Chapter 10

Civics lesson is like Moral Education in Secondary school, just that it is more personal. We get to interact with our Civics tutor, who is like a form teacher to us. We can ask personal questions, tell the Civics tutor about our problems and then learn more about conducting ourselves in the world outside the walls of NYJC. After every Civics lesson, all the lecturers will go for a meeting, most likely to discuss about students like us. All the students, both JC1s and JC2s, will go for a thirty-minute break. We often called it the “Hell Break”: Because if all of us are to stand in the canteen, we will not even have the space to move an inch.

In my first Hell Break, I could imagine Mrs. Tee in the meeting, telling every lecturer that a student had a screw mind and that they should stop persuading her to join the school.

Chew Ling followed me wherever I went. “I think it’s Serene. Remember that day in the toilet, she said something like predator and prey?”

The looks had creased down. Either NYJC students had short-term memories, or they did not bother what happened two years ago.

“And she seems to be quite angry at you. I’ll confront her when I see her. How can I let you be bullied?”

“Shut up, Chew Ling.” I said. Walked towards the assembly area and decided to just sit there for an hour with my iPod and Jay Chou and Robbie Williams.

“I’ll make her pay for what she’s done. Trust me on that, Linda! What’re friends for? Just leave everything to me. I’ll beat her-”

“Shut the…” I stared at Chew Ling. She was still giving me that sick smile of hers. “Just shut up.”

I walked towards the assembly area. Sat on the bench beside the area. Took out my iPod. Pushed the “play” button. Jay Chou rapped at me. Chew Ling was gone from me for the very first time since I had entered NYJC.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

When I was on the hour-long trip back home, I thought of speaking to my mother about the troubles I had in school. We seldom talked and if I were to step forward and say “Mum, I was bullied”, it was akin to telling a stranger that. I knocked off that thought when I had taken my bath.

John was asleep when I was out of the bathroom. My mother was still sewing. In my room with John, I took out my handphone. During the fifteen-minute bath, I desperately wanted to talk to someone. Only two names came to me: Tan Chew Ling, the girl who would out-talk me and Zinc Ang, the stranger that I had never really talked to, but had rammed his crotch.

When I opened my bag, Zinc’s “name card” was facing me seductively like a sign from heaven. I took the paper, stared at the number and then dialled it from my handphone.

“Hello?” Zinc’s voice ran across my handphone.

“Hi.” I said. Balled the piece of paper into a ball. Crossed my leg. Uncrossed them. “You free?”

“Yes!”

Without me knowing, I had crossed and uncrossed my legs so many times that they started to cramp.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Zinc wore a red body-fitting Hang Ten polo-tee and a pair of jeans that had holes at the knees. He still held on to the “Pocket Idiot's Guide to Getting Girls” like it was his Holy Bible.

We sat across each other at the Coffee Bean in West Mall. Almost all the seats were taken by office workers who had come here to chill out after their work. Zinc and I seemed to be the only customers who wore casuals. I had ordered mineral water – coffee kept me awake – for myself. Zinc did not buy any drink.

“You forgive me, Sunny!”

I did not know why he called me Sunny, nor did I want to know. I was gulping down my mineral water like it was free from the water cooler.

“Your name is Zinc, right?” I said.

“Yes! Zinc Ang! You, Sunny?”

“Just keep on calling me Sunny then.” I said to my surprise. Sunny? What a corny name…

“Okay! This is my treat, okay?”

I wanted to tell him that I had already paid for my drink. I rubbed my nose and fingered my fringe back.

“How is school?”

I just nodded. What the hell? I had called him out to pour him my stories. Why am I not talking?

“Did anyone bully you?”

“Yes.” I answered. “Some bitch.”

Laugh out loud. Who’s the bitch?

“Really? Who? What happened? How dare she bully my Sunny!”

“Zinc, I’m not perfect.”

“My mother said no one is perfect. She said I got an extra chromosome in my body, so I also not perfect. You got extra chromosome too?”

“No.” I smiled, discharged my beam immediately and said, “Zinc, I was pregnant before.”

“Oh.” Zinc drew an imaginary big tummy in front of his belly. “Baby?” he said with a smile.

“Yes, baby.”

Two choices came to me: Either I tell him the truth about my past, or I continue to cover up the truth. I chose the latter.

“You see, when I was fourteen years old, I had this great boyfriend, this Romeo-type boyfriend that every girl envied. But one day, one fateful day, he raped me…”

Raped.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Zinc listened to me like how my psychiatrist used to listen to me: Wide-eyed, leaning forward every now and then and asking questions when in doubt. He showed no emotion when I spoke, as if he was watching a dull movie. I had lost track of time and by the time I finished my story, Zinc was nodding and occasionally, he cursed my previous boyfriend and Serene, saying that if he sees them one day, he will “beat them up to a pulp”.

“Do you think I’m a failure?” I said.

“No. My mother said we are failures when we think we are failures.”

“But I think I am a failure.”

“Then you are a failure.”

Although I did not understand why Zinc had said that to me, I was enlightened. Can I really change how the world looks at me with my thinking?

“I once asked my mother if I can be normal again.” Zinc said. “But she said cannot. So I said I broken. She said I broken if I think I broken. So I think I not broken. I just have an extra chromosome. David Beckham also got cocked leg; look at how much he earn now.”

I dropped my head. It was then that I realized something so amazing that I nearly banged my head against the table: This was the longest conversation I had with a guy since two years ago.

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