DEAR MY LOVE, LILI

CHAPTER 5

Her eyelids were opened when the sleep didn't get to keep her away from the noises; cars honking, people yelling, all the sounds she could hear from the busy street of New York on the fifth floor of her apartment. She wasn't aware of how long she had been sleeping, it could be hours or less than sixty minutes. But she didn't know if she was fully conscious either because she had a weak smile on her face, her eyes staring at the ceiling as her hand was still holding the school photograph Dave had given to her. And she was feeling amused.

The sounds were fading, her smile was growing bigger, her eyes were closing again as the mixture of whiskey and cocaine she had consumed earlier remained in her system. That was the state she was so in love to be in—happy, content, and carefree. She could only get to be in those terms by alcohol and drugs, they were her lifesavers instead of the things she should avoid. And that was something people wouldn't understand about her, that she was intentionally being a problematic artist, following the trends in the music industry, fitting the generalisation that celebrities must get involved in drugs and alcohols as if it was a tradition in the art industry. For Rosie, it was never a practice. It was never a choice. It was merely a cry for help that nobody listened to.

The 1984 hit song by Cyndi Lauper, Girls Just Want To Have Fun was slowly played in her ears, replacing those sounds of reality as she was driven further into her teenage years' memories when she was in Maple Hills. But a strand of consciousness was still fighting in her mind, trying to pull her out no matter how strong the drug had caught her. And the same sentence she had heard earlier mark its base in her thoughts—Wouldn't that feel like kissing a girl instead of a man?

Rosie was deeply disturbed by that sentence as it severely affected her in a way no grown man could comprehend. That was because she knew exactly how a girl's lips tasted like, and she couldn't get that out from her mind, especially each time she kissed a guy. The experience was never as good, forcing her to keep fixing a kiss that couldn't be fixed even though she knew it—with or without a beard, the kiss would still feel different.

"Rosie?"

She heard her favourite voice again as it was calling her name.

"It would be fun!"

"I'm scared."

"What are you scared of?" Rosie laughed a little as her hand was pulling Lilianna with her along the corridor, heading to the backside of the school where all students gathered for the Teachers Day celebration. "We can finally eat other food that the canteen never serves!"

"But—"

"Oh, come on! We already skipped last year's." She convinced her best friend harder. "Please? Please, please, please?"

Lilianna grinned, having no heart to decline and letting herself being dragged toward the garden. She started seeing lots of students in the middle of the field, the teachers under a wooden white gazebo, where the buffet was, and she guessed that was what Rosie was going for. But her attention was back to her friend when the girl had let go of her hand.

"Some boys take a beautiful girl and hide her away from the rest of the world,"  Rosie started singing as she spun to look at Lilianna, her body rocking to match the music that was getting louder. "I wanna be the one to walk in the sun. Oh girls, they wanna have fun,"

The smile on Lilianna's face turned into a giggle as she was looking at Rosie, who was walking backward and dancing at the same time. The girl was so focused as if she was performing on stage—her lips following each lyric of one of her favourite songs that coming from the gazebo, her left hand faking a microphone, and her face expressing true happiness like she owned the world.