory stuff better. You told me that you used to have serious problems expressing your anger. I think you still do, so that's why you can never really get past that."

"I thought writing could help to make it all go away."

"Only as a temporary outlet. I can see some things still get unresolved here. Come on, I've read that too. That huge load of emotions didn't come overnight. There had to be some stressors in the past that triggered something like this."

"I never want to get angry."

"No wonder you've become a human time bomb, dear. Keeping rage within and pretending it never exists are very unhealthy. It's gradually tearing you apart. You're tired of building walls, only to have another time bomb exploded from inside. Think. Remember. There must be something either he'd said or done in the past which might have unintentionally angered you, yet you kept quiet about it for so long. Something you're still suppressing inside, only because you love him so much."

"I didn't want him to get angry with me and leave. I was scared." God, she was right.

"But you should've told him sooner, so you wouldn't have exploded like this."

"And hurt him far worse than intended." I looked away. "I'm afraid it's not just about him. More than that."

--- // ---

"Mooom, help meee!" my older sister was screaming as I was chasing after her. I didn't know where that scary urge had come from. All I felt when I saw her smirking at me was...rage. I couldn't remember why. I just knew I hated that. I hated her. I'd wanted her to stop making fun of me and leave me alone. I'd wanted to pull her hair and claw at her face. I'd wanted to push her down and make her cry. I'd wanted...

"Stop!" Mom caught my raised fist while my sister went hiding behind her back. "What's going on here?"

"I don't know, she's always being so weird," my sister said as she stuck her tongue at me.

Mom glared hard at me. My eyes challenged her in return (something forbidden in our culture). I tried to speak, but no sound came out.

In the end, they all came wordlessly through my eyes. Streaming wet.

--- // ---

"You're her little sister?"

"Yes, Sir."

"How come you girls are so different? You're fat."

I wished I'd been tall enough to break the teacher's big, ugly nose.

--- // ---

"I want to talk to you about the last story you wrote."

"Yes, Miss Emma?"

"You're a creative, imaginative writer. However, I am worried about you. For a girl your age, you wrote a story about a young girl doing time in prison...after murdering her older sister, some of her classmates, and a male teacher."

I'd never seen any grown-up would be that afraid of little girls. I'd thought that only happened in horror stories.

"I want you to tell me," Miss Emma went on carefully, "have you been angry at some people in your life lately?"

I slowly nodded.

"Why?"

"They won't stop making fun of me."

"Have you ever told them to stop?"

"They just laughed at me."

"Have you told your parents or the school conselour about this?"

"My parents said I was just too sensitive. Dad also said I was weird. He said snitching was only for the weak and the cowards."

"I see." She nodded, as if she'd understood the whole thing. "Is that why you wrote this story?"

"I'm afraid."

"Of what?"

"Being unable to stop that from happening."

--- // ---

"That wasn't a normal fantasy for a 13-year-old girl." Mz.D looked even more serious and concerned. "I mean, I dreamed about being a Star Trek crew when I was 13. My cousin wanted to be a Barbie-"

"I hanged my Barbie with a ribbon."

"-and they'd casually dismissed your problems by claiming you were just 'too sensitive'. They never took you seriously." Her eyes widened. "That had to cause a lot of anger in you, but you'd never said anything."

"Their typical reaction stopped me," I admitted. "'You're too sensitive'. Like that's a shameful weakness. 'You're weird'. As if I weren't supposed to even exist.'That's cliche'. 'Stop complaining'. As if I were never supposed to have any problems at all. It's like, it's always okay for others to complain, but not for me. They're not used to seeing me fall apart. They always, always expect me to be strong and take everything as it is. Keep quiet and act like nothing's wrong."

"It's never really true, is it?"

I shook my head. "Mom kept telling me to never hold any grudges."

"She's right, but she never let you know that sometimes, it's okay to express your anger openly. That's normal. You need to be acknowledged of your own anger and that's not a weakness."

"They were both busy at work. I wasn't supposed to give them more problems when they got home."

"Your guilty conscience had also blocked your emotions from coming out. You knew something always made your school conselour call your parents. You'd also noticed that whenever they got home, your nagging sister had always stolen most of their attention. So had your brother. You wondered why it was so hard for you to do the same, yet you remained quiet in the corner."

"I thought I could bury the pain by writing it down," I whispered, my voice now hollow. "I used to draw a lot too."

"What happened?"

--- // ---

"Did you draw this?" She was laughing at a piece of paper in her hand. I'd drawn a picture of a girl slapping a boy in the face.

Somehow, she passed that to her husband and the old man had laughed about it too. He even photocopied it so his colleagues could have a look and laugh about it too. He'd also joked with them, "I don't know what's gotten in my daughter's head to make her draw this. She's just weird."

I stood there, silently fuming. I'd thought that grown-ups were damn lucky to have a lot of advantages, including laughing at what kids do and making them feel like little freaks. Well, that day one freak had wanted to scream, stop it, Daddy. It's not funny. I really hate that boy!

Freak. That's what he'd call me later on...

--- // ---

"They keep making fun of me! I can't stand it anymore!"

"This is only your first year," she reasoned. "You can't just give up only because some kids are taunting you."

"But I have no friends, Ma! Nobody understands me."

"Maybe it's because you never know what you want," the old man suddenly spoke. "You're such a freak that nobody will ever want to be with you!"

Dead silence. The conversation stopped there.

So had the normal, open communication ever since.

--- // ---

"How was the audition?"

"I didn't get it." I shook my head as I plopped down on a chair next to hers at the cafe. I smiled politely at an elegant lady she'd been talking to when I arrived. I'd assumed she was her friend.

"This is Kristina," she suddenly introduced the elegant lady. I shook her hand and said my name, while Mom said, "Kristina, this is my daughter."

"Ah, the singer." She smiled. "I have a strong impression that you're special too."

"I don't get that a lot, but thank you." I smiled back. "Are you waiting for your kid from the singing audience at the other building?"

"No, I'm just here for the coffee."

"We've just met," Mom explained, "while you were auditioning."

"Oh, I see." Then I caught her eyeing me strangely, and that made me feel uncomfortable. She smiled politely, a bit embarrassed.

"I'm sorry, but I can't help saying this," she said suddenly. "You know, your father loves you very much. You're the one he always worries about the most."

I glanced at Mom, and she simply said, "Kristina can see people."

"Yes, I can," the elegant lady agreed. My attention shifted back to her. "I can see 'things' in people."

It took me a second before the meaning sank in. I suddenly remembered my Uncle Iwan - Dad's oldest friend with the same 'gift'.

"He's afraid that you might end up like him, along with his flaws."

I snorted. "He's got funny ways of showing me that."

"Maybe it's because he doesn't know how."

"Well, he can always try harder."

"Maybe he has, although in the wrong ways."

--- // ---

"I think you've been overlooked and dismissed your entire life, you're sometimes still unsure if people ever really care about you. Your problems have been casually denied. Considered unimportant. You feel like you're always expected to listen and understand, but there's never a room for you to really open up and talk."

"I don't want them to think I'm weak." I closed my eyes. "I'm not having some sort of a delayed, psychotic break, am I?"

"I don't know, dear. I don't study psychology."

"At least I've had a chance to tell him something."

"What is that?"

"If he ever has a daughter in the future, I hope he'll never ever call her a freak - no matter how angry he is," I explained. "I don't want any other girl to end up like me."

"No, don't say that. And your father was wrong about you. He knows that now."

"A father is the first man in a girl's life," I went on. "They say most girls who have troubled relationships with their fathers usually have serious trouble as well when they connect socially with men. But if I use this as an excuse for anything, they'll simply blame me for letting that affect me so much."

"As usual."

"However, I thought that wasn't really necessary." I shrugged. "Somehow I know he's not that kind of man."

"Alright, let's get back to him," Mz.D urged. "Like I've said, there had to be some stressors."

"Right." Here we go. "I kept them so that he wouldn't worry too much about me or feel responsible with how I felt. I thought I was taking care of him."

"But you weren't taking care of yourself."

"I guess so. Every time he asked me if there was anything he could do to help me with this, I just shrugged him off - convincing him I was okay."

--- // ---

"He's blown me off again."

"I've sensed something wrong with him from the beginning."

"I don't know why. Maybe he needs some time alone to decide about 'us'. Maybe he's unwell again."

"You know you deserve someone better than him."

"Look, it's not that easy."

"Yeah, but I'm worried about you, okay? I mean, I've read what you wrote about him. It sounds like you're obsessed with him."

"Well, I've written a lot about you too in my older entries. Does that mean I was obsessed with you too?"

"No.:) That means you've cared a great deal about me and I feel lucky."

--- // ---

"How did you feel when he used that word?"

"'Obsessed'? I felt like a pathetic freak. It was sad, really, to have him had such thoughts about me. I never placed the guy's pictures all over my room, wrote his last name next to mine, or some sick stuff like that." I'm sorry, but I just had to admit this.:( "Up to now, I still don't get it. At that time, why was it okay that I wrote a lot about him, while it wasn't if I did another guy?"

"Jealousy, perhaps? He was single at that moment, wasn't he?"

"Yeah for question number two, but that wasn't the point. Besides, that would be way too impossible. Jealous? Him??"

"It couldn't have been only that."

Oh, God. Please, forgive me...

--- // ---

"I know you've expected a lot of me. I'm sorry I can't live up to that."

"Wait, why are you sorry? It's about time you found someone new. It's okay. I get that. Besides, you were right. We're too damn far away."

"I didn't know how to tell you, afraid of how you might've reacted. And no, it wasn't because your grandpa had just passed away."

"Look, I've told you before and I'll say it again. It's okay. I want you to be happy, remember?"

"But it's you. I know you'll be heartbroken again, down-trodden. Because it's you that I didn't know what to say."

"How come? I've never gotten in your way before, nor will I ever in the future."

"No, but..."

"Relax, okay? You shouldn't feel guilty about the happiness you truly deserve. This is normal. If you're happy, then I'm happy. That's all."

--- // ---

"You lied for his sake, his sanity?"

"I hated it that he kept bringing 'that' up, when all I ever wanted to do was kill 'that' for good - in order to move on completely." My head was spinning now. "I'd almost succeeded, but he made 'that' feel real again...and painful. I wished he'd looked past that. He had no reason to feel guilty. My pain has always been my own responsibility, remember? I even asked him to look away, but he said he had to face it too."

"What else? That might've been it too, but not that strong."

--- // ---

"You're special too."

"No, I'm not. If I were special, people would do anything for me."

"A stumble in your confidence again?:)"

"I'm afraid so."

"You're beautiful too. You know you are. You ought to believe in yourself."

"If that is true, then why am I still all alone?"

"Because guys don't look that deep. If they know you this way, I'm sure they will fall for you."

--- // ---

"He said that?"

"Uh-huh."

"Why? How come? I mean, how did that make you feel?"

"I don't know." I shrugged. "I felt...uglier. Worse. Honestly, I'd also suffered a seriously low self-esteem for some time after that. It was like, 'Am I actually not beautiful enough to be noticed?' And the guys who do notice and think I'm beautiful are the ones with the girlfriends. Don't get me wrong, they're sweet and wonderful - but what do I get from that?"

"So, since then, you've started feeling that maybe he was right about that. Most guys are superficial and someone like you doesn't stand a chance?"

"Maybe he didn't mean it that way, or make me feel that way - but that was the impression I got," I admitted weakly. "It was like, 'You can sing but you just don't have the right look to be the star everybody likes'. Again, I chose to bury ignore my own feelings."

"Perhaps that wasn't the most crucial stressor," Mz.D analyzed. "There's got to be one that lead you to this breaking point."

--- // ---

"I'm sorry about the breakup.:("

"Thanks. I'm fine."

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine, really."

"Dearie, it's going to be okay."

"Wait, why are you being all affectionate with me all of a sudden?:P"

"Nothing. Why?"

"Because it makes me feel uncomfortable. Why are you being so weird?"

--- // ---

"That's it." Mz.D eyed me carefully. "From the rapid change of your expression, I could tell that was the biggest stressor. Not to mention you being pressured socially about what you should do...and problems at home."

Damn, she was right.

"I thought it was okay, because we used to do that to each other in the past," I admitted with a shrug. "I was just trying to cheer him up, as usual."

"And he thought you were flirting with him," she concluded. "Was that true?"

"As much as I loved him - and still do - I was more worried about how he was feeling at that time." I've been more than used to being second-guessed, so I didn't care if she hadn't bought it. But thank God she did. "Why is it okay for a guy to call any girl 'darling','honey','sweetheart'- but if it's the other way around, there has to be something else she wants?"

"Maybe it was also the word he used."

"'Weird'." I shuddered at it. "Suddenly, he sounded just like...Dad."

"And that destroyed your self-esteem...once again."

"He could've said something else like:'Hey, you're aware that we can only be friends, right?' But no, he used the same word Dad had used on me long ago - that shut me up ever since. 'Weird' - as if I were just some sort of a 'freak' again."

"Did you get a chance to tell him that when you two talked the next day?"

I shook my head. "No, I was way too furious to speak, so I mostly let him do all the talking. Then we began to talk less, less, and even lesser."

Until none. No more.

"Why didn't you tell him?" She sighed and shook her head as she read my face. "Don't tell me."

"Yes," I said sadly. I thought of him and prayed, God, please tell him I'm truly sorry. Take care of him for me. "He was one of my unfortunate casualties in this pent-up rage issue."

"You should've told him sooner."

"It's no use mourning about that now." I sipped my ocha tea.

"Maybe Al's right. You two need some time away from each other. You need to let go, like completely this time."

"I've never regretted meeting him and being his friend," I told her again. "I've never wanted to fall for him in the first place, and made him feel bad with that. I just hate it that this love became a poison that's finally destroyed our friendship."

"Don't be too hard on yourself. You've tried your best."

"All in the wrong ways, like that psychic lady said about Dad." I looked at her again. "I've failed, okay? I did a horrible thing I'm not proud of. I've accepted that now. Come to think of it, maybe it's much easier to have him hate me and walk away."

"How come?"

"As you've seen, I had a hard time walking away myself. I think he did the right thing. Somehow, I'm sure he'll recover from all this far more quickly than I do. Soon he won't even remember me, like I've never existed in his memory. Whatever happens in the future, I still wish him all the best in the world - here and after."

The Author/SBF/QB

 

 

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