Chapter 1
I stare blankly at the email on my computer.
Dear Miss Valerie A. Crest,
We are sorry to inform you that you have not been picked to proceed to the interview part of the process to obtain a scholarship with us. The number of students applying this year has been exceptionally high, and unfortunately you did not have the grades to meet the standard-
The cursor on the screen hover over the garbage-icon above the email. I press down before I read any more. The email disappeared from my inbox just as quickly as it had appeared.
Another rejected scholarship application.
This is my third one so far.
The chair creaks as I sit back into it, my fingers fidgeting on my lap. Over the music blasting in my ears, I can faintly hear my mom cooking in the kitchen.
It’s best if she don’t know about this.
Absentmindedly, I press the keyboard and refresh my inbox.
No new messages.
I still have one scholarship application left under review. There is still a chance for me to enrol.
For the past two years after graduating high school I have worked my ass off to get the grades I need to get into a proper university in the middle of the city. Though it wasn’t the most esteemed school, it produced solid enough results to get it onto the list of top ten schools in the country. For the past year I also worked with my mother a hotel near where we lived. The pay for a housekeeping job wasn’t much, but it was enough to get me a decent allowance. It will cover the expenses for books and transportation for university at least.
As a result of postponing my enrolment to a university, all the while working double shifts and studying day in and day out for the past year, I had lost contact with most of my friends who had already started studying or started working. A few of them even went abroad to ‘explore the world’. Meanwhile, I am clinging to the hopes of getting a scholarship and saving my mother the additional expenses of my education.
The economic burden was hard to bear. My school counsellor said that winning a scholarship while studying could help pay for my expenses and even boost my post-graduate connections. Though this last scholarship doesn’t offer big amounts for coverage, every bit of economic assistance would help.
I remove the headphones draped over my head, and sit in silence.
Chewing on the inside of my cheek, I stare at the hypnotic poster on the wall behind my computer. Save for the poster, the walls of my room are naked.
I don’t feel crushed about this particular rejection letter. I knew it was a bit of a stretch to apply. Still, the taste it left in my mouth was…bitter.
Has rejection finally become the norm for me? Or maybe I’m finally learning to lower the expectations for myself.
Whatever the case, no tears threatened to escape my eyes this time. There was only the hollow feeling of disappointment quietly settling in the pit of my stomach.
I faintly hear mom calling for me to join her for dinner.
Nothing like the taste of failure to build up an appetite on a Friday afternoon.
I lean over the dinner table and blow on the dumplings in the bowl in front of me as grandmother gush about some young man that helped her with her groceries during her trip to the store.
"He wore this expensive suit as if he was going somewhere important," Grandmother remembers excitedly. She puts her spoon down and traces her fingers gently across the back of her other hand. "Oh, and he had on these elegant, deep brown leather gloves, too."
I take another bite of my dumpling, scooping a spoonful of soup and blowing on it. Though I can’t see it, I imagine my mom nodding absentmindedly on the other side of the table as grandmother continues with her story.
"I was walking down the baking aisle, whistling. You know the tune,-"
Fly me to the moon by Frank Sinatra.
"-that Sinatra song. Fly me to the moon, I believe it was. When I get to the end of the aisle, I hear someone else whistling the exact same tune! Can you believe it?" I look up from my soup as grandmother laughs, and smile back at her. I shake my head and raise my eyebrows, as if in disbelief.
"And so, we meet at the middle aisle," she continues, a chuckle still playing on her lips. "And I look at the man, and say-"
How about a duet.
"‘How about a duet?’" she chortles, mom soon chiming in next to her.
By now, I have heard this story countless times.
Neither me nor mom remembers when this grocery store occurrence actually happened, but we agreed that she started telling the story a little over a year ago.
In some versions, the man was wearing a winter coat, in other versions he wore a suit. Sometimes he met her at the end of the meat section, and other times the baking aisle. But in every version, he wore deep brown leather gloves and whistled Frank Sinatra. Those two things never changed in her telling.
Grandmother scoops a spoonful of vegetables into her mouth, chewing slowly as to not disturb her dentures. "Oh, but he was a sweet man. Not too much older than you, I reckon, Val." She points the spoon at me, a suggestive smile playing on her lips and her eyes glinting in a mischievous manner.
I shake my head and look back down at the nearly empty bowl in front of me. "I can always count on you to keep an eye out for any potential partners, Nana," I say, my mouth full of dumplings.
Grandmother’s expression quickly turned sour at my puffed face, then proceeding to grimace at the way I was inhaling the remaining water from the bowl.
"With those table etiquettes, all my efforts in finding you a partner will be going down the drain anyway," she mumbles, unimpressed.
I shrug, but excuse my manners nonetheless. There is no reason to argue with my grandmother. She is as stubborn as them come.
We spend the night watching a gameshow mom and nana loves before retiring to bed a few hours before midnight.
A standard Friday night in this apartment.
As a part-time student and full time employee, I didn’t get to spend much time with my mom and nana. As a result, my weekends almost exclusively belong to them.
Mom had barely had the chance to get to know her father before he drowned at sea during an underwater current when she was five. I had barely gotten a chance to grow to love my father before he had filed for divorce and married into another family.
As a result, nana, mom and I were all that was left of this amputated family.
Knowing this made the possibility of me leaving for university all the more difficult. Mom was getting older and nana’s dementia seemed to slowly get worse.
This made the decision to move away almost unbearable.
As i had imagined at the beginning of summer; moving day was bittersweet.
Once I received the acceptance letter for the last scholarship I applied for in the middle of summer, there had been little time for celebrations. I suddenly had a mountain of things that needed to be fixed before summer was over.
With the University being in the middle of the city, our apartment in the next city over proved to be too far away. The traveling expenses for the three next years was higher than I had expected, not to mention the time it would take me to get to and from school every day.
It was nana’s idea to have me rent an apartment closer to the university, for the sake of convenience and the inevitable overall cost of transportation. Though my mother was skeptic at first, there was nothing she could say against it. Getting a part of my studies covered by the scholarship seemed to make the decision easier.
The last weeks of summer was spent shopping for apartment essential kitchenware and toiletries.
Due to nana’s fatigue, I have to travel and settle into my new apartment by myself. Because of this, there were none as devastated as my mother as we made our way to the train platform.
Gathering the three luggages nana and mom had helped me wheel out, I give them both a hug. As I pull away from nana, I feel her stick a piece of crumpled paper in my grip. I open my palm and notice a crinkled ten dollar bill.
My eyes find hers, and she proceeds to hold a finger up to her lips to silence whatever she thought I was about to say. I can barely hold in a chuckle as I kiss her cheek, knowing full well that she probably snatched the bill from mom’s purse earlier today.
I reach for the bag over mom’s shoulder, and hoist it over my own.
Mom tucks an unruly strand of hair behind my ear. "Be careful, Valerie."
"I know, mom. I’m always careful," I nod reassuringly.
Mom shakes her head and smiles tearfully.
Oh God, I think, my eyes flickering around us at the train station.
Please don’t cry now, mom.
My own tears were sure to follow if she did.
Mom straightened out the jacket hem that had crinkled up under the bag over my shoulder. Her slender hand kept a firm grip on the denim.
"Don’t just be careful with where you go. Be careful with who you get close to. And don’t just do what everybody tells you to."
I roll my eyes.
Of course she would comment on that.
"Ok, ok, mom. I’ll keep that in mind," I tell her, loosening her grip on my jacket and giving her hand a last squeeze as I kiss her cheek. I needed to get this good-bye over with before the tears in her eyes starts flowing. I didn’t want the start of my college life to be tearful.
Before every new beginning, an inevitable ending looms.
I wave frantically out the train window at the two women who raised me. My heart clenched painfully at the sight of my mom drying her tears. A horrible feeling it was, seeing the two of them disappear from my line of sight as the train pulled away form the platform. A part of me instantly regretted the decision to move.
There was no turning back now.
Mom had invested too much time and effort to get me here, purely because she knew this was important to me. I would be damned if I didn’t prove to her that this was the best decision we could have made. If this wasn’t my destiny, I would make it my destiny now.
I just hope my nana won’t forget me by the time I come back to visit.
Once I stepped out of the train an hour and a half later, I realised that having to somehow carry three luggages with a fourth bag slung over my back, was trickier than imagined. Especially since the apartment was half an hour away from the train station by foot.
I ended up having to take a taxi after one luggage had taken the fall and spilled open, giving everyone on the street a nice showcase of my sweatshirts, socks and toiletries.
At least it hadn’t been the luggage with the panties and bras.
Though the journey to the apartment had been taxing, and annoyingly expensive, I made it to the apartment earlier than expected.
I retrieve the key from the apartment’s mail box, just as the landlord had instructed, and make my way up the stairs to the third floor. Paranoid that someone will snatch the luggage I had left downstairs, I make sure to speed up my trips carrying the luggages as much as possible.
"What kind of apartment, ugh, complex doesn’t have an elevator in this day and age?" I mumble irritated as I blow a few loose strands of hair away from my face. I hoist the last luggage up the last flight up stairs and take a break to catch my breath.
It’s quiet.
I search around my shoulder bag for my phone. Mom’s replies from the messages I had sent from the train show up on the screen. No other messages. No other notifications.
I text mom back that I have arrived safely before shoving the phone back into the bag. With a huff, I unlock the door to my studio studio apartment. Looking around the small apartment, I realise that I won’t take much to decorate the already furnished space.
It only took a little under an hour to unpack and get everything into their respective cabinets and shelves.
I survey the apartment as I rest against the kitchen isle. Though everything was unpacked, the room still felt…dull. As per nana’s request before I left, I will need to buy a house plant, as no granddaughter of hers should live in an apartment without green life.
It was starting to get dark outside, but the shops should still be open at this time. I could do with some fresh air as well.
I grab my jacket, and put the apartment key, wallet and phone into my purse as I leave.
It will do me good to get to know the neighbourhood.
I follow the digital map on my phone on my journey to the thankfully still open flower shop just down the street from my apartment. Compared to when I arrived a couple of hours ago, the traffic was gradually thinning out and the most of the people rushing from work were home by now.
As a result, I finally get a chance to appreciate the skyscrapers and nicely decorated shops around me on my walk.
I round the corner and catch a glimpse of the flower shop. A person is outside the shop and gathering the different flower pots to bring inside. They must be closing soon.
My pace picks up.
Hopefully they won’t close before-
My shoulder whips backwards as someone bumps into me. My voice catches in my throat as I miss my step and stumble.
I look up just as the person stabilises my body.
The man gripping my shoulders looks to be in his mid thirties, with thick locks of wavy hair and a clean shaven face, exposing quite a chiseled jawline. His eyes were piercing blue and surprisingly intimidating as he stared at me with such intensity.
"Sorry about that," he says, slightly out of breath.
His gaze seemed to linger for a moment before he continued jogging down the road.
"You find anything?" another man down the street behind me asked.
I turn around just in time to see the man shake his head in reply as the two men meet at the intersection.
Adjusting the bag on my back, I massaged the shoulder that had suffered the blow and I winced.
"Well damn," I mumble, testing the joint. He sure bulldozed into me.
I should have been more attentive.
I raise my head just in time to see the flower shop employee carry the remaining plants inside the store. Cursing under my breath, I run to the shop, only to see the ‘closed’ sign be put up. The employee was turning off the shop lights when I appeared outside the glass door.
We make eye contact and I smile at him. To my relief, he comes over and opens the door.
"I’m sorry, is there any chance that I could just buy a plant before you close?"
The man scratches the back of his neck and shakes his head. "Sorry, I just logged off the cash register. Unless you’re paying cash, I can’t sell you anything until tomorrow."
Instinctively, my hands pat the pockets of my jacket, even though I know I’m not carrying any cash these days.
I purse my lips. "I just have card," I replied hesitantly.
"Then you’re going to have to come back tomorrow, miss."
I apologise for the inconvenience and tell him I will come back in the morning. He all but grunts back a good-bye at me before closing the door.
Sighing, I slowly make my way back to my apartment. Although the plant will have to wait until tomorrow, the day has still been successful. The full moon portraying on the darkening sky makes the city streets around me seem tranquil, and I let curiosity get the better of me as I take a detour back to my address.
My mind starts to wander as my feet lead me down unfamiliar streets. I make sure to not stray too far away from the road where the cars are still passing. Coming from the suburbs, I have only heard of the often rough and criminal ways of the big city life from the news and from relatives living close by.
I would do well keeping close to bigger crowds and staying in after dark.
I glance down at my phone to check the distance back to my apartment just as a low voice sound somewhere to my right.
"Psst. Hey."
Turn my head toward the sound, my fingers frozen over the phone screen.
Darkness stares back at me from the alley, and I squint to make out the outline of a man crouched onto of a metallic garbage container.
I glance around me to make sure the person isn’t talking to anybody else.
"You. Have you seen any weird looking guys run down the street lately?"
Without thinking, I shake my head.
Wait. Wasn’t there a person who ran into me a little while ago. Maybe those are the guys he is referring to?
I keep quiet.
The less I know, the less involvement I will have.
The man pauses. Even though I can’t see his eyes, I feel myself being watched.
"You sure?"
