June 1996
"Why are we here, dad?" Jimmy looked up at his father, his glare hard and accusing. The little boy's fingers were wrapped tightly around his dad's thumb, his neck craned to look into Simon Hunter's solemn grey eyes.
Simon returned his boy's sharp look, took in a deep breath and said sternly, "This is a nice and quiet forest, Jimmy. You can have a look around while I finish some work."
"What work?" Jim was eight, but he wasn't fooled. What work could the Chairman of Hunter Corporation have in a remote, wild jungle leagues away from their home?
"Son. I brought you with me because you insisted. Don't make me think it was a mistake."
Jim's face dropped. His lips trembled in outrage, but the words he wanted to say stuck somewhere in his throat. He let go of Simon's hand and stepped back, looking away.
His father was a coward.
He wanted to shout it to his face, tell him exactly what he thought. But something kept him from it, pity and anger maybe, and a lot of pride. Jim's chest hurt from the jumble of feelings, he turned around to leave.
His eyes fell on a small ring which had fallen out of his father's pocket. His heart clenched – he had seen the ornament before. He hated it, almost as much as he hated his father. Suddenly, his mind betrayed him and he remembered what his close friend, Mrs. Park, had once told him.
"Disappointed, Jimmy," she had explained, "You don't hate your father. You are disappointed in him."
Jim shrugged the thought away, looked back quickly to see that Simon was trying to find a signal on his phone. The boy snatched the ring from the ground and shoved it into his pocket. Swallowing, he whispered, "I'll go back to the house," and ran.
He was going to throw the stupid ring away. Maybe then, his father would stop looking for his mother.
***
Miya pressed her mouth with both her palms.
She stood guard before a locked door, like she had countless times before. Her body trembled as the sound of grunts and moans burnt through the air. At the age of five, she had no idea what was going on inside. But her gut told her it was very wrong.
Every time her mother entered the room with a strange man, she would ask Miya to stand guard, just in case her father returned home.
Miya hated the task. She hated the ugly, disconcerting sounds that came from the room and crawled through her skin. She hated her mother. She hated the village she lived in.
And she hated her father who never came home.
As the noises grew, her eyes filled with tears. She pressed her hands harder against her lips, praying she wouldn't scream.
She knew there were going to be consequences if she left.
The sounds grew louder. The laughs became harder. Her head whirled, her heart twisted.
Slowly, her mind whispered, "Go, go, go!"
Run!
She heeded the words. Her legs moved automatically as she left the damned door, her small fingers clenched into fists as she escaped the house and into the forest.
She didn't care about consequences. She was never coming back.
***
Jimmy skidded around the trees, kicked a pebble or two, frowning as he roamed in the forest. The part of the woods he was in wasn't very dense, though the trees were tall and thick. Sunlight penetrated the forest in beams, wherever trees were scarce. He had been told that there were no animals here, except for the appearance of an occasional squirrel or rabbit.
He didn't like the increasing heat. And he didn't want to go back to the house. Making his way to the stream of river that flowed towards the edge of the woods, he decided it would also be a good place to dump the ring.
The landscape near the river was not only steep, it also ended abruptly. The river lay around a hundred meters below from where he stood. The route from the ground to the river was muddy and full of climbers, the plants and their vines twisting and turning in the deep soil. Jim sighed.
The water below was enticing. But there was no way he would risk going to it. He was about to sit where he was when he heard a sniffling sound.
Jimmy looked around and soon found the source of the cry. It was a small figure crouched a few meters away to his right. Frowning, he approached the girl with light steps.
She was quivering from her sobs. For a moment, Jimmy wanted to turn around and let her be, but Mrs. Park's words rang in his mind once again.
"Help those in need, Jim," she had told him, "People shouldn't be left to cry alone."
It distressed him whenever Mrs. Park's words wavered him like that. Clenching his fists, Jim approached the trembling girl.
"Excuse me?" his voice was soft.
She turned around with a jerk, stumbling in the process. She looked up at him with large green eyes, her small face tear-stained, a few strands of her hair plastered to her cheeks. Jim was shaken for a moment. She had strange, deep… oddly beautiful eyes. The green in them reminded him of something, though he couldn't point out what.
"Y-Yes?"
Her voice was small, just like all of her. It quivered as she frowned at him. Jim cleared his throat, before settling on his knees beside her.
"I – I heard you cry," he said awkwardly.
The girl bit her lip, before muttering in defiance, "So?"
"You shouldn't cry, miss… You know, if you do, your heart rips apart."
Miya frowned, not understanding. She wrapped her arms around her knees and resettled herself. Wiping her tears with the back of her palms, she croaked, "What?"
"Your heart, miss. It will rip apart."
Jim imitated the way she was sitting. He wrapped his hands around his legs and rested his chin on his knees. The girl brushed back her mud-coloured hair and looked at him with confusion. He figured she didn't understand.
"How?" she asked nevertheless.
Jim said thoughtfully, "I don't know. I have a friend – Mrs. Park – who told me that if you cry, your heart is going to rip apart."
"Rip apart?"
"Yes."
"What's that?"
"You know… Like, break into two." Jim picked up a twig from the ground and snapped it in half to explain better.
Miya's heart sank. Her eyes filled with tears again, her lips trembled as she looked at the broken twig in horror.
"What happens after it breaks?" she asked, her voice holding impending doom.
Jim didn't know, but he gathered all his knowledge and said with surety, "I think you die. Considering how the heart works all day, if it were to break – I mean it's a vital organ, and organ failure –"
It was only when she started to hiccup that Jim snapped out of his thoughts. He realized that she was on the verge of a breakdown again.
"Miss!" he said hurriedly, "I don't know for sure! But… but even if your heart doesn't rip, crying still hurts, right? My chest feels so tight every time I cry, that –"
This time, his words caught Miya's interest.
"You cry?" she asked incredulously.
"Yes, sometimes."
"But you're a boy."
"So?"
Miya sat up, looking at him curiously, "The boys from my village say that boys don't cry."
Jim rolled his eyes. His father said the same. And he knew his father wasn't very smart.
"They're idiots," Jim said haughtily, "All human beings cry." He didn't like this strange rule that forbade boys from crying.
Miya looked at him for a long time. She hadn't seen the boy in her village before. From his clothes and speech, she could tell that he was from the city. He had brown eyes, a pretty face, and dark hair that washed into his eyebrows.
She grinned, pushing back her tears, suddenly feeling cheerful and relieved.
"You're so different," she smiled, "I like you."
The compliment was sudden. Jim blushed. And because she had started to smile, he could gather the courage to ask, "Why were you crying? Did the boys bully you?" When he was in kindergarten, it used to happen a lot. Boys used to tease girls they liked. It was a stupid thing to do, according to Jimmy, since the method never yielded good results. Often, teachers got involved and things got nasty.
Miya's smile faded. She didn't know what to say. She couldn't explain the room and the grunts to him, but it was true that the other kids in the village often bullied her. She answered thoughtfully, "They do tease me."
Jim prodded, "What do they say?" Maybe it was because one of the kids liked her.
"That I'm the ugliest girl in the whole world. And no one would ever marry me." Miya remembered the hurt of the words. Her eyes filled with tears again. She looked up at Jim.
Suddenly, an idea crossed her mind. This boy! He was different. Quickly, she pushed back her tears again and said, "You're a boy too. You tell me. Am I very ugly?"
It was surprising. The situation wasn't what Jim had expected, but it was hard for him to believe that anyone would call the girl ugly. He almost laughed.
"Like I said, the boys here are idiots. You have extremely beautiful eyes."
His words were so unexpected that Miya gasped, clasping her palms on her mouth. Her eyes widened, her heart throbbing urgently.
"You're not lying?" she whispered in muffled words, staring at him incredulously.
Jim snorted. "Why would I?"
Miya couldn't believe it. She reconfirmed, "So you're saying I'm not ugly?"
Jim put it simply for her, "I'm saying you're pretty."
She gasped again. This time, Jim couldn't hold in his laugh.
She was struck by his words for quite a while. She removed her hands from her face and stared at her small palms. Before he could stop her, she slid through the climbers and mud expertly and ran towards the river.
Jim stood up, "What – "
She was staring at her reflection in the water. Jim sighed exasperatedly, but truly, he was impressed with himself.
Beaming, he slid his fingers through his hair before shouting out loud, "So? What do you think?"
Miya turned around. The smile on her face was so dazzling, his heart missed a beat.
"I'm pretty!" she shouted back with all her might, "Like you said, I'm pretty!"
He laughed.
She helped him down the uneven land so that he could enjoy the river too. Jim nearly slipped at times, but she could easily support him. They played with the water while she told him stories of shells and Gods, and how once she had mistaken algae floating on the water for the hide of a crocodile.
Jim had never laughed so hard before.
All the while she told him strange stories, Jimmy kept tousling the ring he had stolen from his dad. It was in his pocket, and he had half a mind to throw it in the water. But something stopped him.
Right then, Miya ran to him excitedly. Grabbing his hand, she placed a strange looking rock in his palm.
"I think I found a whale's tooth!" she exclaimed, "It's very rare around here. Did you know it is said to fulfil one wish?"
Jim turned the canine shaped rock around in his hand. He doubted it was a whale's tooth, but he wasn't going to point that out. Smiling, he tried to give it back to her.
"You keep it," she insisted, "You told me I'm pretty, so I'm giving you the wish I found."
Jim chuckled. He rolled over the rock in one hand, his other inside his pocket, fiddling with the ring. The sun shone brightly over them, making the mud-brown of her hair seem strangely silver. She was grinning, all her fears from before forgotten.
Jim sighed. In one impulsive moment, he pulled out the ring, clutched her hand and dropped it in her palm.
"About the boys," he said silently, "if they ever tease you again saying no one would marry you… tell them you married me."
Miya pressed her lips. The stone on the ring shone brightly. Her hand trembled as she looked up at him in awe.
"I can?" she asked, stunned.
"You should."
She gave him another dazzling smile. Somehow, Jim felt satisfied.
She would have given him a hug, but her eyes caught an approaching boat from the far end of the river. Squinting, she saw that on it, was a man dressed in familiar clothes. She recognized the image.
Her father… was coming home.
The room, the door, her mother and the noises reverberated suddenly in her mind. Miya's face paled. She stepped back in alarm, her heart pounding as she realized that she would have to hurry home.
Jim read the strange fear that had crawled into her eyes again.
Miya didn't want to go. But the fear of consequences made her turn around. She ran.
She climbed up the rocky landscape with rare agility, leaving Jimmy behind. He called out to her, "Hey! Hey!" Only then did he realize that he didn't know her name.
Miya panted, the noises loud in her mind, her brain whispering in a frenzy, "Go! Run!" She stopped only when she realized that she had left behind her saviour.
But there was no time.
Still, she ran back to the edge. Jimmy had managed to climb halfway up. She could see him from where she stood. Miya shouted out, "Meet me here tomorrow!"
Jim looked up and saw her standing far away, looking even smaller.
"Meet me here tomorrow!" she said again, "I'll wait for you. Bye!"
Jim's heart rushed. There wasn't going to be a tomorrow. He was going to leave tonight! He grabbed a vine in urgency, ready to crawl up fast, but he saw that she was running away again.
What was the matter with her?
In dismay, he shouted, "At least tell me your name!"
"….a!"
She said something. The words were lost in the air. And just like that, she was gone.
When Jim managed to climb back up the muddy ledge, he was covered in dirt and dust. He felt foolish, standing there alone, dirty and deserted. He looked at the rock the girl had given him, claiming it fulfilled wishes.
His father believed in wishes too.
Jim sighed, clutching the rock harder in his hand. The girl had said she would wait for him tomorrow.
Without a word, Jim flung the rock into the river below. It drowned in the water with a plop.
"Let's see if you can make me meet her again," he said sarcastically to the stone, "since she said you fulfil wishes."
Turning around, Jim walked back to the house. He knew he'd be leaving in a few hours. There was a plane to catch.
But he felt disconcerted. Why had she left all of a sudden? What was the strange expression on her face?
He hadn't even said goodbye.
Jim sighed deeply. This was sad.
He was going to miss her smile.