Voids Fill Up Differently, Students of IACT [great book club books txt] 📗

I stepped foot into the house.

 

"Ella, look what I've made. Kuih! I tried one of your Po Po’s recipes and this is the result!" said my mum, Geraldine. Her eyes were sparkling with delight but I was in no mood for that. Not at all. Not getting the kind of response she expected, she placed the kuih down and came over to me, limping as always with that annoying worrisome look etched on her face. "What's wrong Ella?"

 

"What's wrong? Oh, I'll tell you what's wrong. You had the nerve to mess with my relationship with Max. That's what's wrong." I snapped. As quick as lightning, my mum's expression hardened.

 

"I did what I had to do. That boy does not deserve you in any way," she said.

 

"And who are you to determine that?" I retorted back.

 

"I am your mum. I'm just doing my responsibility to protect you from harm's way."

 

"So what? Just because you are my mum, you thought you have the right to hire a damn private investigator to follow us, to follow him? All to dig dirt about him and report to his parents? Just to wrench us apart?" I demanded, losing my patience rapidly.

 

Before she could say a word, I interjected, "Do you know what you've done? Now that his mum knows he deals with weed, he is in so much trouble and he blames me for everything. E-VE-RY-THING." I took my phone out and shoved the screen right at her face, showing her my chat with my boyfriend, "He wants to break up with me because of all this!"

 

"That's better! At least now you're safe!"

 

"Safe from what?" I challenged. "The only danger I face is you! Everything was perfect before you came into the picture!"

 

"Then tell me! What is this red mark on your wrist about?" she fumed, grabbing my left hand and pulled my long sleeves down revealing my wrist that was sore from an earlier incident. "What are these bruises I see you coming home with? I know my daughter is clumsy but not to this extent. I may be busy at times but I am not that blur to the fact that my daughter is being mistreated!"

 

I pulled my hand back from her and pushed my sleeves back down, ignoring the pain I felt in my arms. I kept my head down as I was shaking in rage. Who does she think she is. Acting all strong and mighty there. Do you think I don't know that? But he is all I've got! He's the only one that sees me as me. Not Geraldine Lim's daughter but as me Isabella Chan. He accepted me. He's all I've got.

 

Meanwhile, mum was still nagging in the background. "I tried my best to not meddle in your love life but not this. Once or twice, yeah I can look over somehow lah. Give him the benefit of the doubt. But this has gone on for too long! Can't you see the red flags? What has my daughter become? Don't you have any sense of self-worth? You deserve more than this. Are you that desperate for love ah? My god, you are just 19. So young and you want to play with love. You have a long way to go. Why on Earth are you rushing things?"

 

I had enough.

 

"Shut up!" I exploded, seething in anger. "Shut up! You don't understand a single damn thing. It's easy for you to say la. People flock around and adore you. But, I don't get that. He was the only one that saw my worth. He was the only one who saw me, as me, and not this girl that lives under your shadow. He gave me an identity I can live by at my own pace, while you robbed me of my identity. You know or not because of you I have to live up to people's fucking expectations of me since you are the great and powerful Geraldine - role model to all youths yadda yadda yadda. I face so many internal issues because of this shit. But when I try to talk to you about it, all you do is downplay my problems. You make me seem like this pathetic kid that makes so much noise for something so small. But he doesn't. He isn’t like the rest. He understands me. He acknowledges me. Yeah sure he loses his temper once in a while but I deserve that! He is all I have — I love him and he loves me!"

 

"Love your head la. That is not love and you know it. That is not a relationship, Ella. A loving boyfriend would never do this. No one in their right mind would do this to the one they love," she said slamming her hand on the table to make her point. She disregarded my statement on her own being and focused on Max. Classic.

 

"To hell with what you think relationships are. You're old. From some dinosaur era. You won't understand how I feel," I fought back.

 

"I understand it and that's why I'm here to guide you. Stop selling yourself short for his happiness. I want you to realize that! Grow up and make the smarter choice," she insisted.

 

My bitterness with life and everything started to seep into my words like poison. A poison that was aimed at the wrong person in my life.  "If I could make a smarter choice, I would choose to have a better mother. But boohoo I couldn't choose who I was born from, so I'm stuck with you!"

 

Silence filled the room. The tension between us was so bad I couldn't take it anymore. I stormed off to my room avoiding my mum's gaze. Before I could close the door to my room shut, she appeared in front of me again.

 

"Ella I want you to understand. I'm just doing what's best for you," she said with an accusing tone that aggravated me all the more. She’s talking as if she is some big shot that everyone has to listen to because she knows better while I’m this lesser human being. 

 

I know I should back down but I was too deep in my rage to care. "If you know what's best for me, then just stay out of my life, and my relationship with my boyfriend. Stop being a damn control freak!"

…………...

"Stupid brain. Stupid memory. Why do you have to replay it in my head? It's already bad enough. I hate you so bad," I sobbed while giving my head a beating. A beating it deserved for being an ass to its own host. Do I need a reminder? Yes. But do I want it? No.

 

I glanced at my phone to see our once loving chats and deep midnight talks, now stale.

 

'Please give us a chance' - that was my final text which was ultimately ignored. He has already removed all trace of our relationship on social media too. In a blink of an eye, I was erased so easily. It hurts inside. I hate it. I hate the pain so much, I channelled it out as anger because that's the only thing I had control of now. I wanted to get rid of the irritation I feel under my skin, so in the hurricane of emotions I was in, I trashed everything and anything that was within my perimeter. Furniture, papers, pictures, books - nothing escaped me.

 

I gave myself a cynical laugh as tears overflowed once more. Questioning my life and feeling frustrated over it, the cupboard near me became my next new victim. My knuckles burned from all the damage I've caused my room but I needed this cathartic release. I threw my final punch onto the cupboard making it tremor from the impact. As a result, something came toppling down, hitting me dead in the head, snapping me out of my fury.

 

"That fucking hurts," I scowled, scanning the floor for the culprit. It was a dusty old box that I guess was sitting on top of the cupboard, left forgotten. Kinda like me. Its content sprawled out on the floor. Things like old keychains, some medals, a few rusty trinkets laid there but there was something that did not fit in with the other items in the box. It was a dusty worn-out old book that had a few papers sticking out of it. Curiosity festered inside me, so I decided to pick it up.

 

Blowing the layer of dust away, the fonts on the book seemed clearer to me now. It was a diary.

 

There wasn't any lock on it, so I could access its content. I planted myself onto a nearby bean bag which miraculously survived the storm of anger I conjured up earlier and started to pry into the content of the book. The entries were dated back in the year 1995 and the first entry that was written was;

 

 

9 January

Dear diary, was it? Mama brought me this diary to record my college life daily. Said that it'll be a good memory to look back on or something. I'm like the first in the family to enter college, so they are really, really, really super proud of me. I can't believe I made it honestly. A scholarship even. Gosh, I gotta make sure I don't mess up. Time to throw my dark highschool history behind me and start a new life story!. Stay at the top. I can do this. So many new things to look forward to. It should be easy. It's just college, right?

 

 

I laughed at the final phrase. Naive naive diary owner. The word college is like a melting pot of depression, poverty and drama left and right. It'll seem fine at first but it's the latter part that really kills you. I decided to just continue reading it, just to see how messed up her college life will turn out to be later. I'm in a mood to read the life of someone else because I really don't want to face mine right now.

 

The diary continues with like a bunch of mundane college stuff. She mentioned in one of her entries that she felt accepted for once and that college life was going great for her. But she was afraid of being exposed as a fraud, so she's putting in more effort.

Flipping through the pages,  I soon spotted one whose page is just filled with...doodled hearts?

 

 

28 February

Dear diary, remember how I said before that I sort of caught feelings for my classmate, Dickson? I think he likes me back. Because I caught him staring at me from time to time, he even goes the distance for me. He gave me some very expensive looking cake too. I mean, who would do that for someone they've just met right if not for you know what. I'm not reading into this too much right? I can't help but fall for him because of his cute laugh and the way he treated me. He-

 

 

I couldn't bear the cringe so I stopped reading it halfway. I could literally hear the squealing in the writer just by the text. It gives me shivers through my spine. Few entries later….

 

 

6 March

I HAVE A DATE WITH DICKSON. 

 

 

Ah, a date! Eager to know how it went, I tried to find the page that holds the deets on the date.

"Aha! Found it," I eureka-ed.

 

 

13 March

I felt like jelly the whole day. Well, first it was because we finished our first exam in college but also because the first date just felt so magical. He brought me to see my first movie in the cinema. Gave me my first arcade experience. We even shared our first kiss. So many firsts today. I never felt so giddy in my life.

 

 

"Wait. Never been to a cinema before?" I said, taken aback by this new information. Was life that bad back then or is it just because her family was poor? Skipping through the entries again, I landed on;

 

16 April

Dear diary, Dickson and I went on a mini getaway for