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1 Past / When it all ended

21 August 2003

For an honour student, Sarah Tan had missed an unbelievable number of classes.

Some of the classes she missed were because of her participation in various interschool competitions, but most were due to sickness.

Sarah was born with a body prone to illnesses. She suffered from asthma and various other allergies. She often had fainting spells brought about by the heat or a slight lack of air or a thousand other reasons that should have been tolerable to a healthy person.

Fortunately, Sarah was a quick learner, as well as a diligent student. Whenever she had the opportunity, she read ahead of the class. If she encountered a topic she couldn’t understand on her own (which happened rarely), she came to the teachers for help. Her teachers, knowing her physical condition, tolerated her questions about advanced topics. Some of them commented to her parents that she could have been home-schooled instead, sparing her fragile body the wear and tear, but Sarah didn’t want that. She wanted to be a normal student, or at least as normal as she could be considering her circumstances.

Most of Sarah’s acquaintances were people like her, exceptional students who represented San Lorenzo in interschool competitions. Her closest friend in school was Christianne Ramos, a maths genius who happened to have a fear of standing before an audience. The two had been classmates during their first two years in high school, and they still saw a lot of each other during their junior and senior years because, in deference to Christianne’s condition, instead of sending her out as a contestant, she was often used as part of a Team B, students who pretended to be contestants from other schools in order to provide realistic competition for the school’s representatives. Sarah often asked Christianne for advice in various situations, since she believed that Christianne was more experienced and the better judge of character between them.

Sarah suffered a particularly bad bout of asthma early in her senior year, when she was so ill that even the act of directing her eyes to pick up the words on the pages of a textbook was beyond her, let alone trying to understand what she read. She let the book slip from her hands to the floor as she stared listlessly at the ceiling.

Her mind had begun to wander when a sudden knock snapped her out of her reverie. Who is it? If it were a doctor, a nurse, or someone from her family, they would have just walked in. Someone from school?

‘Sarah Tan?’ said a tentative voice, and a head peeked in through the slightly opened door. The voice and the head both belonged to Patrick Cruz, her classmate as well as a childhood friend of Christianne. Aside from that information, however, Sarah had no idea who this person was. Why is he here?

‘Not a good time?’ asked Patrick when he had stepped inside the room, catching a glimpse of the book fallen by her bedside.

‘Oh, no, I must’ve knocked that over while I was asleep,’ she answered with a bit of bashfulness in her voice. Why am I lying to him…? ‘Do you need anything from me?’

‘Ah… Well…’ Patrick mumbled as he scratched the back of his head. ‘Christianne said that you’re really sick, and you’ll be absent a long time, so I took down some notes from our lessons and brought them here.’ He shuffled over to the table by her bedside and put on top of it a thin notebook with the San Lorenzo logo on the cover.

‘Christianne warned me that the new lessons were things you haven’t studied in advance yet, so I had to pay extra attention to class just to make sure I’m writing down the right things.’ He punctuated his words with an embarrassed laugh.

Sarah merely smiled feebly at him; she had no energy left to spare for any other reaction.

Patrick picked up the book that Sarah had dropped and placed it beside the notebook.

‘Anyway, I’ll be leaving now so you can get some rest,’ said Patrick. ‘Get well soon.’

If Sarah had more energy to spare, she would have sighed. Reading the notebook later, she realised while that the lessons were new to her, they weren’t pressing ones. Why did Christianne send Patrick to her, then?

8 September 2003

When Sarah got back from the hospital, she began to see more of Patrick. Being classmates, it was unavoidable that they would meet, of course, but he went out of his way to spend time with her. He was there to eat with her during lunch break as well as to walk with her to the school gate when class was over. At first, Sarah thought that Patrick was interested in her, but she didn’t remember doing anything to catch his interest—she missed a lot of classes, after all, and Patrick wasn’t part of her circle of acquaintances. Furthermore, when she looked at him, what she saw was not someone acting out of romantic motive, but someone fulfilling a duty—true, she didn’t detect a hint of compulsion in his actions (he was happy when he kept her company), but whatever his reason was for being with her was, it had nothing to do with love.

She once breached the subject with Christianne: was she twisting Patrick’s arm to be with her? Was she playing matchmaker and trying to get the two of them together? What are you planning? But her friend just laughed her questions off, saying: ‘I’m not twisting arms, and I’m not planning anything. Look, it’s not like he hates what he’s doing, and you don’t look like you hate it, either.’

And she was correct: Sarah actually enjoyed Patrick’s company. But she chafed at her manipulation. She believed that romance should be best left to chance. Wait, romance? Why was she thinking about that? Have I started falling for her trap…?

One afternoon, while they were walking out the classroom after school, Sarah said out of the blue, ‘I hate this.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Patrick abruptly.

‘What for?’ Sarah stopped in her tracks and stared at him.

‘But you said, “I hate this.”’

‘I wasn’t talking about you; it’s this situation we’re in.’

‘That’s why I said I’m sorry. I didn’t think you hated being with me.’

‘Are you really this overly self-conscious?’ Sarah said with a concerned tone. ‘What I meant was the atmosphere in this place. Don’t you feel oppressed?’

‘By what?’

‘In high school, don’t you feel that you’re expected, almost compelled, to fall in love? That you won’t be living your high school life to the fullest if you don’t?’

‘Not really…’

‘Well, maybe you’re just dense.’ She paused when she realised what she had said. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.’

‘Nah, don’t worry about it. Christianne and the others always call me that.’ He laughed. ‘At least we’re close enough now that you could freely insult me.’

‘Is that so?’ Certainly, she’d been so accustomed to his presence that she blurted out what she thought about him.

‘Anyway,’ said Patrick, ‘why bring it up? Do you feel forced to fall in love?’ Sarah blushed at his sudden question. In the first place, her outburst came about because she had been thinking about what had happened to her just before the last period: some girls from class started chatting to her in the restroom, asking her if she and Patrick were an item, and what she saw in him. She protested that they weren’t like that, but then came their reply.

But why else would a guy and a girl be that close?

She uttered a feeble protest, but in her mind she fumed. Why do we need a reason to be close? Can’t a guy and a girl just be friends? Sarah would have been more suspicious had it been another guy, but Patrick was nothing less than gentlemanly. Respectful. Uninterested, maybe. That last thought took the sails out her unspoken anger as she heaved a resigned sigh while the girls giggled on their way back to the classroom.

What do I want from him? Friendship? Something more? Can I love him? Well, he was kind, not just to Sarah, and he was a good student, not likely to break the rules, let alone participate in delinquent activities. He was normal-looking, but Sarah was wary of handsome guys, in any case. Wait, what am I thinking of?!

That thought jolted her back to the present. She shook her head vigorously before casting a glance at Patrick, who looked at her with a puzzled look on his face.

She turned her face away and mumbled, ‘If it’s with you, I wouldn’t mind…’

‘What did you say?’ said Patrick.

‘Never mind that,’ she said as she pointed past the gate. ‘My ride home’s already here.’ She turned to face Patrick and smiled brightly at him. ‘See you tomorrow.’

Somewhere, surely¸ thought Sarah, Christianne must be laughing.

A few days later, Patrick asked Sarah out. He gazed at her with kind and gentle eyes, but they didn’t look like the eyes of someone in love. She agreed, nevertheless, believing that so long as they were together, she could find a way.

They spent most of their first month together studying for university entrance exams (though it was more Sarah tutoring him). They were so busy that they didn’t even have time to go on a date. But eventually the exams were all over, and Patrick started panicking over where to go for their first date. Sarah managed to calm him down by saying she knew exactly where they should spend their first date.

It was a warm October morning, shortly before dawn. Patrick was scanning the town park and found Sarah waving at him. She was sitting on a blanket near the fenced-off edge of the park. Beyond the fence was a sheer drop; the park was built near the edge of a hill, beyond which lay a forested valley, and further beyond that…

‘Wow,’ said Patrick, watching the sun peak out from behind a distant mountain range to stretch out her radiant arms towards the grey foliage below them, bringing them to verdant life. ‘I’ve been in this town my whole life, but I’ve never seen this before.’

‘I’d expected that,’ said Sarah with a quiet laugh. ‘Christianne told me that you’ve never woken up earlier than seven on your own your entire life.’

‘It’s not like she’s an early riser, either,’ sniffed Patrick.

Sarah tossed her head back in laughter. ‘Don’t be mad,’ she said, almost breathlessly. ‘I was just kidding.’ She suddenly stood and stretched her arms out in front of her. ‘So, how is it?’

‘Beautiful,’ said Patrick with a smile.

‘Isn’t it?’ Sarah smiled back. ‘You know what, that sun is nothing more than a ball of hydrogen undergoing nuclear fusion, emitting light in the process. Most of its light is lost to the darkness of space, but a bit of its light strikes the earth, and some of it finds its way to where we are now, just as our side of the earth is turning to face the sun. That’s all it is, or so I thought. Science can explain a lot of these things logically, but if we can appreciate the beauty in these things, then, surely, God must exist.’ She turned and smiled at him. ‘If we can find each other amidst these billions of people in the world, then, surely, God must exist.’

‘That sounds like something from a song,’ said Patrick with a chuckle. ‘Not the first part—that part I didn’t understand at all.’

Sarah stuck her tongue out at him. ‘Sorry about that.’ She sat back down on the blanket and slid closer to Patrick. ‘But it’s funny how love songs finally make a lot of sense to me now.’

Patrick wrapped his arm around Sarah’s shoulders; Sarah rested her head on his shoulder.

‘I heard from Christianne that you don’t live with your parents.’

‘Yeah, I live with my uncle’s family. My mum died when I was born, and I barely see my dad once a year.’ He said it with no overt signs of grief, but Sarah detected a hint of stiffness in the way he spoke.

‘Must be tough.’

‘It could be worse. But it does get tiring, trying to be a good son.’ He rested his head lightly on hers. ‘You know well enough how bad I am with studying, so not failing is already hard enough for me.’

‘Now I know why you asked me out,’ said Sarah with a serious voice. ‘You wanted someone to tutor you for free.’

‘You got me,’ said Patrick in an equally serious tone. ‘Alvin and Bets are as bad as me, and I really can’t understand it when Christianne tries to teach us. Fortunately, she told me she knew someone who could do a better job. So now you know.’ The two shared a long laugh.

Sarah was the first one to recover. ‘So that’s why you’re like a different person when you’re with Christianne and the others.’

‘They’re like family to me. My real family. I don’t have to be someone good around them; I can just be myself.’

‘Hmmm, now I feel jealous.’ She smiled. ‘I want you to feel the same way when you’re with me.’

Sarah felt Patrick’s arm pull her closer to him. ‘Thank you,’ was all he said, but from the tone of his voice, Sarah knew that she had finally won his heart.

25 December 2003

It was a cool Christmas morning, but Sarah wasn’t feeling particularly festive. She was sitting outside a coffee shop in a local mall, her face otherwise blank, but her feet tapping the floor betrayed her impatience. Once in a while she checked the time on her phone, after which she let out a soft groan of irritation. When she glanced up and saw the distant figure of Patrick rushing over, she stood up and left her table, striding briskly in his direction. Once they were a couple of metres apart she shouted at her, ‘We were supposed to meet an hour ago!’

‘I’m sorry…’ said a breathless Patrick.

‘Why were you late?’ Sarah said as she crossed her arms.

‘Well, last night was my sleepover with Alvin and Bets. I didn’t really get a lot of sleep, though…’

‘But we planned this in advance! Couldn’t you have made adjustments?’

‘But we do that every year.’

‘This is our first Christmas together!’ Sarah shrieked as she threw up her arms in frustration. ‘Doesn’t that mean anything to you?’

‘I tried my best to wake up on time, you know, but I can’t skip it. It’s a tradition.’

‘What’s wrong with you? You can meet them anytime! This happens only once!’

‘Look, I’m here now. Instead of wasting our time with fighting, let’s go ahead with our plans instead.’

‘And you have the nerve to say something like that? You—’ Sarah stuttered as she looked for a word to describe him. ‘You JERK!’

Patrick held up his arms in front of him, as if in surrender, or perhaps to shield himself from her. ‘I’m here, and I said I’m sorry already. What more do you want?’ he replied, less miffed by Sarah’s outburst than confused. Usually, an apology was enough to quell his friend’s anger.

‘What more do I want—’ Sarah spluttered as if flabbergasted by Patrick’s thick-headedness. ‘Think about what you’ve done! Is this any way to treat your girlfriend?’

‘I don’t get it!’ Patrick shouted in frustration, and Sarah’s face twisted in anger.

‘How dare you shout—’

‘Like I said, I showed up and I’ve apologised to you already. You’re important to me, but so are my friends. I wouldn’t set aside one for the other—unless you tell me to.’

Sarah was now so angry that she didn’t think she could spend any more second with him. ‘You don’t want to choose?’ she said in a hiss. ‘Fine, I’ll make sure you don’t have to, then.’ Without another word, she turned away from Patrick and headed straight back home.

Even before she got home, she tried to get in touch with Christianne with her cell phone. Barely had she entered her own room when their home phone began ringing.

‘Christianne?’ she said as soon as she picked it up.

‘What happened?’ she replied in a business-like manner. ‘Tell me everything.’

Once Sarah had told her the story, she sighed. ‘I’m sorry, but with him that’s just something you’ll have to put up with. In any given event he’s more likely to be late than punctual.’

‘But he was never like this before,’ protested Sarah. ‘Not when we first met, and not when we started dating. It’s like the person I fell in love with and the person who became my boyfriend are two entirely different people.’

‘Ohh…’ Christianne’s voice trailed off. It was the sound of someone pondering what to do after realising belatedly that she had forgotten something important. After a moment she spoke on: ‘I’m sure you noticed, since you asked me about it once, but he started keeping you company because I asked him to. Despite him, well, being himself, he takes duties seriously. Must have something to do with the way he was brought up… The few times we were over at Pat’s house, it’s like he’s a totally different person, like a soldier waiting for orders. Also, when he’s studying for exams, he becomes this super-serious student. Well, you should know—you were the one with him during the university entrance exams. So in a sense they are two different person.’

‘So, what do I do?’ That was the most important question in Sarah’s mind right now.

‘Do you still love him?’

‘Yes!’ she said without hesitation.

‘Despite knowing that this will happen more often than you hope?’

A pause. ‘I’ll try my best,’ was all she could squeeze out. On the other end, Christianne heaved a resigned sigh.

It took Sarah almost a whole day to muster her courage to apologise to Patrick, who was equally contrite. She tried to keep Christianne’s words in mind when dealing with him, but his chronic forgetfulness turned out to be too much for her, and she lost her temper one too many a time. Afterwards it became harder and harder for her to apologise; after a disastrous Valentine’s Day date, Sarah didn’t talk to Patrick for almost a month. As their final exams approached, she realised that she couldn’t let this drag on any further, so she finally approached Patrick—to break up with him. He walked away looking regretful but relieved.

She ran to Christianne’s classroom and dragged her off to the nearest deserted room. Finding no way to express herself with words, Sarah broke into tears in front of her friend. Despite being much shorter than her friend, Christianne cradled her head on her chest and let her cry.

After a minute she whispered to her, ‘I’m sorry.’

Sarah stopped sobbing and shook her head. ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ she said. ‘I’m the one who messed up.’

16 August 2004

‘…I’m the one who messed up,’ she whispered as she leaned against the door of her dorm room.

Feeling that she could no longer hold her tears back, she had run out of the classroom before the instructor arrived, heading all the way to her dormitory. She slammed the door shut as soon as she had entered the room, and she broke down into tears, slumping behind the door.

She didn’t expect that to happen. She didn’t expect Patrick to find a new girlfriend, especially not so soon. She thought that they had all the time in the world to learn to love each other again.

‘I’m such a fool,’ she said to herself as tears continued to stream down.

‘Regret is so distasteful to watch,’ said a male voice from within the room.

Sarah’s head jolted up, scanning the room for the source of the voice. She then saw a young man wearing a red t-shirt and faded jeans sitting on her bed.

‘If humans have time for regret,’ continued that young man, speaking as if it were natural for him to be there, ‘then surely they have time to take action against whatever brought about their regret.’

‘Who are you?’ said Sarah calmly. Despite the presence of a male stranger in her own room, she didn’t feel the need to panic. It was as if she knew that the man would never harm her.

The man smiled. ‘You may think of me as an angel, or a genie. I’ve come to grant you a wish.’

‘A wish?’ said Sarah as she wiped away her tears. ‘You can grant me anything?’

‘Yes, anything. But for your regret to disappear, you have to throw something away. Now, what are you willing to throw away to free yourself from regret?’

‘I wish…’ She almost wished to get him back, but she couldn’t. She wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she got him back through something other than her own effort.

‘I wish I could forget him.’ If she was no longer necessary in his life, then she had to make sure that she felt the same way, and this was the best way she knew how to do that.

‘You choose to throw away yourself?’ said the self-proclaimed angel in a condescending manner, and Sarah looked up at him in alarm, as if she had finally realised how wrong it was for him to be in her room. When their eyes met, she immediately lost consciousness. ‘Such a boring choice,’ he said as walked over to Sarah. ‘I hate the self-sacrificing types the most.’

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