Mirage

Round and round goes the damned fan again. The creaking sound of the blades is really starting to get on my nerves. As I continue to lay in bed, I look around and see what an impressive mess I've made of my room.

I should probably start cleaning it up, I really seemed to have let myself go. All my clothes are piling on that poor chair, but I don't have to fold my laundry, I'm just gonna use that Uniqlo shirt again anyways. Ugh… I got booze all over the sheets again, it's all brown and sticky. Its making the place stink. I wish she was here, she'd have fixed everything before I even noticed…… nah, I'd definitely notice her nagging.

Getting up, I draw the curtains, letting the harsh sunlight blaze in. A sad attempt to somewhat sanitize the room. Sounds pathetic but hey, at least I'm doing something. I never enjoyed cleaning but if I keep this up, I’d probably have to do my laundry soon.

How long have I been awake for? I ask myself as I reach for my phone to check the time. It’s just another sunny Saturday afternoon, except today, I’ve decided that I’m going to end my two year relationship with my soon to be ex girlfriend, Amelia.

Amelia and I met in college. I remember the first time seeing her like it was just yesterday, we were in different classes but I’d always see her around during lunch breaks and I knew I started getting some sort of interest in her. I found myself just staring at her so many times each day now that it's become really obvious.

There wasn’t really an explanation to why I noticed her out of all the other girls here. She didn't look much different from the rest. I guess she dressed better? Maybe it’s the way she talks to people? Whatever, I know that I want her and I decided to try and go for her.

Call me a weirdo but all the staring gave me a rough idea of what her regular day at college was like. She sits away from the rest of the crowd with the rest of her friends. I like that, makes me feel like she wouldn't want to get involved with other guys, especially Nathan and John. Those nuts have enough desperate chicks chasing them down.

This may sound weird but believe me, everyone does it. I told my friend that Jane from class B kept staring at me during lunch and that it felt like she wanted to take me home even if it meant I went in the trunk. So, like the smartass that I am, I convinced them to sit at this spot that was 2 tables away from ‘her’. This gave me the opportunity to learn more about her…. And just stare more.

As the days went by, It became more obvious to my table that there was another reason for sitting here away from the rest of the fun. I couldn’t care less honestly if they asked. I just wanted to enjoy my view. I noticed that from the way they were looking at me, It seemed like the apes figured it out.

“So, who’s the lucky girl?” asked my best friend, Jefri.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I said with a smirk, knowing exactly what he’s talking about.

“Or should I say,” A mischievous grin spread across his face as he crossed his arms and leaned back into the chair, already knowing the reason behind my actions. “The unlucky girl?” Making the rest of our friends burst out laughing.

God, I hated them at times like these. Their faces reminded me of the Hyena’s from the Lion King.

“Yeah, so I like someone. Big deal.” I said.

“Of course it’s a big deal! You’ve never liked anyone before!” said my other friend Tom, louder than he should have.

That statement, for the most part, is true. I’ve never been too attracted to anyone before. All of the girls in this college looked more or less the same to me anyway. However, I started to notice how different she was than the rest. She wasn’t your typical gossip girl, or wannabe Instagram model or even a nerd. They way she talked to her friends, made me feel weird, but attracted. YES I KNOW, IT’S WEIRD.

I often studied the situation to see if I could squeeze myself into talking to her or adjusted the way I looked whenever she looked over. I have my good sides too, it doesn't just apply to girls. Whenever I showered, I’d think of things to ask her like pickup lines. You wanna hear one? Of course you do, “ Knock knock, who’s there? What, when. What, when, who? Date, Friday night, You and me.” I'm a poet aren't I?

The perfect opportunity finally came when I saw her rushing to clear out her food tray. I was making my way back from the basketball court, not expecting to see her of all people. Alone, most importantly. Where were her friends? The rest of the students had already made their way back to class, as there were only a couple of minutes left until lunch ended. I’m always late for class anyway, but I wasn’t expecting her to be. I cleared my throat, brushed my hair and prayed that she had some sort of sinus attack that day. Deodorant is important guys. With all that aside, I worked up the courage to finally talk to her. Out of excitement, I ran over, but played it cool of course.

“You’re not usually the kind to be running late to class.”

She turned to meet my eyes, but I couldn't keep mine on hers. “I… yeah well my friends aren’t here,” she said. “And I was up in the library and I kinda lost track of time.”

“Oh, that’s alright I’m sure your teachers wouldn’t mind.”

She let out the most bubbly nervous giggle I’ve ever heard. “I’m not so sure about that.”

“I’m Michael, by the way”

“Of course I know, you’re the guy from the table that started sitting near mine!” She giggled. I felt really awkward and thought she figured I was a creep, but that thought brushed away when she said, “My name's Amelia by the way” with very bright smile.

With that, we took our own sweet time to stroll back to class, completely forgetting that we were late for class. She continued to tell me how the girls love gossiping about the guys and she’s heard my name pop up a couple times and how they noticed I brought the guys over to the new seat. At that moment, I knew my gay friend Jeff was right, I really am hot.

Without realizing, we made a couple of rounds around the college compound, but soon

realized that we had been absent from class for too long. Without hesitation, I asked her for her social media handles but asked for too many options, that it may have came off as weird. She giggled. Before she went into her class, she gave them to me with a cheeky smile and set foot into her classroom. ‘You better not forget!!” she reminded me again along with her soft voice.

After class, I headed home without a second thought. It felt like the new basketball shoes I ordered online had finally been delivered. As I made my way to my room, I leapt onto the bed and began thinking about what I should say first.

3 Hours had passed, and I still could not think of what to say. GOD, was it really so difficult for me to start a conversation then? Thoughts worried through my head, “Would she be thinking that I wasn’t interested? Was she talking to some other guy instead? Do I make her feel like she isn't important?” My sister walked into the room and grabbed my phone from me. “ There you go, idiot.” she said. I looked at my phone and she had sent a simple “Hey” to Amelia. Apparently those thoughts weren’t just in my head, I was saying them out loud. Yeesh, that's embarrassing.

As we started talking, we immediately clicked. We had so much in common. We’d talk for hours everyday, and eventually we knew each other like the back of our hands. We each knew our deepest secrets, fears, and dreams. In a matter of weeks, I asked her to be my girlfriend, although everyone already thought that we were already together. To everyone else, we looked like the perfect couple.

And we were, I guess. But after some time, she started showing her true colours. I had this feeling that Amelia was just keeping me by her side for the sake of not being alone. I was just convenient company to her. My friends warned me about her, saying how girls usually string guys along just for the fun of it. I ignored their warnings because I was that much in love with her. I wouldn’t let the petty opinions of single guys take me away from my relationship.

I decided to bring her out with Jefri and the gang to see if she needed some extra company to make her forget about whatever it was that was bothering her. I was thoughtful enough to bring her out with my friends, even though they probably can't relate with her too much. While we were out, Jefri and his pal Adam were diehard Marvel fans and decided to strike up a conversation about The Avengers movie. When Amelia overheard, she made an attempt to fit in and said that she was also a fan of the “ Marvelverse” or whatever you call it. I didn’t want her to feel like she was alone in it so I pretended as if I knew a thing or two about it as well. I've watched enough of their movies to make comments for sure.

When I made a comment about Chris Evans being the best possible cast for Iron Man, she corrected me with an absolutely arrogant tone saying that the cast for Iron Man was Robert Downey Jr. Like come on, anyone could make that mistake, and here she is trying to make them think like she’s an actual fan. Luckily, I was calm and just laughed it off with them. I didn’t like how arrogant she was being, and who's to say she won't do it again, so out of love, I told her off.

“You don’t have to be such a fake bitch just to impress my friends you know.” I said.

Knowing that she was wrong, Amelia didn’t say a word. She kept the silence from breaking any further on the ride back home. I figured she’d thank me and apologize later, but I set my expectations of her too high I guess. That wasn’t the only thing she’s done to piss me off.

I told her that her friends were a bad influence on her. All they ever want to do is go shopping in malls to see clothes, watch movies and all that crap. They do absolutely nothing but waste her time, especially when she could be spending her time with me. I knew her best friend Dylan was trying to snatch her from me, giving her rides home and buying her study food. So I told her to stop going out with him. She even got mad at me just because some fine girl in the gym was asking me to see if her squatting form was right. I bet she was just super jealous. She’s already 22 years old, come on, grow up already you immature girl.

As each day went on, she started replying to my texts every few hours and even refused to go out on dates with me. To me it seemed like a red flag that our love for each other was cleary fading. She’d often use the excuse that she “needed to study” just because finals were coming up in like 2 weeks?? She was smart enough to get a scholarship for college, why does she need to study so much? Another lame excuse she would use is that she had to spend time with her family because they were gonna go away for a long business trip. Clearly there was something going on with Amelia that I did not know about.

To this day, she barely wants to be seen with me. It’s obvious that she’s embarrassed of me, never showing me off to her friends anymore. We were from different worlds and she probably felt like I was far beneath her. It’s been days since we’ve properly talked to each other. She made little to no attempt to contact me. Her lack of communication showed how much she didn’t care. I can’t believe she could just do that to someone she cared about… used to.

I’ve been thinking long and hard about why she does these kind of things. I texted her and waited a few minutes to see what’d she say but after coming out short I figured she probably didn’t even care.

How did we come to this? Why did we let this happen? Where did we go wrong? I put in so much effort into this relationship. I remind myself as I try to connect the dots. I googled “Important questions to ask your girlfriend to know if she still loves you”. It said that you ask your partner important questions about the future, one of them being about their thoughts on marriage. Personally this question hit pretty close to home. I’d thought about marriage over a million times now and I had hoped that Amelia was as eager as I was.

There she was, just sitting on the sofa of my apartment binge watching “Modern Family” on Netflix. I cleared my throat and sat down on the sofa, next to her. She had an expressionless face as she looked at the TV. I turned my body towards her and called..” Amelia, babe... What do you think about marriage?”

“Marriage?” She bursted out in uncontrollable laughter.

Her reaction left me uncomfortable to go through the rest, but this was an important thing that I needed to know right then, so I persevered.

“Yes Amelia, what do you think, have you thought about us getting married?”

“Of course not” she replied in an uninterested voice. “Why would I be thinking about our marriage?” she said. Confused and slightly enraged, “Why not!? Doesn’t our future together mean anything to you??” I said in a hostile voice. “I’m only 22 years old, why would I think of getting married so soon? There’s a lot more to my life that I want to do and experience before getting married.” said Amelia, with a defensive tone.

“Don’t you want us to spend our entire lives together?, Don’t you think of what our kids would look like or what they would do and achieve in life when their our age? Don't you want us to finally be complete?” I said with fury in my mind

“No, Michael…” she whispered.

Then it hit me, the things she said….. There's a lot more to life that I want to do and experience? Am I not enough for her? Are there other guys that she wants to experience??

I couldn’t, I've had enough of her not appreciating what an impossible gift she has.

“Amelia you pathetic excuse of a woman, you’ve led me on for too long already. I will not put up with your manipulative tricks on me any longer. I've given you countless number of chances. You are literally the worst girlfriend a person could possibly ask for in his life!"

"You have made me feel insecure and unimportant to you. You go out of your way to make me feel jealous of other guys. You constantly try to hang around Dylan as much as you can, even though you know he's trying to steal you from me. I've always warned you but it seems like you're just doing it on purpose at this point!"

"You're a whore who craves the attention of other men so you just stay by their side and try to get their hopes up. Listening to your friends problems and being around them all the time isn't gonna make anyone like you for who you are.'

"You're not fooling me any longer Amelia!” I stormed out of the apartment and slammed the door shut.

Ring! Ring! Ring! My obnoxiously loud ringtone jingled through the room, snapping me out of my thoughts. I looked over and wondered who it was. Speak of the devil, it was Amelia. I held my phone with a tight grip, contemplating desperately on whether or not I should pick up the call. I let the first call go unanswered and instantly felt regret. Maybe I should have picked up. Then she called again. I hesitated again. Finally on the third call, I remembered just how persistent Amelia can be at times.

As the phone rang, a brief rundown of what I planned to say to Amelia went through my mind. I figured I might as well get this over and done with for good. I was expecting the worse, only to be completely taken aback.

“Hey Michael,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “How are you doing?”

My heart clenched. “Where are you right now? Can… can we meet up? it's really important. I’ll come over.” I said as my voice cracked from the nervousness and guilt flooding through me.

“Yeah, of course you can,” there was uncertainty in her voice. “I’m at home.”

“I’ll be there in about half an hour or so.” I said, just before I ended the call.

I quickly made my way to the bathroom. Since it was probably the last time I was going to see her, I thought that I should do the very least to look somewhat presentable for her. Needles of water pricked my skin as I stared blankly at the floor, worrying of what was about to come next. Amelia was definitely upset with me again. But was she actually worried this time? Could she actually be missing me around her this time? No, of course not. This was probably another sad attempt, by her just one of her schemes to try and make me helplessly fall to her knees.

I snapped back into reality when I remembered I only gave myself half an hour to meet up with Amelia. I knew I was going to be late. I wasn’t even dressed yet and traffic would definitely be bad. I quickly dressed myself up in my usual get-up from my piling laundry, a pair of jeans, a plain black T-shirt and beaten up Converse. I rushed out of the house, got into my car and made my way to Amelia’s house.

The drive to her house wasn’t as pleasant as I thought it would be. The traffic was bad, delaying me further. When I arrived, I already knew Amelia was going to be upset. She always hated when I wasn't punctual. I can totally picture her, arms crossed, face red, eyes shooting daggers right at me. What I didn’t expect was to see a gigantic grin plastered on her face as she ran out to her driveway. I get out of the car to meet her.

“My grandma’s in town,” she said. “Is it okay if we head on over to somewhere else other than here… like to a cafe or something?”

“I’m pretty tired, can we just hang around here?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Just like that we took a walk around the neighborhood, eventually we came across a well maintained, but empty park. It was perfect. We’ve been here many times before but somehow today, it just feels a lot more different than the usual. The air turned cold, making my stomach clench. We didn’t say a word to each other but the silence was deafening.

Soon, the sun began to fall, and illuminated the park with a warm golden glow. A cool breeze fills my nose with the scent of Amelia’s shampoo. I turn to admire her just one last time. She was as pretty as ever, dressed in a simple white gown.

I was distracted in thought of what I was going to say to her, until I looked towards her and saw that she was looking at me too but with deep concern in her eyes.

“So, do you want to tell me what it was all about? Why did you lose control like that?”

“Amelia, I…,” I was stuck with my words and could not process what I needed to say to her next but eventually, it came back around. “Look, I’ve been thinking about it and I think it’s best if we both go our own separate ways.”

“Could I at least know why, Michael?”

I go on to explain everything to her, from her lack of care, inconsideration for me, and the unequal effort that she had put into our relationship. All she could do was just stare back at me, completely speechless. Her eyes dug deep into mine, probably trying to assimilate the situation. Finally, she nodded.

Now I've become speechless as well. I expected her to be screaming, in tears, or begging for my forgiveness even… all sorts of things but not this! Which only proves my point of her not caring about me. It hurt me much more than it should have.

“Thank you for trying," she said.

With that, she walked away with nothing but a smile which what seemed like... relief?

I stare as her figure slowly disappears into the distance until she was out of sight. What did she mean? What could she possibly have meant? My legs feel like noodles and my breath hitched. Spotting a bench, I walk over to it. The grey concrete feels cold beneath me. Is it cold? Or am I just coming down with a fever?

My mind races as I try to bring together everything that Amelia had said. Thoughts of our relationship circles around my mom for a little longer. Did I love myself? Of course I did. That’s why I broke up with her, for the sheer respect I had for myself, because I’ve had enough.

And just like that, it all came together. I could see why Amelia did the things she did and acted the way she acted. It was me.

Me! Me! Me!

All I ever cared about was me, myself and I.

By: Ke Xin, Melissa, Joshua, Ryan Khoo