V

So, as you all (or at least, old friends and faithful blog readers) know, yours truly has always been slightly skeptical about Valentine's Day.

I spent last VDay blogging about how I spent my day in college.
The year before about how my class fucked up the system and how I got myself in a shitload of hell from pretentious figures of authority - the post has since been removed due to numerous threats from said figures.
And each year before that mocking how commercialised the day has become and listing down my exact criteria for any potential boyfriend candidates. (Most of them are pretty childish. Hey, I was just a kid in a girl's school who beat boys up as some sort of sick, twisted way to establish leadership.)

I skipped blogging on this year's date altogether, completely abandoning my blogging principles and set out on the morning of that day to have fun. Breakfast, movie, shopping, dinner and clubbing planned to conclude the day.

Only the 4 people who went clubbing with me experienced my full-on drunkedness and the complete lack of inhibition that came with it.

The night was spent in a haze - in the arms of a friend, collapsed on a stool, face down on a table, crouching over the toilet bowl unable to throw up, stumbling through the club in almost into a mirror, hyperventilating and sobbing and chuckling in turns on a bench in the lobby of Sunway hotel, slurring out Viv's number while laughing at the sound of my own voice, spitting up water all over myself laughing, cursing at another friend's incessant vomiting, stumbling to unlock the main door, showering with my head on the bathroom wall and finally collapsing into bed with my heartbeat pounding in my head.

As I mentioned in the previous post, I sat up straight in my bed at 6 something, fighting mild waves of nausea, dizziness and a general sense of confusion.

Well, anyway the post ended as my friend knocked to enter the room.
(I went to the toilet earlier to pee and he smsed me to ask if I was ok and if was puking again. I DID NOT PUKE! He asked if I needed someone to talk to and please let him in to charge his phone.)

Anyhow, I don't let anyone who doesn't know that I blog know that I blog. (Wow, my language skills died. But that's besides the point.) So I closed the window. Lol.

Basically, I spent another 30 mins or so being cajoled to get some rest while I frowned in my chair playing Minesweeper, hoping that the game would make me drowsy so I could finally rest my aching body.

"I am NOT going to sleep. I'm going to SIT here and play Minesweeper until I WIN and THEN I'm going to sleep."

I was scowling as he came over to watch.
Fuck. 2 mines left and it was a 50-50 choice.
With my luck, I watched glumly as the smiley sunglasses minesweeperman face popped up and I had no choice but to stumble back to bed.

"Off the lights please."

I turned my back and promptly shut my eyes to feign sleep.
He texted me again to say goodnight, and being the sucker I was, I made him come back to sit with me. (Kononnya I can't sleep until sunrise - out of habit.)

So he perched on the computer chair while I whined about my aching head.

"I'll use this, ok?"
"Yea sure, whatever. What the fuck, my headache is a bitch."

I didn't even bother to see what he was holding.
I just squirmed irritably and buried my face in my pillow.

"Hey Steph?"
"Whaaaat?"
"Can you half sleep and half do something else?"
"Er, I should think so. Why?"
"Paint for me?"

I sat up.
What the hell, he was holding up my bottle of nail polish.

LOL. I couldn't help laughing when I remembered leaning over the bed before that day, painting his toenails a hideous combination of purple, electric blue, red and copper - in addition to the gold and copper brown his sister did for him when he fell asleep.

"Sure!"

I crawled over and did the shittiest paint job in my entire life, being half asleep and having a monster of a headache and a hangover.

I painted my hair, I painted his fingers, I painted MY fingers. -_-

"Wow, your nails look shitty."
"Hmmm. You missed a spot."
"Where?"
"Right there."
"Oh sorry, can't see."

I gave another half assed swipe of the black nail polish I had forced him to wear the previous day, paiting even more of his index finger before I finally covered the empty patch of nail.

"Nah. Done."
"Thanks Steph."

I snorted in amusement and fell back onto my pillow.

That son of a bitch. My headache was gone.
I stoned happily lying down with my eyes shut against the creeping dawn.

(I have no idea how long) later, he whispered, "good night Steph, please sleep" and exited through the bathroom door back to his room.

I cracked an eye open.
The sun was high and all traces of night was gone.
I fell asleep smiling.

Looking back, I should have known.
I probably was in denial again. My pride sat on its high horse and reigned over all other attempts to reason.

A few times from the time I fell asleep at sunrise until I finally got up at around 3 pm, I woke to the familiar sound of springs - which abruptly ceased whenever I cracked open a sleepy eye to survey my surroundings.

But he was always there, turning my Rubik's cube over and over in his hands, in the line of sight of my one open eye - leaning against the wall next to the adjoining bathroom door, perched on the computer chair with his knees drawn to his neck, toes curled over the edge of the seat.

Yea, it does sounds somewhat stalkerish. o_o

But I swear, it's a really sweet feeling when it's someone whom you trust completely that's the person who's just watching you as you sleep to make sure you don't have to suddenly jump up and run to the toilet bowl puking.

It wasn't until I realised that he'd do almost anything for me - wait for 4 hours just to play with me online, handcarry more than 2 kgs of freshly frozen prawns back from his hometown cause he knew I liked them, let me knife me in CS just because it soothes my nerves, calling me every morning to make sure I don't oversleep, insist on buying everything I wanted (not that I let him after the first couple of times - it mostly concerned food anyway,) paint his fingernails black on one hand and red on the other and attracting stares from everyone on the lrt, sit with a girl out cold from too many drinks, too fast on clubbing night, completely sober, to make sure I was safe and that I constantly had someone beside me to tell me so repeatedly - just to see me smile, that I discovered this scruffy, gangly geek had somehow wormed his way into that cold, barricaded ice cube I considered my heart.

Well.
What the fuck.

Who would've thought?

A few hours ago he broke down and spat everything on his mind out.
An epic mind regurgitation.
I ceased packing and sat down with my handphone in my hand, stunned.

Henry paused and looked up from his game of CS.

"He's smsing you?"
"Uh huh."
"AAHAHHAHA no wonder he keeps dying!"

I managed a weak smile until he turned his attention back to the game.
For a few minutes, I just sat there, blank while he poured his whole heart out.

"Hey, where did he go? He's still texting you?"
"Yeah...but I...don't know where he went."

Even as the texts kept coming through, I was still in denial.
My brain refused to absorb anything he was saying and I crawled into my walk-in closet out of Henry's sight (he was oblivious anyway) and took a few deep, shuddering breaths.

Then I realised how close I was to walking out of his life - like so many others before.

He was already lined up to be the next distant memory crammed into a dusty corner of my mind the moment I left for Australia. And I finally found out the reason behind his sleepy demeanour lately - sleepless nights spent crying over the fact I was leaving.

I didn't believe it until I saw his swollen eyes on the webcam, coupled with the most sheepish - and completely, fucking, heartmeltingly adorable - smile I have ever seen in my entire life.

And then I remembered all his other sleepless nights and subsequent daywalking-zombie stints in the past.

"A clean slate, a fresh start - what could be better?"
"I can't wait to leave this fucking place."
"I am never coming back here."

Each of those statements that I spat out in one of my many raging tempers wounded him.
I never knew. How was I supposed to know?
I mean, he never told me.
Until today.

...

I want him.

He's shorter than me, my sister's age, chinese-educated, has no idea what an oxymoron is (maybe hasn't even heard of it), gels his hair, endlessly teases me about my haircut, is unapproved by my dogs and is a real, bonafide kampung boy.

And I still want him.

He is also a perfect gentleman, has the right mixture of confidence and humility, a natural balance of IQ and EQ, has this contagious smile that I love, acknowledges all my shortcomings yet accepts them, can end one of my spitfire rages just by being there, sends me texts on my silent handphone even though I'm merely 10 feet away just so we can chat without mom noticing and didn't buy me chocolates or flowers nor soft toys for VDay but gave me the best Valentine's ever anyway just by being with me from the moment I woke up that (he called me) until the end of the next day (where I smiled goodbye to him as he exited mom's car at the monorail station - and texted me the second he was out of sight to remind me to rest after that killer night out clubbing.)

And he's all mine.

I'm putting a lot on the line here - my feelings, my pride, my principles. and my love..basically what I live for - to say this:

My heart is officially his to break.

Happy belated Valentine's Day, bitches!

With love - a virtual chocolate heart to celebrate the end of 17 years of skepticism.