Loneliness of Tingting

Emma王新月190161103

Many years later as Tingting trembled in her room, she was to remember that sultry afternoon when the strange telephone dropped into a basin of water, yet the child had no idea of what would happen to her world after.

Tingting

In a room filled with incense smoke, I am lying on my bed. My body is getting increasingly fatter and obese, but helplessly, I can do nothing about it.

There she is, invading my land again. I’m so tired of watching her sneak into my room like a thief just to beg me to please do this or don’t do that.

She creeps up the stairs, along the wall, getting up to put out the incense with a strong smell.

“Get out of my room.” The words slightly run out of my lips. I already have no interest in shouting at her.

“I’m sorry; I just worry about your health...” I can even read her expression without a glimpse: fear, guilt, feeling wronged. Pathetic and funny.

“GET OUT.”

“OK. Mom just wants you to take care of yourself,” as she finishes her words, together with her and her disappointment, her plump shadow slips out of the room, too. Mission succeeded. No invader anymore. I light the incense once more — a joy of feeling nothing but peace.

After a while, a call from my annoying cousin buzzes in the dim space, I shiver with a clear and painful recollection of that afternoon and turns towards the wall. When I recovers, a message pops up on the screen: If you don’t want to talk to me, that’s OK. Your friends might also help.

Friends? I did have a friend. My entire life, I have had only one friend but I lost her back in my school days. High school is a place full of teenage freaks, sometimes they are in essence, sometimes they are forced to be so. Lily was every high school girl, always in a clean and tidy school uniform. She sat next to me and always listened to some math teacher attentively talk about some trigonometric identity that seemed to be unsolvable throughout a lifetime. We became friends naturally, and it was the first time I had thought there could be a person to save my rotten soul in this awful world. And I firmly believed a secret was the best thing I could give to a friend, so I did it. That was a scorching afternoon; I led her to a huge shade of building and leaned against the wall.

I looked around, confirming that there was no one around us, “I’ve got a secret to tell you.”

She seemed to be inspired by something and jumped up, saying “About what?” Her eyes were so sharp and determined that I didn’t dare to look straight at her, so I looked down, and stepped on an ant to death unconsciously, “about me.”

She kept looking at me, “OK. I’m all ears.”

“I have a phone call phobia,” I peered at her through a bottle of water.

Lily looked her in confused eyes, “And why?”

“When I was little, I tried to pick up the phone when the it rang and dropped it into an enamel basin full of water. My mum came back home and beat me fiercely no matter how much I had explained that was not my fault. I hate that phone call. Honestly, I hate my Mom.”

Lily became more confused than before, “Maybe you can have a sincere talk with your Mom.”

I should have never expected that there could be someone who would really talk to me, let alone understand me. I can’t remember well the second half of the conversation, but since then, we separated naturally, just as we had become friends naturally. And I never intend to figure out how could this happen because it was just God rolling the dice; there is no point working out why it is a “6” or “5” on the dice.

Lily

If you ask me who was the weirdest person I’ve ever seen, there would be a long list of names; one of which is Tingting, my classmate from high school. The first thing about her that caught my attention was her brand-new iPhone 4, which was the rarest and most expensive mobile device at that time. She sat next to me, so I could play video games and listen to Justin Bieber’s songs whenever I liked. Every time she had any problems, she would turn to me for help. She was then definitely my sincerest friend, inviting me to her home and entertaining me with a feast made by her Mom, who was quite hospitable and enthusiastic. I thought we could be friends forever until that afternoon when she told an absurd secret to me.

“Hey, I have a phone call phobia. It’s my mom’s fault because I dropped the telephone into water accidentally, but she beat me even though I said that it was not deliberate. I hate her.”

Initially, my mind went blank because I had no idea how could I connect this phobia to her daily use of her iPhone, I could see her talking on the phone sometimes. Besides, her mom was quite a good mother in my opinion; therefore, even though maybe she had done some inappropriate things to her daughter before, she should be pardoned; everyone makes mistakes. My Mom and Dad also misunderstood me, and even worse, we have had years of quarrels over our opinions on family responsibility, but we still love each other. So, when Tingting said, “I hate her, I wish she would die,” I felt like I had never known her before.

There was always one more detail lingering over my mind; she always kept her head down and rarely looked into my eyes, whereas I always did the opposite. Maybe we were just born to be totally different.

Tingting

I hate hundreds of people in my life. If my mother comes first, then my cousin Yingying takes the second slot. When festivals came, the family would gather in my home to celebrate. She was always trying to steal my thunder. Once, she saw the aunts and uncles sitting in the room, so she found a rag and cleaned the closet in front of them, and as she wished, all people praised her and loved her. My mother saw and said, “I would appreciate God if I had a daughter like Yingying!” I was pricked by these words; if you want a daughter like her, then why not just let her be your daughter and never have given birth to me.

One spring festival, I was playing video games with my cousins; I was the king of that game. Everyone admired me for my quick thinking and actions. Suddenly, Yingying came to us, with that disgusting smile, saying, “I made some postcards for each of you!” Again, everyone stopped watching me play to appreciate her at the moment when I was supposed to having fun with the cousins rather than being ignored at the corner. So, when the postcard was handed to me, I just threw it into the pocket of down coat. When dinner began, I didn’t stay with the cousins but went to my room. I gazed at the postcards, tore it into pieces, and let them lay in the pocket.

Yingying

Happy new year! I turned 11 years old!

These days, our family stayed together to celebrate the new year, and I had been looking forward to that for a long time. I made postcards on which I wrote different poems for my cousins. On the New Year’s Eve, seeing they were all together in the room, I thought it would be a great time to hand them out. At first, I was uptight about showing my work and didn’t know how to respond to their reactions. Anyway, I walked in the room and tried to look at ease and enthusiastic, saying to my cousins one by one that I had postcards for them. They all thanked me back and looked quite pleased. However, when I was going home and approached to clothes hanger to put on my coat, I accidentally found there were pieces of colored paper in cousin Tingting’s pocket. I leaned in and found that it was the postcard that I had made for her. The next day, I didn’t ask her the reason, and she pretended nothing had happened as well. But I did feel sad for a while.

Most of the time, I love being with Tingting. She is cool and knows things that I don’t. Controversially, sometimes she acts quite strangely and offensively that I can’t accept, but I think I should be tolerant because of her miserable childhood.

Tingting

I hate that woman. I hate that man.

We were driving on the highway going back home, and she said she needed to go to bathroom. The man pulled over, saw her getting out of the car, and turned up the music, which made me annoyed. I made every effort to control myself, but I couldn’t.

“Turn it down!”

No response.

“I said turn the damn music down!”

He turned back, glimpsed at me, and turned the button counterclockwise with his dirty nails.

She got back in the car, and the journey went on. It was summer, so inside the car, it was extremely stuffy, and I almost got car sick in the back seat, especially when I heard the man keep cursing the poor sound equipment. I knew he was actually hurling insults at me; I saw his rude, violent, evil eyes in the mirror, which made me panic for the rest of the trip.

When we arrived home, she went straight to work, leaving me and him alone in the house. I ran upstairs and locked the door; even when I was hungry, I didn’t go out in case he would beat me like my real father did.

I kept doing this whenever she was out. However, every time, he just put my meals in front of my room and left. Finally, I dared to go upstairs to cook.

He leaned against the kitchen table, and drew on his cigarette, puffed out a cloud of smoke, staring at me without a word.

“Don’t smoke in my home,” I trembled, seeing the monster’s eyes burning red, and he murmured in some dirty words, walking past me.

I fled back to my room quickly and locked the door again.

Tingting’s mother

I meet a guy who treats me well. The only setback is my daughter; I feel deeply sorry whenever we talk about it. The sweetest thing is that he always comforts me; he knows it takes time to get everything done. While he is doing housework all day long, cooking dishes for my family, kneeling down in front of me, I am sure he is the one.

I know my daughter very well. Every time I have wanted to remarry, she refused and forbid me to do so. Hence, she will tell thousands of lies to convince me that the man is bad, but this time I won’t compromise. Sometimes, she even makes up facts that I misunderstood her and beat her when she was young. I don’t remember those things at all.

This year, Tingting has turned 18. The age of 18 could be a reckless soul desperate to determine who to love. The posters on the wall, songs repeatedly played in MP3, photos collected in her pocket, were all for one person, a popular star. Unlike everyone, he would always smile and say something sweet to her. Another young lady who had fallen in love with him was her young cousin, Yingying. They heard the breaking news that he was going to perform in the city nearby. They booked the tickets, rushed to the city, and settled down in a hotel that night.

Late at night, Tingting’s phone rang and it turned out to be her mother. She threw it to her cousin, saying “You pick up.”

After a brief exchange, Tingting forced Yingying to hang up.

The air-conditioner wasn’t working, so it was difficult for the two girls to fall asleep. They decided to get up and watch TV, but it seemed broken too.

“Did you have fight with her recently?” Yingying broke the silence.

“No. I just don’t want to hear her voice.”

“Because of those conflicts from the past?”

She responded after a sigh, “Maybe. And I know what you think, but it’s more complicated than you could imagine. There are details you never knew.”

“I know, I know that in comparison, I was born in a happy family, and I may not understand you fully. But you can talk to me.”

Although she hated her cousin, she still told her of all the things she was been through lately. At first, Tingting talked as usual, as if it was a story about someone else. Several minutes later, she couldn’t help but to cry and sob as she continued her story of how she was mistreated by her mother and was scared about the tendency toward violence of her step-father.

“I just can’t get rid of it.” Tingting had totally lost control; her head ached heavily. Yingying passed her tissues and patted her shoulder softly.

Somehow, the belief that Yingying could be her solace flashed through her mind. She was about to continue telling her things, like the phone call phobia.

Unfortunately, the tissue that wiped across the face of the girl who was hugging her, wasn’t wet at all. The words were on the tip of Tingting’s mouth; however, instead of continuing listening, Yingying did not leave the ground open for her. She just said, “Time to sleep.”

Tingting held back a sigh, “Then, good night.”

For her, there might never be a good night.