Yan Ling shoved the spoon into her mouth.
The date was 14 June 2002. The same date she later agreed to go to church with Cherie.
The divine stroke of luck that had brought and kept Yan Ling and Cherie together since their first day of primary school had been so steadfast—placing them in the same classroom for a full decade—that a palpable sense of loss washed over Yan Ling when she discovered, on entering junior college, that she had been assigned to a different class from Cherie’s. “At least we’re in the same JC,” Cherie said, and proceeded to get them enrolled in the same dance society.
As the months passed, it pained Yan Ling to have to adjust to their new schedules. There were weeks when the only times she got to see her friend on campus was at dance practice, for they had different timetables, and the immense workload left them with far less free time than they had previously. Still, regardless of how much work she had, Yan Ling never failed to join Cherie, her mother and her brothers at church every Sunday—sitting beside her friend in the pews as the pastor preached, standing when Cherie’s mother stood with her arms outstretched, mouthing the lyrics to the hymns Cherie’s brothers belted out unabashedly. Cherie’s father, who was based in China for work, was never there.
For over three years, Yan Ling dutifully attended church service with Cherie. She relished the time she got to spend with her friend there, but never felt moved to convert to Christianity. Deep down, she couldn’t bear the thought of not being able to someday offer joss sticks to her… No, despite everything, she refused to imagine a world in which her parents no longer existed. She was grateful that beyond gifting her a leather-bound Bible, Cherie hadn’t tried to press her beliefs on her. Sometimes, Yan Ling suspected that her friend was simply content to have her company.
In this way, they remained an inseparable pair throughout junior college. On the evening Cherie turned eighteen, she cut Yan Ling the biggest slice from her two-tiered salted caramel chocolate cake, knowing it was her favourite. Yan Ling’s slice was noticeably larger than the ones Cherie cut for her mother, her brothers, even herself. Yan Ling beamed at the cake. It wasn’t so much the size of her slice; she was the only friend Cherie had invited to her celebration at home.
When all that remained on the delicate white plates were smudges of caramel, Yan Ling gathered the plates and dessert forks and brought them to the kitchen sink. No longer the tentative, wide-eyed guest she had been all those years ago, she had now become part of the family. She was there not only for Cherie’s birthday celebrations, but also those of her mother and siblings. As for Cherie’s father, Yan Ling had only seen him a few times over the years, for he was rarely home.
After putting the leftover cake in the fridge, Yan Ling and Cherie stepped out into the garden. Dusk was falling, but the sweltering heat of the afternoon clung obdurately to their skin. White frangipani flowers with pale yellow hearts lay scattered across the lawn, wilting. The pair climbed onto the off-white swing, the same one Yan Ling had fallen in love with the moment she first set eyes on it. Sitting opposite each other, they began rocking themselves. As per the first law of thermodynamics, the swing began to sway.
Yan Ling was gazing at the changing colours in the sky when Cherie asked her to guess what she had wished for before blowing out the candles on her birthday cake.
“You shouldn’t tell me,” she said, frowning. “Else it won’t come true.”
“You know I don’t believe in that. Come on, Ling, make a guess, any guess,” Cherie urged as she made the swing go higher. Its metal joints began to squeak, as though in protest.
Yan Ling hesitated. “That we’ll win the upcoming dance competition?”
“I did think of that,” Cherie said. “But no, I used my birthday wish on us—that we’ll both ace our A-Levels and get accepted to study in Boston! Imagine how much fun we’ll have. We’ll apply to stay in the same dorm, head to New York City as often as we want, go see all the Broadway shows.”
“That’ll be awesome,” Yan Ling agreed, smiling as glittering images shone in her mind. “Hopefully I’ll get a scholarship too,” she added. The thought made her smile falter. She had yet to tell her parents about her desire to study abroad. Her plan was to let them know once everything had fallen into place. Beneath the creased fabric of her skirt, she crossed her fingers.
“Don’t worry, Ling. Everything will turn out perfectly. I can already envision us living our best lives together a year from now!”
Yan Ling and Cherie leaned back, laughing.
For a long while, they remained there, swinging in the middle of the garden under a dimming sky—one rising while the other indubitably fell.
Yan Ling waited eight whole days after they had finished their final exam before attempting to broach the subject with Cherie. They had just stepped out of the darkness of the cinema; The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was what Cherie had wanted to watch. Yan Ling hoped her friend wouldn’t want to discuss the details of the movie with her, for apart from the lingering image of time running backwards on a gold-rimmed clock, she had retained nothing from it.
Thankfully, quenching her thirst was Cherie’s top priority. As Yan Ling waited for her friend to get bubble tea, she recalled how the discovery had sent her reeling—from shock, disbelief and, inexplicably, guilt. Yan Ling had found out two months ago, while in the thick of their exam preparations. She had spent hours mulling over whether to share the news with Cherie. She believed her friend ought to know, but didn’t want to distract Cherie from her studies. Eventually, Yan Ling decided to do it after their A-Levels were over, but the euphoria that had erupted from Cherie in the past week was so intense that Yan Ling couldn’t bear to be so callous. So she procrastinated—until now.
“What’s wrong, Ling? You’re acting so strange.”
Yan Ling glanced at Cherie, who was sucking up a tapioca pearl through a thick pink straw. She pulled at a flap of dead skin on her lower lip, not knowing how she should begin. After all, how were you supposed to tell your best friend that her father was having an affair, with your distant relative whom you’ve never met?
“Come on, you know you can tell me anything,” Cherie urged.
Yan Ling’s eyes fell on a loose thread at the hem of her skirt. She tugged at it, but instead of breaking cleanly away, it began to unravel further. Frowning, Yan Ling began to recall the day she had found out.
Saturday, late afternoon. She had just got home from math tuition with Cherie. Dropping her overstuffed sling bag on the floor, she joined her parents in front of the television.
“Girl, how was tuition?” her father asked.
“Tiring but good,” Yan Ling said. “We went through the tricky questions in the ten-year series today.”
“Your Pa and I went to the Chinese medicine hall this afternoon and got some pao shen. The shopkeeper said it’s good for relieving stress, enhancing alertness and revitalising energy. I boiled some for you. Come, drink it while it’s hot.” Her mother set down a bowl of brown, pungent liquid in front of her.
“Thanks, Ma,” she said, gingerly picking up the spoon. “What were you both chatting about just now? You looked so engrossed in conversation.”
“Nothing much,” her mother said. “Just some news from your third aunt.”
“What happened to her?” she asked despite her lack of genuine interest.
As Yan Ling eyed the bowl of tonic, her mother began explaining how her distant cousin, whom she hadn’t seen since her last trip to China many years ago, reached out to Yan Ling’s aunt that morning. The daughter of this distant cousin, only twenty years of age, had insisted on moving out to live with a married man thirty-five years her senior. Her cousin was livid and threatened to disown her daughter, but her daughter went ahead with it anyway. Weeks later, her cousin managed to find out that the man her daughter was involved with was a Singaporean working in Shanghai, and so reached out to Yan Ling’s third aunt for advice.
“Wah, so dramatic. I thought these things only happen in soap operas,” Yan Ling said, making a face as she swallowed a mouthful of pao shen.
“Drink it, girl, it’s good for you,” her mother said, pausing for a moment before continuing. “I thought so too. But apparently that’s what’s happened and they’ve been together for some time now. Look, your aunt even sent me some photos.”
Yan Ling nearly spat out the bitter concoction the moment she saw his face. Choking, she grabbed the tissues her father offered her and tried to recompose herself. While it was true she hadn’t met him that many times, she could nonetheless recognise—with a sickening certainty—who the man in the photo was.
Yan Ling now stopped talking, suddenly breathless. Without realising it, the words had tumbled out of her mouth. She wished she could have conveyed the news with more tact and grace. Still, the truth was finally out.
She stole a glance at her friend, who had grown quiet. Her cup of bubble tea, flecked with beads of condensation, stood forsaken on the bench between them. The silence was overwhelming. Yan Ling had been prepared for crying, for shouting, for all forms of disbelief and outrage—everything, anything, except this. Finding herself at a loss for words, she placed a hand over Cherie’s. But Cherie immediately moved her hand away.
“I don’t believe you,” she finally said, the tremor in her voice barely perceptible. Her eyes remained fixed on Yan Ling’s as she continued, “You’re lying. You’re just jealous of me, of my family, of everything I have that you don’t. Do you really need to stoop to this, though? I can’t believe you.”
With that, Cherie stood and walked away.
The next and last time Yan Ling saw Cherie in person was three months later, when they collected their A-Level results. She noticed Cherie’s face lighting up as she peered at her results slip, but when their eyes met, Cherie looked away.
Half a year later, when Yan Ling scrolled through Facebook and saw photos of Cherie starting her freshman year in Boston, a bittersweet sense of relief washed over her. At least one of them had made it. At least one of them could live out the dream they had once shared. Yan Ling herself had done well, though not well enough to have been offered an overseas scholarship. Declining the admission offer from Boston to study accountancy at a local university had felt like a punch to the gut, but she tried to rationalise her actions by telling herself that it would have been awkward for her to have gone to Boston in any case.
