Wake Up and Smell the Coffee, Sweetie

It’s funny how perception evolves over time, and I don’t mean funny ‘haha,’ I mean just – funny.

When I was eight years old, I drew my family on a crisp A4 paper - all with smiling faces - and stuck it on the refrigerator with my favourite magnet. I also followed the ideal fantasy: fall in love with Prince Charming (don’t end up like your Aunt Ursula because you actually do want to be wedded), get married, share your first kiss with the love of your life at the altar and have a beautiful baby princess named, you guessed it, Aurora.

When I was thirteen, I got my first kiss in a reckless game of truth or dare from the boy my best friend of the time fancied. Classic. Safe to say the fairy-tale is over; no more Prince Charming, no more best friend and no more friendship with the boy who had eyes for me, who watched my atrocity from his desk in the corner of the classroom.

When I was fourteen, I fell into infatuation with a smart fifteen-year-old boy from one of the rowdiest schools on the island. However, he did not know a thing about communication, consistency or faithfulness. Four months, one rekindling and two heartbreaks after my relationship with this ‘Bad Boy Heartthrob’ was enough to have me sobbing pathetically during my bath time. So much for a royal relationship, right?

When I was fifteen, I dated Bad Boy Heartthrob’s seventeen-year-old best friend (karma?). It was ‘funny’ because Best Friend was the complete opposite – shocker! Not all boys are the same. I handed him my flaws to pick at and he watered them and kissed my bruises. He called me beautiful and asked about the six scars that paved the route up my left wrist. I would have called him Perfect but after three months of struggling to find his negative side and not thinking it ‘normal’ that a young man could cherish his partner dearly, I left Perfect to be perfect for someone else – all in the name of his being ‘too nice’ and ‘too sweet.’

At sixteen, I dated Bad Boy Heartthrob’s nineteen-year-old friend, Monster. How lovely it is to share two important years of your life with someone who turns out to be a stranger in the end. At sixteen, seventeen and eighteen you never really understand the twisted ideas behind his ‘I will always have love for you’ and sitting beside him at three in the morning after a drunken night out while he shouts his favourite songs in the driver’s seat. It’s only in your time alone, when you’re almost nineteen and growing tired of leaving your heart on the bathroom floor for your next appointment that you realise that [Monsters] will be [Monsters] because they can’t be angels, and boys will be boys because they cannot be men.

But at eighteen, I’ve become the City of Refuge - the epitome of comfort. I’m the one they run to when they need to hear what they need to hear. I’m the one lying next to Hurt at 10 PM (when mum and dad think I’m playing sleepover with Kindness), helping him drink away the pain and pretending not to know that he won’t call back tomorrow morning after he’s had his feelings drowned and palms kissed.

I’m the one Pain runs to for refuge when his hands are shaking and he can’t stand being the only one of his friends who can’t get with anyone because of his broken heart. Six months down the line, I’ll still be here to make him forget, and he’ll leave again, not bothering to say, “thank you, she is the one,” after realising that I cannot give him the heart he needs.

When Bad Boy Heartthrob contacts me one sunny October during the most important year of my scholar life before I leave the Island of Heartache, I’ll pick up his phone call and drop my pen. Why? Because I’m elated, overjoyed that he wants to speak to me after four silent years, but it isn’t about me. Nevertheless, I let my voice soothe his heartache because he’s just ended ‘the best relationship of [his] life’ and needs comfort, and wants to say he’s sorry for being ‘young and dumb’ four years prior to this conversation. It doesn’t matter because I’m already broken, so I smile and tell him to use cement to mend the cracks between him and Popular instead of his usual cheap glue sticks. After a week’s worth of brisk phone calls, it goes back to what I used to know – silence.

A few months later, I’m still the one that Monster runs to, just to justify his masculinity. I’ll be here, as always. His little Innocence will always be here, waiting. A week and a half after leaving the island and he shows my picture to his friends and says with an air of confidence, “I’m going to make a comeback with this one,” even after we decided to never speak to each other again. I tell my friends it will never happen, “I’ll never go back to him,” but we all know there’s corruption in the City of Refuge, and Monster is always the one who runs back with the need for the most comfort, and who has the heaviest pockets.

I look at my life in retrospect and realize that people don’t grow up with the perfect fairytale. There’s a broken magnet holding up an A4 paper with a meal plan on the refrigerator now – you know, because it’s not about love anymore; it’s about keeping the City clean and attractive for the guests who refuse to pay their rent. There are no more wants for being married because in the Court of Refuge there is a whole list of divorces that serves as a reminder that people are too dynamic to be made for you forever.

As for Prince Charming and Aurora?

Prince Charming is a Monster who murders any chance of Aurora with his classic ‘Plan B’s.