She hated her life in these moments, feeling a familiar sting. And as if that wasn’t enough, the teacher decided to poke his nose where it didn’t belong. “Sonia, what’s your GPA for this semester.”

“I think you know that.” She folded her arms and avoided all eye contact. Her gut dropped ten levels, but she’d do anything to appear otherwise.

“I want to know what you think your GPA is.”

“And I want to know why you think this talk would work when it failed five times before?”

“Sonia, I’m just trying to help you.”

“Well, it’s not working. So stop trying.”

Her teacher sighed and let her go.

She spent the weekend crafting said apology in her bedroom, rehearsing her words repeatedly and making mental edits of the speech as she went. Paying a visit to the stationery store, she even purchased a gift for him; a set of pencils from his favourite brand. Ben loved to sketch more than anything, always showing his artworks proudly and asking for critiques. She thought he had a long way to go before his sketches entered the rank of ‘decent’.

Feeling the rough texture of a page from a sketchbook stirred more memories in her. She made more edits to her apology speech, remembering how he weathered through all her critiques of his sketches in humility. Never did he grow resentful of her comments, or act defensive like everyone else. Only he took her words in the spirit they were intended.

She delivered it to him in fancy wrapping paper, sparking googly eyes from his nosy classmates. According to him, everyone thought the two were an item, despite the clear absurdity of that idea. He always flustered when she mocked these rumours.

His eyes glowed, unwrapping the present eagerly, and upon reading the brand name, almost shrieked like Honey. “It’s my favourite brand!”

“Yup. There are…brands of pencils…”

“You see the dots across the pencil? It gives it a better grip than other pencils.” He pointed to the product inside. “Thank you, this is nice.”

She nodded, and all of a sudden her endless rehearsing went down the drain. “I came here to… um-”

“I’m not going back to the club. I can’t take it anymore.”

“Oh.” There goes her chances. She might as well leave now. “Ok… Well, I’m… sorry.”

“Oh.” He seemed surprised. “Ok, thanks. I’m glad at least one person can admit fault.”

“I- are we still- I don’t know- Anyway, um… yeah. I need to learn how to do the green-screen thing, since I have to do that now, since you’re…”

“Oh, okay. Sure.” He opened his computer and gave her a migraine from explaining endless terminology in alienating language. Most of it went in an ear and out the next, as she could only focus on remembering all the times they’d edit together after sessions. They would review the footage clip by clip, deleting those they deemed inferior, and then work together seamlessly to edit the remaining footage together.

Once, she had invited him over to her place to edit the ending of their previous film, hoping to celebrate after they were done. Her mother cooked them both pasta so mouth-watering Ben couldn’t stop talking about it days later. He indulged her mother an hour of endless ranting about her unpublished novel, and then Sonia listened to him talk about sketching in a similar fashion for another hour as a movie played in the background. She learnt so much useless information about pencils and shading and 3D perspective.

“You got it?” Ben asked.

“Um… yeah. I got it.”

“Ok… cool. Anything else?”

Her cheeks scalded at the mention of this topic. “Are we still like- friends… or like… something?”

“What?”

“Like are we still friends outside the club?”

Ben went silent, speaking volumes of his feelings.

“Ok. I’ll leave you alone now. Bye…”

“Wait, wait, wait, I just don’t know how to say this properly.”

“Huh?”

“I still want to be friends with you, I just don’t know if that’s a good thing or not.”

“Oh.”

“I’ll think about it. And in the meantime, I wish the best for you.”

“Why?”

“I hope you get better. And here…” He fished something out of his bag, and handed her a slip of paper, he flustered again. “I drew a small comic of you… thought it’d be fun. Although… I’m sure you have loads of comments about the face.” She stared at a sketch of herself looking back at her. Eyes filled with exaggerated menace, brows burrowed to the point past naturalism. “But I hope you like it anyway… I worked really hard… on it.”

“What am I supposed to do without you?”

“Why are you so dramatic? You still have Honey! God… this is so awkward, someone kill me right now.”

“Yeah, okay, I’ll leave you alone, I’ll stop bothering you, You probably had enough of me… ok, bye.” She closed the door behind her, rolling her eyes at the nosy classmates before she headed back to class.

**

A girl with clouds in her heels disturbed her at the cab station with a familiar flyer in hand. She introduced herself, hands scrambling to support the weight of a black case in her arms. And she passed Sonia a script, wishing that it would present her talents as a writer effectively, and make her the perfect candidate to recruit. It was clear the girl did not understand how the recruitment process differed from a job interview, but she indulged her anyway, and stored it in her bag.

The two girls worked the job in very different ways. Honey had a bad habit of chatting the customers up, giving herself a coy excuse to slack, and despite the manager’s repeated warnings, did nothing to remedy this behaviour. Regardless of whether the customer reciprocates her friendliness, she would chat nonetheless, sometimes holding them verbally hostage.

She trended in the opposite direction, being cold and aloof towards customers. She wouldn’t serve their dishes with an inviting smile, and her tone discouraged communication. Few complaints have been given to her because of this, yet as hard as she tries, she can’t bring herself to smile. She had no reason to. One redeeming quality however would be her efficiency, which became her saving grace from termination.

During her lunch break, she pulled out Ben’s comic to read. His comics were often short, seeing he was a novice, lasting only a few panels across a page, which meant the narrative would only allow for quick punchlines. Honey came over with a cup of ice-cream in her hands and two spoons, sitting next to her.

“What is that?” Honey asked.

“I visited Ben today, and he gave me this as a goodbye gift or something…”

“Aw! Lemme see!”

The comic portrays a girl stomping down the street in anger, who trips on the rock and screams a curse in response, tossing the rock away and hitting someone else in the back. Honey chuckled lightly. “That’s so cute!”

She gave a light exhale, “The eyebrows look stupid.”

“Open sesame.” Honey pointed a spoon of ice-cream towards her.

Sonia burst into laughter. “I can eat it myself.” She grinned.

“Break-ups suck.”

“I know, you’ve said that a million times already.”

“Well ok, losing people sucks. Better?”

On her lap laid the submitted script, and she read that next, keeping the comic safely in her bag. ‘A Magical Journey’, the title proudly presented.

“Aw, he drew you a whole manga?”

“What! No. A girl wanted to sign up and she gave me this because she thinks this is like a job interview or something.”

“Written by Erin Sky…” Honey reads. The two read the script together, which made reading more tolerable for Sonia. And by the end of the fifth page, they were in tears laughing at its horrendous quality. They had to hold onto each other as they laughed so as to not fall off the chair or hit their head on the wall.

“I’m definitely not letting her in now!” Sonia concluded.

“Wait, but Sam seems pretty desperate for a replacement, I think you should.”

“If anyone has standards, it’s that guy.”

“True… true.”

“There is no way in hell he would allow a writer this bad into his perfect little club.” Honey seemed unconvinced.

**

Her mother blinded her like the sun, greeting her with undeserved optimism. “How’s work little genius?” She affectionately called her that, despite the title being far from the truth. Her mother stayed at home everyday, working on a novel that would never be finished. Every time she heard her mention it, the whole project only sounded more and more ridiculous.

Her phone chimed, a message from Ben. “I don’t think we should be friends anymore.” It reads. She froze for a few seconds, before shutting her phone off and looking back at her mother.

“Fine.”

“How’s filming coming along?”

“Good.”

“You guys can handle well without Ben around?” Seeing that her mother could read her like a book, she kept little secrets from her.

“Mhm.” She looked away.

“What happened?”

“Huh?”

“Did something happen between you and Ben?”

“Nothing, okay. He just… reached his limit with me. It’s my fault and- whatever, I don’t wanna talk about it, I’m tired.”

“Ok. Just remember you’ll always have me.” She smooched her on the forehead. “And Honey.” She smooched her again. “Goodnight little genius.”

“Night…”

She locked herself in her room and took a shower, washing herself in more ways than one. Her mother would stay up late binging television shows of her era, and Sonia would stay up staring at the ceiling as she wondered why she was the way she was. Insomnia ran rampant in the family.

The nights would be filled with echoes of her voice berating herself for every mistake she has made, is making, or will make. Pencils scribbled over paper, creating an illusion of noise or mess despite the serenity of night. The sight of herself in the mirror made her repulsive, and an urge to peel her identity away from herself would possess her hands. She wanted to be a mannequin, a being with neither face nor person, a fate better than being herself, she knew.

As she tossed and turned around her bed, trapping her legs in her blanket, she thought of her insomniac friend, and how she would also be turning and tossing at this hour of night. Or more truer to her character, would be sobbing to herself in a little ball on her couch. She decided to give her a call, hoping to have company.

“Hi.” She began, resisting the urge to shed tears.

“Hi…” A broken voice returned.

“The breakup still hurts?”

“I’m lonely…” She cried out. “I’m so alone… I have no one… it’s just me in this stupid apartment in this stupid bedroom…”

“You wanna rehearse some lines?”

“No, I don’t wanna rehearse my lines, what’s wrong with you!”

“Ok…”

“I hate my room so much, there’s dust everywhere no matter how hard I clean it!”

“I could come over and help you spring clean.”

“No offence, you suck at hygiene. I mean, you literally sit beside the sink in the girl’s toilet with like… no hesitation. It’s disgusting.”

“Why are you so afraid of dust anyway? Dust exists everywhere.”

“Well unlike you, I like my room clean and my clothes neatly folded.” Sonia looked to the pile of clothes in the corner.

Sonia blanked on what to say next. She had to take care of Honey’s endless self-pity, but hit a dead end on her consoling. “Full moon today.”

“What? Really?”

“I don’t know, I’m guessing. Wanna watch a movie together?”

“Ok… what movie, and don’t say-”

“Charlie Chaplin.” They both said together.

“Damn it, again? I want to watch a movie with people talking. Is it too much to ask for?”

“Your taste in movies is horrible!”

“Says the one watching movies in black-and-white.”

“Those are classics! They are the best.”

“Ugh. Fine! But if I doze off halfway, you know why.”