“I feel like I’m losing you,” Ian told her once, over a dinner to celebrate one of their many anniversaries, one which Ai Ling could not remember. Ian bought her some flowers and a small plush bear. She had come to the dinner empty-handed.
“No, I’m just busy with schoolwork, that’s all,” Ai Ling said, pretending not to understand what Ian was implying.
“Is everything okay with us?”
“Yes, of course. Why would you ask that?” Ian shook his head and took hold of Ai Ling’s hand, giving it a squeeze. Ai Ling smiled, knowing that she had, once again, pushed back the inevitable; yet it gave her no relief whatsoever.
When Ai Ling met Wei Xiang, she was in her mid-twenties, and most of her friends had already got married, settled down, had a kid or two. A steady tremor of restlessness reverberated in her life; Ai Ling had expended much of her energy in her twenties trying to make sense of what she wanted, moving from one job to another, never staying longer than eighteen months in each job. Her parents had frowned on her decision every time she quit, but left her alone. Sometimes, she would feel that she was wasting her life, and that anything that followed was just mere existence. Yet, despite this, Ai Ling rarely envied her friends’ decisions to make do with what they had—husbands, children, good jobs.
With Wei Xiang, Ai Ling was motivated to grow out of her usual self, to move in an entirely different direction. She was a better version of herself with Wei Xiang, more competent and decisive. Wei Xiang was always sure of what he liked or wanted to do; he was the kind of man who, once he decided to take a certain path in life, would stick to it, and would never stray from it. He laughed at the thought of lost opportunities or opportunity costs: “I make my own opportunities.” At a different stage in her life, Ai Ling might have rolled her eyes at the bland, narrow truth of this trope. She had, in fact, done that with Ian, but with Wei Xiang, she could see the conviction of his actions, the force behind his words. She was drawn to it, attracted to something that she knew was lacking in her own personality.
“So, what was your ex like?” Wei Xiang asked her on one of their early dates. Ai Ling wanted to dodge this topic, but did not know how to avoid it.
“He’s okay. We had different priorities. I think he’s married now.”
“Oh, do you still keep in contact with him?”
“No. I heard about him getting married from another friend.”
Ian had got married barely six months after Ai Ling had broken up with him, to a girl he knew from work. Apparently, it had been a whirlwind courtship, something that Ian had orchestrated. He had even called Ai Ling to tell her about his wedding plans, his voice higher than usuaclass="underline" “I’m happy, and I want you to know that.”
“Yes, I can tell that you are,” she’d said.
“Will you come to the wedding?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why?”
Ai Ling had remained silent.
“I don’t know what’s the matter with you. You never seemed to be happy with me, and now you can’t be happy for me. Why? What’s wrong with you?”
“No, really, I’m happy for you.”
“You were never happy, and you will never be happy with anything. You don’t know what you want, and it’s really frustrating.”
“That’s not true. I just don’t think that what I wanted was something you could give me.”
“You are lying to yourself. And you’re lying to me.”
Ian had swiftly ended the call, and in the wake of it, Ai Ling felt battered by his accusation. Ai Ling had always known what she wanted, or at least what she did not want: her relationship with Ian. She had tried almost everything to keep them together: putting Ian’s needs before hers, being more loving, letting him make all their decisions, giving in to his requests for sex. But the more she committed to this role of being a good girlfriend, the more she felt out of touch with her own self, as if she were living a fabricated life divorced from her inner state.
“Do you still miss him?” Wei Xiang asked her.
“What’s there to miss?”
And Ai Ling believed the truth of her own words.
When Ian had brought up the topic of marriage, in their sixth year of courtship—he was working his first job, as a junior credit analyst with a local bank, while pursuing a part-time degree in business studies at a private tertiary institution—Ai Ling knew she had to make her decision sooner than planned.
So, over dinner one night, when she had drunk enough wine to calm her jittery nerves, she told Ian her decision. For a brief moment, Ian laughed, assuming it was a joke. And just as Ai Ling was about to take back her words—maybe she had gone too far—Ian saw something in her eyes that made him quiet down, to fully absorb what he was hearing. He stared at Ai Ling.
“Why?”
“I don’t think I’m ready,” she said.
“Then we can talk about this another time. No hurry in rushing into marriage.”
“No, Ian, I don’t want to get married. I don’t think…”
“Why? What do you want then?”
“I want us to think about what we both want, really. What you want. What I want.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. I think we should just take some time to think about all this.”
“Bullshit,” he spat. “Just tell me what’s on your mind.”
“I want to be alone for a while.”
“Alone? Why?”
“I’m tired, Ian. I’m tired of being your girlfriend. I’m tired of where we are going. I’m tired about what’s to come.”
“You’re just fucking selfish. You only think of yourself. You never think about us.”
Whenever Ai Ling recalled Ian’s words, she remembered how they had struck a part of her that knew, despite her resistance, that he was right, that she was only thinking of herself, of how she had wanted to get out of something that no longer meant anything to her. She was only being fearful of what she did not know or want. And for a long time after their break-up, Ai Ling did not dare to date anyone. Even when she began to date again, she was often afraid of taking the next step in commitment, afraid that even at her age, she could still make mistakes that might have worse consequences than those she had encountered with Ian.
“So you are telling me that after Ian, you dated many guys casually?” Wei Xiang had joked over coffee later. He made a strange face at Ai Ling, feigning incredulity.
“No! Come on, the way you put it sounds so wrong. I’m not that kind of woman. I just went on some dates, that’s all, nothing serious.”
“Then what kind of woman are you?”
Ai Ling pinched Wei Xiang on his arm. He winced playfully.
“So, this is not serious too?”
“Well, no, not serious at all, just a casual date,” Ai Ling said, before breaking into a laugh.
Wei Xiang, too, had gone through a break-up that took a while to get over. His last girlfriend had cheated on him with a colleague, her supervisor at work, a married man with three children. And she had broken up with Wei Xiang, because she had wanted another life with the married man, which was something that Wei Xiang could never wrap his mind around. He could not imagine why anyone would want to live like this, and after the break-up, like Ai Ling, he had refused to keep up any contact with his ex.
Once, when Ai Ling was over at Wei Xiang’s place—he had decided to cook a meal for them—she peeked into one of his photo albums, curious about how his ex looked. She had expected to confirm some of her suspicions—to have Xiang’s ex marked out in some obvious ways—but the person she saw in the photographs was no different from any woman on the street: pretty, yes, but not special in any way that was physically apparent.