“Pencils with colorful erasers on their ends, pens covered with shiny metal shells and beautiful notebooks with different pictures for cover. Some bright, some faint, like the images of everyday life.”

      I tighten my slippery grip on the slim body of my favorite pen and shake my wrist before scribbling on.

      “I love going to the stationery store. From my point of view, there is some deadly attraction between me and those clean, fresh stationaries. I savor the moment when I twist a new pencil around my finger and catch a scent of wooden fragrance. It reminds me of thick branches and fresh-born leaves and of patches of bright sunlight creating shinning spots on the earth beneath my feet. It reminds me of home.”

      That’s a lie.

I grew up in the busy city center. Horns of cars greeted me each time I stepped out of the building, which by the way, is forty-floor high and looks almost intimating when you look down from the top. I sink back down in my armchair, surrounded by a herd of stuffed animals and sigh. After a moment, I sit back up and continued to trace out the words formed in my mind.

      “However strange this is, I’m not the only one who is obsessed with stationaries. It was a hot July afternoon when I first saw her. I had never seen a plain white dress looking so beautiful on a girl before. Her long black hair hugged the outline of her delicate face as she looked up from the pen she was holding and caught me staring at her. I turned my hands and held up an identical one. And she smiled. I can’t remember much about that day, but shy and quiet as I was, I’m pretty sure I smiled back.”

      That’s also a lie.

      Though practically.

      But still an untruthful statement.

      I did meet my best friend Maya in the stationary store, only she left a lasting impression on me by walking into my vision wearing, if not too much, grotesque outfits. Though it was steaming hot outside, she wore a jacket over her plain dark shirt with holes near her collarbone. Her jeans were so torn that I would think she had just escaped from a fiery battle with a beast. When she tilted her head to one side to examine the pen, I could see the silver earrings that were covered by her short hair before.

      And for the record, we hated each other for choosing the same pen as we did.

      “Things moved on quite smoothly from that point. She asked what my name was and I asked hers. We ended up sipping lemonade outside the stationery store, right under the sycamore tree that steadily grows taller with each passing year, counting cars as they flashed past us. I guess that’s just the magic of choosing the same pen at the same time with somebody else. I learnt that she loves lemonade and milk tea with pearls and that she is perfect at History but terrible in math. I told her that our history teacher left us with an impossible amount of homework and that I prefer reading and understanding to reciting anyway. We both liked to listen to Avril Lavigne but she hated “Girlfriend” because she didn’t like how in the song, a girl boldly “stole” another girl’s boyfriend. She said it was morally wrong to take something, or somebody, away from a person who loves them. I argued that you have the right to take what you rightfully deserve and that maybe boyfriends are a little too much, but if I ever see someone taking away my favorite novel just because they love reading it, things are going to get ugly. And then we both stopped to take a sip of lemonade and were too hot to continue the conversation about songs and moral and boyfriends anyway.”

      Looking good. I rubbed my eyes. A gesture of satisfaction of what I have just written.

      Only we never talked like that, not that I can think of.

      We didn’t have the time, nor the heart.

      Maya often came over to my apartment during the summer, every time carrying a pile of homework and a brown mug. We would quarrel over something small half-way through our studying session and she would leave my apartment one hour earlier than she planned. What can I say, we were both short-tempered, confident and just a teeny tiny bit self-centered. But she came back every time and we both pretended like nothing happened.

      “We go to the same school though in different classes. Sometimes, she would come over to my class during break and tell me a secret she won’t share with anybody else. We would climb high up to the topmost floor of school and let the wind blow our hair in all directions while laughing loudly at each other’s jokes.”

      That’s the third lie I have told in this story. I’m definitely getting better at this.

I pause. The tip of my pen lingers on the page as I read over what I have written.

      Pretty sentences carrying ugly lies. That’s all that I can see.

      I feel vomit at the back of my throat.

We did share secrets. But we could never climb so high or laugh so loud without a care in the world. No. There were many things on our minds when junior three crept toward us. Math, physics, chemistry, and our scores and rankings in the whole grade. After the last test before Junior Three, she found me right after school. I took her to the place where we usually went to and just stood in silence. A faint scent of lavender crept up onto our floor, engulfing us. I turned and saw a single tear rolling down on Maya’s cheek.

“Man, I hate this place.” Maya said.

And I remained silent.

I should have known something was brewing.

      “As Junior Three rolled around, we rarely saw each other at school. But no matter how many extra classes we took, we always met up in each other’s houses, sharing complaints about teachers and school before diving quickly into our piles of homework. It was nice to have her around as a study pal. She would explain the dynasties and world wars and their meanings and effects over and over to me and I would be thoroughly bored and fell asleep half-way through the speech. We each had our own paces in our studies and our scores have picked up tremendously in the Junior Three year. We talked about high schools and the upcoming test and kept ourselves busy by reciting big events of history on our way home.”

      “It was a hot summer day when the final exam came around. She gave me a thumbs-up before the bell rang for us to go into the classroom and got ready for the test. I lingered a second longer to watch her disappear into the brightly-lit classroom before heading toward my own seat. Her long black hair gleamed softly under the sunlight and swayed a little to her steps.”

      “We signed up for the same high school. There were a lot of craze and laughter after the test and everything was in a blur. We made our way across the campus, occasionally stepping over torn book pages, and headed straight toward our classrooms. Neither of us mentioned anything about the test. We are just glad that it is over.”

      I feel like the story is at an end. Somehow, I have to give it a proper ending.

      But the truth is, we never made it to the final test together.

      Two summers later, before the summer of junior three year, right after the final test of junior second, Maya moved away with her family to America. Thousands of miles away from our city.

      It was raining heavily that day, just like the goodbyes in all those cheesy novels. I rushed toward the gate after hearing the news and she was already getting into the car. I called out and waved my arms frantically like a lunatic and her eyes lit up when she spotted me. She ran back toward the gate without an umbrella and stopped when she was a half a foot away from the gate. I took a step back and lifted my eyes to meet hers.

      We do not hug and cry like the other giggly girls.

      We are cooler and better than that.

      We are special.

      “You’ll be good, won’t you?” Her lips curled upward for a second.

      “Think so,” I said.

      “Do you have to leave?” My voice trembled a little.

      “Think so.” She replied solemnly.

      And then the whole thing seemed ridiculous and we hugged anyway.

      “Come back and visit me sometime.” I said.

      “You have my word.” She smiled.

       I think I saw a gleam of silver earring as she turned around to leave.

      When I headed back to my classroom, tears welled up in my eyes and tumbled down. I wiped my cheek with my sleeves feverishly and thought that the rain has just made the departure a whole lot less special.

      I returned to the stationery store where I first met Maya and bought up the whole supply of the kind of pen me and Maya both chose. I looked down at them under the sycamore tree, and they have never looked so beautiful. They were covered in black with faint blue stripes and glittered a little under the light. Like Maya’s earrings.

      Maya and I lost touch after one year or so and when I finished the final exam and dialed the number, it was not Maya on the other end. Maya taught me to look at things in a different perspective and to never judge a person before you really get to know them. She taught me to think big thoughts and dream big dreams and truly made me believe that I am special. I have always thought that after all this time, I would grow up and Maya would just be an ex-best friend. But there are times when I missed having her around.

      Like now.

      Is it okay to lie in my own writings? This question twirls around in my head, sniggering at me as I read over my writings. I feel small and vulnerable but there is nowhere for me to hide from this question.

      I created different personalities for me and Maya and wrote fake conversations and feelings. I hid the ugly truth between the lines and pages and tried not to feel disgusted about what I write. I tell everyone else that my hobby is writing, but the word “Lier” twists itself in front of my eyes every time I pick up a pen to jot down words to form passages.

      Maya would say that it is okay to lie in writings. I know she would. She would say that lies are like pretty packaging and that no one can resist a pretty packaging. And I would roll my eyes and say that I’m an honest man.

      But am I?

      I lie about things in my writings because I want to make them big enough to express the theme of the passage. I lie about things in my writings because I want so desperately to grasp some moments in our lives that just aren’t perfect enough, or strong enough for us to remember for a lifetime. I merge my hopes and dreams in my writings and create the scenarios that I want to see. I lie in my writings because I love this world and want to make it a better place using pens and paper. This is my way of building a safe house for myself from the heart-breaking moments of everyday life.

      Is it okay to lie in our own writings? My answer will be yes, and I’m guessing so is Maya’s. We have staggered and stumbled on our way of growing up and neither of us could be the kind of person we are without each other.

So then, I think our story deserves a happy ending, a proper ending like all those other beautiful friendships deserves to have.

      “It was a hot September when I walked into the stationery store to pick up things for high school. I was just picking up a bluish pen when I heard a soft jingle behind my back. I turned abruptly and saw my best friend leaning against the shelve, twirling the exact same pen, just like last time, all those summers ago.” 

(The End)