Stephie and Me

Say what you want, you critical bloggers you. But Pak Lah's marriage came across to me as sweet. Well, he needs companionship like I need sexual outlets.

Aah... I remembered my first chinese girlfriend. *glances into glitzy photoshop moment* Stephanie was a year older than me, a school prefect and an excellent public-speaker. I was young, unblemished, slightly adrogynous and extremely curious. She was an annoying do-gooder. I was a dark broody piece of insecure bologna. Shakened by the recent tahfiz escape, I was shy to even bask myself onto the light of small-talks. I coiled, shrunk and dissapeared into my seat until greeted by a sepet-than-life girl with a slit the class refers as a smile.

"Hi! I'm Stephanie! What's your name?"

"Afiq, what's yours?"

"I'd just told you, silly!"

From there on, we became inseperable. Imagine that. A malay boy and a chinese girl. No biggie right?

Wrong! She came from a strict Chinese Roman Catholic family and I hailed from a very typical urban malay family. We were both schooled in a Roman Catholic private school. As years proceeds, our relationship became more obvious; both of us participated in public-speaking and poem-recitation competitions, we both became prefects and would do anything in school together. We were positively negative. It was understandable to me then because all the malay boys in the school were trouble-makers who would never converse in english or mingle with the majority chinese kids. (maybe they were afraid of betraying their own kin?? maybe.)

We got so many attentions from teachers and students alike, so much so that the headmistress personally called my mom to relinquish her tight-ass queeziness about this matter.

"Do you know that your son is befriending a chinese girl in school."

"You mean Stephanie. Oh yes, my son told me about her."

"And you're alright with their relationship."

"Yes, she's a good girl."

I appreciated our differences and had no difficulty coping with everything that came our way. The class and our class teacher accepted and approved our relationship. But some teachers, the headmistress, PTA members and parents made a ruckus out of us. I was labelled as a parasite, sucking Stephanie's academic excellence (she was never excellent academically to begin with) and polluting her conservative Roman Catholic upbringing.

I was the corrupter and she was the corruptee.

I aced my PMR. She didn't.

That was enough to rectify irrelevant speculations about my role in the relationship we were in. They (the group of Jesus loving preachers) took action and did everything in their powers to convince Stephanie that her failure was due to me. It was MY fault that she got only a few As.

All non-chinese staff members congratulated me. Stephanie began withdrawing herself from me. I was then known as "The Boy Who Got All As Because He Was Stephanie's Boyfriend."

Fucktards. Do they think for a second that I was offended by their Holy judgement?

After the long holidays, she was officially baptized and added a new middle name. And returned to school with a stone of a face. She smiled sourly at me, 360 degrees from her usual \(^___^)/ during recess and gave me a Hallmark bookmark with a small attempted cursive "Friends Forever" written on the bottom before her quirky signature. And that was it. Our friendship frozed, cracked and disintergrated.