Fan Fiction |
by Mimosa
With his bare hand, Gallen brushed the few wilted leaves off the small tombstone. Under the silver liquid moonlight, his profile looked like that of an ancient prince who had just got home from the battlefield, his company totally defeated and himself badly wounded. His lips set in a grim line, and his tall, stubborn forehead painfully wrinkled.
“You know, Flora!” He kneeled down to touch her picture “When we found out that Eileen’s heart defect was terminal, I was really mad at her parents!”
I kept silent,
“If her parents sent her to the hospital when she was young, then I wouldn’t have lost her…” He lifted his head, his eyes faraway with throbbing pain.
“You can’t really change fate!” I said softly
He kept a long silence before heaving a sigh “You are right, Flora! Jiajia got sent to my care very soon, right? Then what happened? I couldn’t save her!” He clutched his head and his voice thickened “I couldn’t save her!”
“Gallen!” I sat down next to him “Remember what you told me?”
“Yes?” He looked at me; his gaze wore a sense of lost.
“Remember that first time I worked with you in the ER? You looked at me and told me to just try my best!” I nodded at him encouragingly “You have tried your best saving JiaJia, Gallen! It’s so sad that she couldn’t make it, but you shouldn’t reprimand yourself over this neither!”
He swallowed hard “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine soon. It’s just…” He left his sentence unfinished, and got up.
“I’m proud of you!” I whispered “Always!”
Gallen went around and loosened a brick from the foot of Eileen tomb. From the little pit, he carefully removed a small tin which he held dearly in his hands…
“That…” I looked at it inquiringly. Under the moonlight, the carving details on the box looked unreal and exquisite.
“Eileen grew up in Sydney… We met in Sydney, too, a very long time back!” Gently and endearingly, he opened the lid…
I remembered what Jerry told me…
“Then after my graduation, we went back to HK… I wanted to introduce her to my family. My parents fell in love with her at the very moment they saw her…”
He smiled, inhaling and looking up to the sky “The summer after that, I went back to Sydney and propped the question, but guess what? Eileen refused me, saying she already had a man in her dream, and things between us were only an infatuation. I was so young and gullible!”
His voice trailed off… A cloud came over the moon, and the wind gushed a little stronger… I trembled.
“Maybe I should take you back, Flora!” He said…
“But what happened next?” I cried silently as we headed back to the car. Jerry didn’t tell me this part of the story, and my acute curiosity manifested itself, torturing me. I stole a glance sideway at Gallen, he was lost in his own world, maybe somewhere on the other side of the Pacific.
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We didn’t go straight home, but ended up in a cozy little café at the peripheral of Soho. He politely and attentively enough in the role of the host, asking me what I like and suggesting some good dishes! But once the food was served, Gallen withdrew himself back into his hard shelf. He barely touched his plate, and kept on sipping his Chardonnay.
“Gallen!” I decided to try to prick into that shelf. After all, what did I have to lose? “What happened after Eileen said no?”
The glass of wine froze at his lips, and for a moment I thought he might get upset, stand up and leave. But then he blinked, and looked at me with a heart-melting sorrow in his dark eyes.
“What else!” his voice was a little hoarse “I came home, mad as a bull! I didn’t call her, I didn’t email her… I vowed to bury my first love into the deepest part of my heart, and myself in work. I didn’t go home; I slept under my small desk at Queen Mary…”
“You’re so silly!” I rebuked before I had a chance to think twice, but he didn’t seem to mind.
“You’re right!” He traced his forefinger around the rim of his glass, and a very faint smile shadowed his lips “Eileen thought so too! She always came up with little tricks, and I always fell for them… easily! Then she could tease me...”
“So when did you find out that she was … er… lying?” I didn’t want to poke into his bad wound, but evil got hold of me again, and urge me to fire the question away.
“11 days after she said no, I had a conference call to my former adviser in Sydney U, and he just, very casually, mentioned her condition.” Gallen brought his brows together in agony “He knew the doctor who attended Eileen’s case!”
He emptied his glass. “She was lying with the hope of me never found out about her heart! It was the last, the worst trick that she pulled on me. She knew I could fall for that… She knew me! And stupid me, I did! Flora, I did waste 11 days living in hell, instead of spending them with Eileen! So little time she had left…” He reached for the bottle…
“Don’t drink too much, Gallen!” I tapped a weary hand over his out-reached arm “Or at least eat something first!”
“It’s okay!” he assured me, and poured himself another glass “I’ll be fine!”
“Will you?” I wanted to ask. I wanted to do something, to say something, to make him feel better, to make him understand that beside Eileen, there still be people who cared for him. But I just didn’t know how to express myself. I’d never been good at offering consolation. I simply felt helpless!
So instead of saying something, I was just sitting there, playing with my water glass, and listening to the radio playing the lines from my heart...
....
“If I could, maybe I'd give you my world.
How can I, when you won't take it from me?
You can go your own way,
Go your own way.
You can call it another lonely day.
You can go your own way,
Go your own way.
Tell me why everything turned around.
Packing up, shacking up is all you want to do.
If I could, baby, I'd give you my world.
Open up! Everything's waiting for you.
You can go your own way, go your own way.
You can call it another lonely day.
If I could, maybe I'd give you my world.
How can I, when you won't take it from me?”
...
Gallen, you must open up! You would see…
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“Dai Gor!” Annie exclaimed “You’re so drunk! Lucky the police didn’t catch you!”
“They can’t!” Her brother replied as he walked toward the staircase with staggered steps, and crashed into the little side table “Because I didn’t drive!”
“Be careful!” Annie put her forefinger on her lips “You don’t want to wake Dad up, Dai Gor! He’ll sure give you a long lecture about drinking!”
“I know, I know!” Gallen dropped himself on the bottom step.
“So you didn’t drive!” Annie emerged from the kitchen with a small wet towel. She handed it to her brother with a long yawn “Who brought you home then?”
“Flora!” Gallen mumbled, “and thank, sis!”
“Flora?” Annie sprang up and bounced for the door “Oh my, where is she? Did I lock her out?”
“Oh no,” Gallen rested his head against the balustrade “She went home already!”
“What?” Annie cried, and this time it was Gallen to signal his sister to lower her volume. “You should at least ask her to come up!” Annie hissed
“I did! But she said it was late…”
“Well, you’d better treat her to a dinner or something to make it up for today, Dai Gor!”
“I will,” her brother murmured as he slowly drifted into dreamland, right there on the floor at the bottom of the vast staircase.
“No!” Annie shook him vigorously “You, wake up and hurl yourself upstairs! I can’t carry you, you’re so huge!”
“I will,” her brother repeated vaguely
“If you don’t wake up and walk yourself upstairs, I’ll have to call Dad!” Annie threatened, and prepared to raise her volume “D..”
“Shh…” Gallen waved his hand with an effort to cover his sister’s mouth, but failed “I’m going, I’m going!”
Just then the doorbell rang again, soft and rather hesitatingly
“Flora?” Annie beamed at the sight of the other girl, “My brother is so bad to let you go home all by yourself!”
“It’s okay!” Flora hastened to assure Annie “Ada’s apartment isn’t too far from here, and your brother’s car got GPS! Anyway, I just come by because your brother left this in the car!” She produced the small, exotically decorated tin “I think he might want to have it by his side!”
Annie led Flora back into the hallway to find her brother already felt asleep.
“Arg!” Annie grunted in frustration, and started shaking her brother again “Wake up, wake up. Go to your bed!”
“I don’t think that helps!” Flora observed. She put the tin down on the side table and pushed up her sleeves.
“Are you kidding me?” Annie widened her eyes “You can’t carry him!”
“Of course I’m not carrying him all by myself!” Flora rolled her eyes “But us!”
Annie pouted, and Flora laughed softly “Where to?”
“His bedroom!” Annie sighed “And mind you, it was at the far end of the corridor!” the girl whined with pretended sarcastic.
Flora wasn’t exactly much stronger than Annie. They almost had to wheeze for air the moment they dropped Gallen on his bed. Annie leaned back on the closet door, fanning herself…
“My brother is going to pay for this!” She said between short breaths “Aw, I need water! Water, Flora?” She bulged out of the room before the other girl had a chance to answer.
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[Flora]
Before I could protest, Annie flew out of her brother’s bedroom. I was almost following her, when the door from the other end of the room flung open…
“Daddy!” Annie greeted, a little louder than it should be, and moved to block her father’s view. Behind her back, I could see her hand signaling frantically. What did she mean?
“What are you two still doing?” Her father asked in a grim tone “It’s almost 2! Has your brother just got home?”
“Oh, we just had a little thing at work to discuss! We’re done, Dad.” Annie kept gesturing to me “Dai Gor is just about to close his door and shut his light off!” She pushed her Dad around “You should go back to sleep too! It’s late!”
I got the cue, pushing the door close tight and dimming his bedside lamp
I did so! The door was solid oak, and I couldn’t be sure whether or not Gallen’s father had come back into his room. Maybe it was safer to stay put and wait for Annie to prompt me.
On his bed Gallen stirred. His shoes were still on. Tiptoeing, I got myself closer. His face was still blushing from the wine. His long lashes shaded his gently closed eyes. His brows, sadly, still knitted into the disquieting line in the middle of his proud forehead.
Had that always been the way? Since Eileen’d gone?
I sat gingerly on the edge of the bed, and my eyes traced his full, distinct lips. They seemed to say “I’m silly, but I can’t help it, my heart just being blindly faithful!”
I held out my hand, and gently, I touched his face…
He wouldn’t know! There was no way he could find out!
I leaned forward,
and felt those lips…
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