Neptina
Thursday, July 23, 2009Neptina
*
She told me one afternoon a few weeks ago, as we laid in bed and watched the night sky through the ceiling of my room. We made up constellations and traced our fingers from one imaginary star to another. There was a moon formed by my curved fingers, and there was a shooting star that shot across from one end of the room to another as well. We laid there for a while and felt the cooling breeze from the air-conditioning, the sound of cars were far away from where we were. Our skins touched, and our limbs tangled into a mass of indecipherable body parts. Her breath was on my cheeks, and I brushed my eyelashes on hers and told her that that is how butterflies kiss each other. She smiled, and for some reason apologized for wanting to meet me on such short notice. It was a weekday after my school, and she dropped by my place from wherever she was because she wanted to see me. It has been a couple of times already in that week, and it wasn't as if I was complaining either. I was confused, and she explained the reason why she wanted to see me so often. There wasn't much time left between then and, well, the date of departure. Instead of seeing me two or three times a week, she wanted to see me more often, even if it was for a few hours after dinner. She said, seeing me more times a week made her feel as if there was more time left for me, for us.
That was when I came apart, like a rag doll with broken thread. I brawled in her arms at the very moment when she said that, and it was the first time it really hit me right in the guts. That was the first time in a long time when I cried in front of anybody that hard and that uncontrollably. I couldn't help myself at that time, and the overwhelming emotions came over me like waves breaking on the shores. I buried my face into her shoulder while she placed a calming palm on my head, and she ran her fingers through my hair to sooth me out. Yet, as my tears fell into the hollow of her neck, my body convulsed uncontrollably to the sobbing and the tears that came forth. The thought of it, the sheer thought of leaving, it came at me like punches in the chest. For a moment there, I couldn't breathe properly, and all the efforts to be brave and optimistic betrayed me all at once. They came apart and opened the doors for things to enter. I was open to attacks from all directions, thoughts that welled up in my head like an overflowing glass of wine. I grabbed hold onto her like she was a buoy in the sea, and pulled her close to my chest to keep the heart in. I brawled like a baby that evening, the very first time the thought of leaving killed me.
*
The decision for me to leave for Buffalo was made long before I met Neptina. At the very beginning of my college life when the option was presented to me, I knew that I needed an experience like that to give my life a sudden jolt. It was a decision made impulsively, and an impulsive decision that eventually became a reality. I made the choice to go to the United States on a whim, and I didn't give it much thought at the beginning until I had to give it more than just a thought at all. When the papers and the documentations were sent to my e-mail, the thought of going to the United States suddenly became real and somewhat daunting. I remember taking the elevator at school one day and talking to my friends about getting cold feet about it. A friend of mine avoided the topic altogether, because she didn't want to think about the distance between her boyfriend and herself in the coming months. Another friend of mine, still attached right now, didn't seem to mind the distance very much at all. I tried to be cool about it, I remember telling them what I'd do to overcome the geographical distance. In my head, though, I was petrified.
On long bus trips home, I'd think about what I'd miss the most in Singapore. In the snowy winter country of Buffalo, I'd probably miss the warm weathers here quite a bit. Though, I must say, there period of time between April and June is probably the most unbearable period of time in Singapore due to the sheer amount of heat and humidity. Anyway, I'd probably miss the convenience of getting around the country, and most definitely the fact that my family is here in Singapore. At that point in time, Neptina hardly existed in my life at all. It was before we even met on that fateful day before the rock concert, and long bus journeys home were usually ruled by the music from my iPod or just the sound of rumbling engines. The idea that there'd be somebody to hold on to back in Singapore never came to me at that time. It was easy to tell myself that it'd turn out OK, that I'd be able to get used to the weather and the foreign delicacies. With nobody back home to worry about, I thought at that time, it was going to be an easy few months for me to get through. I remember about this time last year, I was contemplating heavily on the idea of moving back to Taiwan permanently after my college life. It was easy, and it really only involved a plane ticket and a cargo crate to put my stuff in. I made a list of what I wanted to bring back at that time, and I was so sure of moving back until August came along and presented a reason for me to stay.
Neptina and I met on the 12th of August last year before Death Cab for Cutie's concert. It began with an errand that I had to run for my mother, and then two hours of nothingness from then till the beginning of the concert. I was at Esplanade with nothing but my iPod Touch, a bottle of honey (don't ask), and a bag of tea leaves (don't ask either). I was sitting there alone with a game of Sudoku to play when a person approached me from the corner of my eyes. I remember looking at her for a split second just to make sure that she wasn't approaching to ask for directions or the time. When she sat down next to me, she kept mostly to herself and stared out into the distance like a mannequin of sorts, occasionally turning her head from side to side and watching the people go by. In between the random games of Sudoku, I'd try to see what she is doing on her side of the triangular seats, but she never seemed to be doing anything. She was hugging her bag, I remember, and her legs were pinned close together in front of her, like she was afraid that someone would come and snatch her bag away. The corner of her eyes peeped through from the top of her glasses, and I could see the wings of her eyeliner curling upwards towards her hairline. Beautiful, I thought to myself, before I retreated back into the mundane number game.
But such games only last so long, and the highest difficulty level seriously beat me to it. I gave in to my boredom and began to engage in the activity that the then-nameless girl was doing next to me - staring. That was when I decided to strike up a conversation, and I have to say that it wasn't out of curiosity or for any hidden purposes. All I wanted was to have somebody to talk to for two hours straight, and she happened to be the closest human being at that time. "Hey, what you doing here?", I said, and she turned to me and said "Death Cab". I told her that I was going to see Death Cab for Cutie as well, and her arm reached out from the other side of her body to give me a fist pump. That marked the beginning of our conversation, a conversation that has yet to seize since the very first day. I remember asking for her name and finding it unique and different from all the names that I have ever heard of. We discussed our favorite and most hated Death Cab for Cutie songs, and I remember her telling me about the origins of her name. We talked about our future and what we wanted to be, and she mentioned about how she wanted to be a wine connoisseur in Australia. I told her about my blocked nose, and how that makes it impossible for me to be in a career such as the one she was aiming for. She laughed, and I joined in soon after. That is how I met the love of my life.
*
I had to look away while she did something inside her cupboard. She had one of the doors opened in such a way that from her bed, I wasn't able to see what she was doing. She told me that she'd take about half an hour to finish what she was making for me, and I had to surf the internet in the mean time. It was a week or two before my birthday, but she couldn't wait to give it to me any longer. She was already on the verge of finishing it anyway, and I didn't mind receiving an early birthday present at that time. I remember talking to her and trying to guess what the gift was while watching Eddie Izzard videos on YouTube for the umpteenth time. I took peeks at her general direction, but the cupboard door completely concealed what she was doing. At one point, she rushed out from the room with an envelope and placed what she made for me inside. She came back with it soon after and handed it to me, with the flap at the back of the envelope properly sealed up. I tore open the invisible tape and fished out what looked like a handkerchief from within. I opened it up, and it was a piece of cloth sewed to look like a page out of a primary school exercise papers, completed with red margins and blue guiding lines. On the lines, she sewed words for me, one stitch at a time, the same words that made me break down last night before a phone call. It reads:
Hey there!
I love you bright eyes.
Stay with me?
*
Last night, I wanted to make a phone call that I didn't dare to make. I was alone in my room when a fear came to my mind. We've all heard stories, horror stories, about how love come apart after being the victims of long distance relationships. It's not that I haven't heard of success stories, but it's just that they are few and far in between. I was afraid that she'd leave me, though that is not to say that I believe her to have the capacity for such cruel deeds. It's like the concept of ghosts and monsters, and how one can be afraid of it despite knowing that it does not exist at all. I was petrified at that thought, and the time of the night seemed to have an amplification effect on all my emotions. I wanted to call Neptina, I wanted to unhinge to her about what I had in mind. It was two in the morning and she had an early class, and I know that I'd feel bad for waking her up. That, and on the other hand, I knew that if I called her, I'd cry so hard that I wouldn't be able to stop. Yet, I knew that as long as she was on the other end of the line, then it wouldn't be that bad a thing - that it'd be OK. So I dialed the familiar numbers on the number pad, and it didn't take long for her sleepy voice to come through the receiver.
I told her about what I was feeling, and my fears for leaving the country. I told her that as painful as it is to have someone to leave back home, it is also beautiful to know that I'd have somebody to come home to at the end of all things. She assured me over the phone and comforted me, and she told me that everything is going to be alright. Neither of us can promise and guarantee anything for the future, but that moment of assurance was more than enough to calm my soul. I told her about other things, and I told her that I felt bad for waking her up in the middle of the night just to whine about things that have yet to come to pass. She told me that it was alright, and that she didn't mind it at all. Like the way I'd be there when she has her nightmares, she wanted to be with me on my lowest points as well. Before we hung up, she told me to go look at the piece of cloth that she sewed for me as a birthday present, the one that still remained in the envelope that sits on a shelf in my room. I went to it after the phone call, and the carefully sewed words read itself out to me in my mind with her voice. I smiled for the first time last night, and that was when her text message came in over my phone.
Hey?
Hey. I'm alright again! Teared a bit and had mucus all over, not a pleasant sight. Thanks for being there, you are the love of my life.
Please don't leave me too. I love you so, so much. I will be here, I won't leave. I won't leave. I don't ever want to.
Let's make a deal. If I leave you, I give you the permission to render me impotent. I will never leave you. You can't drag me away either. I'm in your blood stream now, and you are in too deep. I've infested your system, as you have in mine.
I like reading that somehow, haha.
*
There was a moment of silence in the air then, punctuated just by the sound of her sobbing and the shuffling of sheets. There were no words left to say, than the ones that were already said. In whispers and in between the tears, her lips parted in an effort to tell me something. No voice came forth, just the rushing of air from within her lungs. I read her lips and I knew - I knew.
I love you, Will.
Yeah, Neptina. I love you too.
*
I love you too, monster.
with every inch of my living tissue.
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on Thursday, July 23, 2009 at 1:33 AM.
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