Alicia didn’t want to admit it, but she had to: Jacob was nice. That man did no wrong, nor did he seem capable to. The way he lit her mother up like a Christmas tree, regressing her back into a giggling child. It reminded her of the times she giggled with her mother in the same way. Over melting ice-cream, over rollercoasters, and over trying new food.
She missed it.
She missed it so much that, for a moment, she allowed herself to forget about ‘anymore’. About her drug dealer mother. About Dad being left stranded out there.
And like Dad, her mother left her stranded too. She said it herself, “We’ll just do our own things and not bother each other.” She would play Cyber-Strikers and eat tacos with Kat, while her mother giggled with Jacob until they got married.
Jacob would become her new father, her new Dad. Meanwhile, her old Dad, her true Dad, would be forgotten by time, as if he never existed.
Not on her watch.
She had learnt quite a bit about the commentor. His name was Tony, and he had a pet corgi. Her school had held a million school assemblies warning them about scams, scams, scams… Said warning forced its way into her memory.
One, a scam requires immediate payment. Two, a scam requests personal information. Three, a scam demands secrecy. Four, if it’s too good to be true, it is.
But the school never taught the latter; how to tell if something wasn’t a scam. Alicia, however, felt confident to determine that herself.
First, she had to determine that Tony was indeed the man in his posts. So, she asked him to send a photo of himself. He did. But a scammer could’ve reused pre-existing photos of Tony, or any photo on the web. However, if she asked Tony for a ridiculous photo, like placing a spoon on his head, she could verify his identity to be genuine.
He declined and instead offered to send a photo of himself with his corgi. That photo was terrible: out-of-focus, weird angle, and visible finger in the frame. No one would post such a photo on their social media. But just to double check, Alicia browsed through his posts again, reverse image-searched it, and cross-referenced both results with each other.
Tony was indeed Tony.
School reopened. One month flew by, just like that. Or more accurately, three weeks since Mrs Fei wasted her first. The teachers expected (demanded) them to be fully recharged and prepared for the final stretch.
Mr Lee wasted no time asking for coursework submissions. He went down the attendance list, calling upon student after student to give their presentation. Luckily, because of the size of the class, Mr Lee couldn’t get to everyone today, which gave those he hadn’t called an extra week’s time.
Alicia had no intentions to catch up, nor could she. She hadn’t done the interview yet.
To add salt to injury, their prelims were coming in a month’s time. The rehearsal for doomsday. And in another two months time; doomsday itself. The teachers kept their doors opened and offered to provide the students a listening ear for their troubles. Or better yet, they suggested paying the counsellor a visit.
Everyone saw through this.
The students who cracked cried in the safety of their cliques, hidden from the teachers. The students who were cracking hid their heads under the table and pretended to sleep. The students who didn’t studied their hardest.
Then there were Kat and Alicia, who neither cracked nor studied.
With Tony’s legitimacy verified, she now needed to verify that Tony was Dad. And to do that, she gave him a pop quiz on her mother and Dr Wang.
Question one, “Who is my mother?”
Tony answered, “Serena. I miss her so much, and I miss you too. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to see you grow up.”
She stopped herself from responding, and asked question two, “Who is my mother’s friend you were commenting about?”
“This sounds like an interrogation. Why don’t we just catch up?”
“Answer my question.”
“Wei Xiang. He ended up going to med school and became a doctor. Did your mother tell you about him?”
“He’s my doctor.”
“Ah, I see. That’s good.”
Question three: “What do you know about the drugs?”
Tony took much longer to reply, which would’ve been suspicious if not for his answer. “I always wondered if things would’ve been different if I acted earlier.”
“Elaborate.” Alicia asked, heart pounding in her chest.
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“It’s been so long, so some details may be fuzzy, but basically… She got addicted, and I took too long to intervene. But thank god I wasn’t too late, and I was able to get her into rehab. I think you should ask your mother about this, and not me.”
“Was she a drug dealer?”
“When you’re addicted, you would do anything to get your next fix.”
Fix what? Tony passed her pop quiz with flying colours, and as extra credit, demonstrated his fathering. It was like Kat’s dad. An hour after they stopped chatting, he sent another text, which stuck in her head all night.
‘I’m proud of you.’
Jacob acted as if he lived here. Her mother invited him over at least once a week and always greeted him with a kiss. Yuck. He was her mother’s biggest cheerleader and supported her in everything she did.
He took everything she said seriously, even a throwaway comment about rocking a different hairstyle, and he wouldn’t stop the cheerleading until her mother grew the confidence to follow through.
The few times she’d talk to him, or at least tried to, nothing worthwhile happened. He asked about her studies, gave advice on her studies, and wished her good luck for her studies, as everyone did for a Sec 4 student.
Compared to hers, Jacob’s house was a mess. Things everywhere, particles of dirt of god knows what pricking her feet, and…the toilet.
It was as small as a prison cell, with exposed pipes overhead, loose hairs in the drain, and omnipresent wetness on the floor without any bathroom slippers to protect her feet from. Washing her hands in that toilet made them feel dirtier. Alicia never used it after that, instead opting to hold it until she got home.
This alone would’ve repelled her from ever visiting, if not for the tech. His computer reminded her of her classmate’s, where everything on it ran smooth and crisp. Rainbow lights glowed off every piece of hardware. The computer mouse looked like a normal mouse which had melted to the left, making it oddly pleasant to hold. As her fingers brushed across it, she found three extra buttons along the edge. Cool, but excessive.
Jacob and her mother sat on the couch watching TV, while she sat in his bedroom downloading and playing Cyber-Strikers. This revived the itch in her chest that begged for a computer herself.
Jacob caught wind of this and promised to buy her one on the condition she gained her mother’s approval.
She sent Tony some of her letters, dying to hear his response. To the letter about tacos, he loved them too, but preferred a soft shell. To the letter about Cyber-Strikers, he never played it, but promised to try it. To the letter about autism, he heard no such thing from the gynecologist during her mother’s pregnancy.
He had an insane request. The only way which they could reunite was for him to take a flight to Singapore, but money was tight. The telltale sign of a scam was a request for money.
The off-chance that Tony was Dad stopped her from blocking him outright. Rather, it pushed her to request further verification. She asked for a copy of her birth certificate, or any related medical documents about her, but he was absent for her birth; very likely.
She asked for his personal information, but he was concerned that she was a scammer; very reasonable.
She asked if her mother had any memorabilia of him, and he mentioned a necklace, but her mother might’ve lost it; highly likely.
With nothing left to ask, she called it a day.
Zack had finished shedding his robot skin off. With a fire in his eyes, he conducted the art lessons, and even gave her homework to practice. Alicia only completed her drawing homework.
Today’s lesson was on two-point perspective. Zack drew the template and explained basic art theory, while Alicia thought about her grades. She didn’t want to, but she couldn’t help it.
Her teachers always said that freedom laid past doomsday. After their exams, they could play all the video games they want and hang out to their heart’s content.
They were dead wrong.
From the JC student himself, JC was secondary school but worse; more subjects and more exams. Polytechnic didn’t fare any better with its GPA system. After that, university. After that, workforce. And work was forever.
More, more, more. It never ends.
How could anyone live like this? Just thinking about it made her want to meltdown. Zack viewed it as a hard pill to swallow.
“That’s how life works. You gotta learn to live with it. It’s not like you can just run away from it.”
Except she could. Tony was more than happy to raise her, find her a better school, and get her an autism diagnosis once he had the money
But they needed to reunite first, and Tony needed an air ticket. But what if he’s a scammer? But he had already passed her verification checks, and it seemed unlikely a scammer would stay committed to one victim for this long. But if he was Dad, she would be making the worst mistake in her life to give this up. But if he wasn’t, she would be making the worst mistake in her life to fall for this.
She needed to know for sure.
“Who had the idea to have kids?” She asked.
“Her.”
“Did you want kids too?”
“Not at first.”
“Why did you name me Alicia?”
“We thought it sounded nice. You don’t like it?”
“I do. And what about my Chinese name?”
Tony took a second. “It means happiness and joy.”
“What is it?” She had never told him it, because she rarely needed to. Her English named was all she needed ninety-nine percent of the time. Plus, her Chinese was god awful to begin with.
Tony took a minute, presumably typing and deleting answers as he jogged his memory. At last, he typed, “Xin Yi.”
“Not just the han-yu ping-yin. The word itself as well.”
He got it right.
At the stroke of midnight, Alicia tip-toed past her mother sleeping on the couch and stole her credit card from her wallet. She followed Tony’s instructions to transfer the money, then tip-toed to place it back. As if nothing ever happened.
Even if her mother knew, Alicia would be the least expected person she would suspect. By the time she caught on, Alicia would’ve already been on a plane with Dad off to start her new life.
Until then, Alicia continued to send her letters to Dad. He loved reading them.