Thirty Two Faces - 6. Determined

Every day, I wake up at five-thirty.

Run at six.

Parkour at seven.

Swim at eight.

I do them on school days, on holidays, on Christmas and Thanksgiving, no matter what time I go to sleep the night before. These routines started two years ago, and I do them even if I fall sick.

The only TV or movies I watch are the zombie and alien flicks that Samuel and I watch together. People always die in these movies because they can’t run fast enough. Or they get cornered by zombies. And they obviously aren’t very smart, because the best way to escape from a zombie apocalypse is to find a remote island. Rotten cadavers cannot swim, and water decomposes them further.

So these three skills – run, Parkour, swim – are essential for survival.

Mostly, they help me escape from boys who are frightening. The pocket knife doesn’t always work when they are in groups. But I can outrun them. Fences, drainage ditches and walls will slow them down, but not me. Swimming hasn’t got me out of any situation yet, but I’m sure it will come in useful someday.

The only time I give myself a break is when Samuel is home. I don’t have to work so hard then because he is around to protect me.

Every evening at eight, I practice reading Samuel’s faces. When he was away, we would Skype once or twice a week, and I would record the video. Then I would write subtitles based on what I know about his facial expressions – of his moods and what he is possibly thinking. And I would check to see if I got them correctly, frame by frame, against his face archive. So now, I have 110 subtitled videos of our conversations.

When I show him some of the videos, it upsets him, because his eyes turn wet, and he gives me a hug. Actually, I want to ask him if I have subtitled them correctly because I only got 81% correct if I check against his video archive.

I am pretty sure that I’m at least 93% right. But since he turns sad, I never show him those videos again.

Dad calls my problem with faces developmental prosopagnosia. Some kids who are like me have it worse; they can’t even recognize their own parents. For me, I can still tell it’s the same face when it contorts in expressing itself, but the patterns are hard to read.

I tried this experiment with Samuel once to show him how I see things: I scanned the pattern of his red tartan shirt into my computer. I chose it because is his favorite shirt, so he’ll recognize it easily.

It is composed of three different types of squares of varying colors and size – white squares, red squares and pink squares – in large, medium and small sizes. Then I switch the order to large red squares, medium white squares and small pink squares in every alternate scan. He can tell the pattern has changed, but he can’t point it out immediately.

Then I vary the color and size sequence, tag it to 32 different emotions, swap his face with the tartan pattern in the video, and I ask him, “Do you recognize what emotion your face is showing right now in the video?”

To him, it looks like an unintelligible flurry of patterned movements.

So he understands how I look at faces and why I have to stare. I tried to show Mom and Dad once, but they got mad when I took their favorite clothes from their wardrobe to scan.

 

# # # # #

 

From nine to eleven is my journal-writing and reflection time.

There are two reasons why I spend the time writing.

The first reason is that I want to speak like the way I write someday.

Dad likes the way I write. He says I think deeply, even though my attention is always on one or two things. And I’m like a bulldog, he says. Once I bite onto something, I don’t let it go. And for this summer, it’s Samuel, Samuel and Samuel. So bear with me.

But it takes a long time for me to understand why I feel things a certain way and even longer to express them in words. So this is the formula I use:

 

Step one: I write down the events. At what time, I did what and who reacted to me in what way:

I stared. He left. I left. Things like that. Simple enough.

Step two: I insert how I feel and what I think the other person is feeling into the chronology of events:

I stared because I’m sad. He left thinking that I’m only a kid to him, a burden. I have nothing else to wait for now, I don’t know what else to hope for. So I left.

Step three: I take some time for this part because I need to investigate why I feel a certain way. This requires imagination because, by the time I write, I no longer feel it. That’s why writing about Samuel is so easy. When he makes me feel happy or sad, it usually last for days. So it’ll go like this:

I stared at his car leaving because I’m sad that I’m not the one sitting beside him. I finally know what he thinks of me: a kid, a burden. Come to think of it, I’m hardly surprised. I can’t drive, Mom has to drive me to and pick me up from school every day. I’m too scared to do anything alone because I’m afraid of talking to strangers. I practice writing and reading faces so that Samuel can understand me and I can continue to be his best friend. Who am I kidding? If I weren’t his brother, he wouldn’t even take a second look at me. This is what I thought when I went back into the house.

Step four: I use figures of speech to describe what I see, what I feel and my thoughts about them, and I take out all the irrelevant details, like:

I stared at his car leaving and my hopes along with it. I finally know what he thinks of me: a kid, a burden. Who am I kidding? If I weren’t his brother, he wouldn’t even take a second look at me. I went back into the house, bleeding a trail of tears behind the stone-cold walkway.

And the second reason why journal-writing is important to me: one day when I die, I want Samuel to read all of it. I want him to feel every single emotion that I have felt.

Normally, I edit it twelve times before I save and triple encrypt my journal, then bury the files in the cloud. But today I don’t really care, because I doubt he will read it anyway. And right now, it’s eleven minutes past three in the morning. It’s only two hours and nineteen minutes before I wake to jog. I mustnnnnnnnnnnnnnn ZzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

“Babe, where did you go at this hour? You frightened me!”

I jump when Mom stand looking out my doorway, speaking unannounced. Her hair is in a mess, her face is pale, and she shouts to Dad upstairs saying that she has found me. I quickly save and log off my journal.

“I’m just outside.”

Mom touches Dad’s arms when he arrives. She says, “What are you doing outside at this late hour? I thought you disappeared again.”

I don’t want to lie, so I keep quiet and stare at her.

And stare.

And stare.

My silence must upset her because she starts crying and covering her face with her hands. Then she cries, “Why can’t you be more normal?”

I apologize to her because I ran off to the woods two years ago and disappeared. Dad, Mom and Samuel had to search for me the whole night in the dark. I don’t even remember why I ran, because my brain crashes when I freak out. Like a crashed computer, the screen just goes black [‘blank’?].

As for her second question, I think Dad would be a better person to answer it; he is the expert. But since she asks, I guess she wants to understand me, just like Samuel does.

So I start drawing boxes on two pieces of paper. Four boxes point to a stick figure which I indicate as me. I write parallel processing below the four boxes. Then below I write a mathematic expression:

Z₁ = X₁ X₂ X₃Y(a+b+c+d)

where Z₁ is her, and X₁ = cognition, X₂ = recall, X₃ = recognition, y = emotion, a = visual, b = olfactory c = tactile, d = auditory

Then on the other piece of paper, I draw a stick figure pointing to four boxes in sequential order. Something like this:

Me > Box A > Box B > Box C> Box D

Then I write down sequential processing and add in a formula to express my inner experience, in case she wants details:

Z₂ = X₁X₃Y(a+b+c) + [ X₁ X₂ X₃ (a+b+c+d)]

where Z₂ is me, and X₁ = cognition, X₂ = recall, X₃ = recognition, y = emotion, a = visual, b = olfactory c = tactile, d = auditory

Her eyes widen when I show her the papers. She knits her brow, and her mouth is open like she wants to say something. She looks at Dad and then at me.

Dad simply puts on his glasses and waits for me to speak.

So I tell her the best way to understand why I am not normal is to look at the mathematical expressions which I describe above. But since her brain works differently from mine, I will need to explain to her very slowly.

I take out my phone, log in to my journal, and find the entry where I recorded an entry – the one where Samuel uses a computer analogy to describe me.

“Your brain,” I point to Mom, “is like a quad-core processor, with a separate sound card, video card and RAM that allows you to handle many applications at once. So when you see the world, you can think, feel, remember and recognize everything you see, feel, hear, touch and smell all at once.”

“Keith! That’s not what I’m-”

Mom looks like she’s about to pull her hair out, but Dad stops her in time. She has been losing lots of hair, and I don’t think she should aggravate it further.

“Let him speak, honey.” Dad says.

Then I point to the first expression to describe her inner process. I tell her because of her brain’s simultaneous processing that her processing speed is slower than mine. But because she can process everything simultaneously, imagination is fun for her: just like a good HD zombie movie with special effects and a surround-sound system.

On the other hand, my brain is somewhat like a single-core processor, with cheap, integrated multimedia cards. So the optimal way to prioritize and process information is to do so sequentially. Something like this:

Me > what I think, feel, recognize about what I see, touch and smell.

And then > what I remember and hear.

And that’s why too much stimulus tends to slow or even crash my system. Like how old computers crash when they play games that are beyond what their graphics and sound card can handle.

So my imagination is a bit like the time when Samuel and I watched the Spanish zombie movie REC together using his very, very old laptop. The quality was bad with pixelated faces, muffled sound always at full volume and subtitles that are always a few seconds late.

Because of that, I don’t spend a lot of time imagining things and verbalizing thoughts. It’s easier for me think in pictures and feelings instead.

That’s why talking to people is stressful because they don’t give me enough time to think what to say properly. Not like writing, where I can take my time to express myself, step by step, sequentially, the way my brain works.

And since verbalizing thoughts requires more effort, emotions don’t readily associate themselves with words, which makes metaphors kind of like dry humor to me, devoid of the punch. That’s why it takes more effort for me to understand and remember them.

When I want to speak to someone, I prefer to visualize words appearing in my head and read them out loud. Samuel says that’s how newscasters report their news, with a script appearing in front of them on a monitor. So I ask him if that’s the reason why they look as deadpan as me when they speak.

And then I tell Mom what Samuel told me: it’s all right not to be normal because I have some perks as well – like I’m good with numbers and remember things very well.

Most people try to understand math verbally, and that makes it very hard to understand equations. Since numerical expressions are best understood visually, like graphs, they make the most sense to me.

Then I point back to the formula,

Z₂ = X₁X₃Y(a+b+c) +[ X₁ X₂ X₃ (a+b+c+d)]

Not having much inner dialogue also helps me to remember things like a scanner does. Samuel always says he needs to quieten his mind to concentrate. But that comes naturally for-

“Keith. Babe… it wasn’t a questi-”

Mom suddenly shakes her head and interrupts me. I am too focused on my explanation to notice that she has been crying all along. Why did she get upset over my explanation?

“You want to know why I can’t be more normal.” I snap.

Don’t you want to understand me?

That’s how I should’ve said it. But my brain just cannot keep up with my emotions, and she looks upset. So I have to say something.

“It’s all right, honey, let me handle this,” Dad says to Mom, and then he turns to me, “Babe, all this is very interesting. Do you think you can type it out and send it to us tomorrow morning? Hoffman will be very interested.”

But they are not interested.

Every time, they ask me a question and then just cut me off. But they keep asking me the same question:

Why can’t you be more normal?

And I’ve already tried my best to answer their question. But it never seems to be enough, like they just want to blame me.

I clench my fist and squeeze my phone until I feel the plastic casing crack. I slam it down on the floor and pull my hair.

Why don’t they want to understand me?

I groan to drown out the noise inside my head.

Mom shakes her head and says to Dad, “I can’t take any more of this, Jack. Seventeen years of this-”

She points to the broken phone on the floor.

Then she throws her hands down and goes away.

Every time I disappear, smash something, hurt someone or hurt myself, she always gets angry or upset. But she has never walked away.

Did Mom just give up on me?

I pull my hair at that moment without understanding why. Looking back, I might have felt like I wanted to take my brain out to show them what it’s like inside.

Dad puts his hands on my shoulders to calm me down.

“Babe, Mom is not feeling very well lately. She doesn’t mean what she says.”

I look at my father’s ice-blue eyes.

He wears a smile, but his expression is otherwise blank. I wonder if he’s showing me a poker face that people put on when they lie. But he must have seen my suspicion, because he puts his hands on my cheeks and kisses my forehead.

That gesture says that he loves me. So I ask him, “Does she have a fever or something?”

He wipes off a tear and strokes my head. He doesn’t answer me, but instead he says, “Keith, your mom is just worried that you can’t take care of yourself.”

What did I do to upset him so badly?

“Is she going away?” I ask.

Silence.

It is 3:25 am when I switch off the light and go to bed. Talking to Mom and Dad made me feel very exhausted; that’s why I like the dawn when I’m by myself. There’s no need for me to explain myself to anyone.

There’s no need to be understood when I’m all alone.

Before I fall asleep, I think I smell a familiar musk tinged with alcohol and smoke. I turn and find Samuel walking towards my bed. I’m surprised to see him, so I ask him why is he home so early.

“I just sent Sarah home. She lives nearby,” he says.

Aren’t you having sex with her tonight?

“Why? Are you jealous?” He looks at me and laughs.

Why do I always speak aloud these days?

I grab for the pillow beside me, slap it over my face, and groan away the embarrassment ringing in my head. My hands refuse to budge when he tries to tug the pillow off me.

“C’mon, I’m just teasing you. Don’t be mad.”

After a few apologies, coaxes and threats, I finally let go of the pillow, reluctantly.

He smiles and tousles my hair when I finally see his face again. I used to like it when he does that, but now it only reminds me of how he sees me.

“Am I just a k-kid to you?”

His eyes widen in confusion for a moment, and then he grins.

So you heard me. That’s what his face is saying. He knocks his forehead on mine gently, resting there for a moment before he says, “No, you’re just a baby.”

Then he moves his head slowly down my neck, rubbing his nose against it and says, “And you still smell like one.”

Mom and Dad used to do that to me when I was little. Now, only he continues to do that.

“Can I sleep here tonight?” he asks.

I recognize that question.

Can I sleep here tonight?

He was hospitalized for having a bad fall while skating when he was eleven. Both of us hated hospitals, maybe because we watched too many zombie flicks, and hospitals are always the worst place to be when an outbreak starts. We visited him and before we left, he pulled Mom’s hand and asked her,

Can he sleep here tonight?

Then on his sixteenth birthday, he came home from his party at two in the morning, eye bruised and nose bleeding. I went to his room and found him curled up in bed. He didn’t say anything that night but only told me much later that he caught his first love making out with his best friend. It was the night when he promoted me to be his best friend.

Before I leave, he pulls my hand and asks,

Can you sleep here tonight?

“Can I sleep here tonight?” he repeats.

My brother must be upset. His eyes are distan,t and his tone is somber. So I pull down the duvet to let him climb in and ask, “Is everything all right?”

“I had a fight with Mom and Dad,” he says.

I remembered seeing him looking pissed when he left the house yesterday. They raised their voices at him.

“About what?” I ask.

“You.” He heaves a sigh, fixing his gaze on me and says, “I want to take you to Los Angeles to live with me.”

“Really? But… why now?”

That night, Samuel tells me that Mom was diagnosed with advanced cancer three weeks ago. She will go for an operation in two weeks’ time. That’s why Samuel had to come home this summer.

“W-Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

“Babe, listen. I’m not supposed to tell you. Calm down.”

But I can’t calm down.

I freak out and cry, which is precisely the reason why Mom and Dad didn’t want to tell me in the first place.

Samuel holds me in his arms for a long time.

My head feels like a million white noises jamming inside. I can only hear him vaguely going hush, hush... rocking me gently for what seems like forever. Until his familiar scent and touch calm me down.

“Shouldn’t I stay with Mom then?” I sob against his chest.

“They have other plans for you.”

Once Mom goes for the operation, she won’t be able to drive me to school anymore or cook my meals or wash my clothes. It will be very tough on Dad to take care of Mom and me at the same time. So they plan to send me to a special boarding school for special kids like me. It has facilities for therapy, the classes are tailored for kids like me, but the only drawback is that it’s in Massachusetts. So he says, “I know it’ll drive you insane living with a bunch of strangers. I can’t let that happen. I told Dad it doesn’t matter if the kids are all like you or if the teachers are all trained. But Mom and Dad think it’s too big a responsibility for me to handle.”

And Mom and Dad asked him lots of questions.

Who’s going to drive me to and pick me up from school?

Who’s going to keep me from getting into trouble?

My brother is only twenty, and it’ll be the end of his social life. They don’t think he’s ready for that. Frankly speaking, I’m not too sure I want that for Samuel, either.

If only, I can prove to them that I can be independent.

Not just for Samuel but for Mom as well.

The next day, I wake up at five-thirty.

Run at six.

Parkour at seven.

Swim at eight.

My body is exhausted, but I keep pushing myself on.

A strong body makes me feel safe.

If I feel safe, I will be able to do new things, like take a bus alone or go into a supermarket without self-checkout lanes.

If I can do all these, then I can go to school myself, cook and wash my own clothes.

I will be independent.

Mom won’t have to worry about me.

And I can live with Samuel without being a pain to him.

“What are you doing?”

Samuel wakes up at eleven and finds papers pasted all over walls. I turn back from my MacBook and say, “I’m on an independence quest. So that Mom doesn’t have to worry about me, and I will get to live with you.”

And I show him the list of things I want to achieve by the end of this summer.

1. Watch a TV show that is not a zombie or alien flick.

2. Read a fiction book (poetry doesn’t count).

3. Learn to make grocery lists for cooking and household items.

4. Learn to use the washing machine (wearing ear muffs).

5. Learn to cook.

6. Buy groceries at a supermarket without a self-checkout lane.

7. Watch a movie by myself.

8. Go out and take a bus to somewhere all by myself.

9. Talk to a stranger by myself.

10. Make a new friend by myself.

11. Tell my new friend about the movie or TV show that I watched.

12. Go out without my pocket knife.

13. Go to a large city and take the subway all by myself.

14. Hang out with my new friend.

15. Do whatever Samuel tells me to.

“Shouldn’t Number 15 be at the top instead?” He grins when he asks that.

It takes me a while before I realize he is teasing me. I need to bury my head somewhere, but he’s on the bed, so I pull the curtain over my head and groan.

“All right, all right, I’m sorry.”

He’s not sorry at all because he’s still smiling and looking all amused. My brother is enjoying every single minute of tormenting me. Since when did he become so cruel?

“Chill, Babe. Remember, I told you teasing isn’t the same as mocking?” Then he points to his smiling face, beckoning me to look at him as he continues, “See? It’s a happy face. I’m making fun of you because you are adorable.”

As if to prove his point, he plants a kiss on my head.

Hugs and kisses.

That’s a better way to show someone you’re adorable.

Samuel spends the next two hours listening to me explain my detailed plans on how to achieve my goals.

He gives some suggestions on how I can start it off easy: like, I can start off by watching Transformers. Most of them are robots, and it’s all shooting and explosions. There’s no need for me to read faces to understand what’s going on. I tell Samuel that’s kind of like cheating, because, according to Wikipedia, Transformers are aliens, and so it doesn’t quite fit the bill.

Besides, the whole idea is not to look like an idiot when kids in class go,

What? You don’t know what’s Game of Thrones? Which planet are you from?

or

No, Breaking Bad isn’t about quitting smoking.

Then, he suggests something brilliant instead, “Why not just read the popular TV catalogues and then go wiki the episode guides? This will give you something to talk about with other people.”

And pretty soon, my little personal quest has become a hunter quest for us. Only this time, the stakes are high: I get to live with my brother instead of being alone in another state surrounded by shrinks and other kids like me.

My brother is all excited and throws ideas around, but I know I have to do it alone. Even if it doesn’t make Mom proud, at least she can stop worrying about me.

It is ten minutes past one when Mom comes into my room and finds us scribbling on the papers on the wall. I am confused why she shouts at first, but Samuel is around to explain to her what I am doing,

“Babe is not making a mess, Mom; he wants to be independent so you don’t have to worry about him.”

I swoon at my brother’s eloquence, because Mom immediately turns from being angry to being upset, hugging the both of us at the same time. She wipes off a tear when she says to me in a gentle voice, “Lunch is ready, Babe. Come and eat when you are ready.”

Then I hear my brother saying to me, “Let go of Mom, Babe. You’re smothering her.”

Sometimes, I wish Mom could understand me the way Samuel does.

At least, she won’t be mad at me or get upset so often. Like the time when I knocked my head against her; it wasn’t meant to hurt her. It’s just how Samuel shows me he loves me; a knock on my forehead with his. Somehow, she looked upset when I grabbed her shoulders, because she wasn’t standing still. Her struggling got me nervous, so I knocked her head a bit harder than I intended to.

She also doesn’t understand what my different hugs mean.

When I get scared, I need to bury my face against something. Usually when Samuel is around, he will press my face against his chest until I calm down. Once, there was a freak thunderbolt in the late afternoon that startled me. She was in the kitchen when I ran to her, pressing my face against her breasts. I got upset when she told me it was an inappropriate way to hug.

Or when I’m sad, I hug people and sniff their necks for comfort.

If I want to show I love them, I’ll just hold on as tight as I can for a long time.

She doesn’t like me staring at her, so I can’t write a manual to understand her face. Mom thinks I’m old enough to know that staring is rude – when people are stared at, it feels like there is something wrong with them, like they are being pointed at. And I know how that feels.

So maybe I can write a manual about myself instead. I can send it to her chapter by chapter so she that can read it when she is resting from her operation. I hope she won’t put it aside, like how she always walks away when I try to explain something.

Samuel says I mustn’t put in so many graphs and equations, because Mom won’t understand. Just write it like how I would write a story.

 

# # # # #

 

My brother has four personalities depending on what he’s wearing at the moment.

Plaid, checks and lumberjack shirts are his bossy days. On those days, he’ll be gruff, aloof, impatient, and won’t take no for an answer. Better stay away from him unless I’m really desperate for attention. Unfortunately, he’s bossy most of the time nowadays. College seems to put him on edge. Or maybe that’s what happens when you become an adult.

If he’s wearing his shirts open with a tank or tee shirt inside, it’ll be his jock days. He’ll be competitive, edgy, focused and can be rambunctious if he’s with his football team. Anytime, he can slip into bossy mode, especially when he’s playing football or City Hunter Quests with me.

Dress shirts and fitted pants will be his charming days. Those days he’ll be suave, affectionate, a little tongue in cheek, sometimes pensive and reflective, always temperamental. Usually he’s like that when he goes out with girls. If he’s in a good mood, I’ll get a knock on my forehead when he gets back home.

Boxers or tee-shirts and Berms are his dorky days. Fun, silly, laid-back, loves to tease, beer-chugging, belching, farting, balls-scratching, but goes into charming mode very easily.

Why can’t he be like that every day?

Right now he’s in dork mode because he’s wearing his boxers and just scratched his balls.

“What’s your dream, Babe?” He lies on my bed, smiling at our handiwork: 32 pieces of papers, full of our scribbles, pasted on the wall.

“I didn’t have any. Only two hours of sleep,” I say.

“I don’t mean last night.”

I get out from the chair and climb onto the bed to take a good look at his face. It is a wistful look. He means to ask what I hope to have in the future but is unattainable now.

He probably will know if I lie, and I think we’ve come far enough for dodging pretenses. So I say to him plainly, “To be with you.”

He lifts his head and looks at me as if deciding whether I’m serious. His lips part slightly as if about to say something.

But then he pauses for a moment before he says, “You know it would be wrong, right?”

“I know, even though I don’t understand why. But that isn’t what I mean. I just want to be near you, that’s all.”

“Do you really like me that much?”

I don’t really understand his question because I’m not sure if he doubts my feelings or he’s just saying it. His face seems to be in doubt, but he wasn’t really looking at me when he asked that.

In any case, this is a question that I need to answer myself, too. After all the raging hormones subside, how will I see my brother?

So I sit down, type into my laptop, step by step, to sort out and reflect on my feelings.

You are everything to me.

My only friend. The only face which speaks to me.

You are everything because I have no one else.

Still sitting on my chair, my back facing him, I say, “Maybe one day, when I find someone who understands me and makes me feel safe, I might not feel this way anymore. But for now, you are the whole world to me.”

From the reflection of my laptop screen, I can tell he is looking at me. He looks at me longer than he should, eyes intense and somewhat steely. It feels as if he’s perturbed by my answer.

Is he upset by how strongly I feel?

Or the fact that my feelings may change some day?

Then after a long time, he starts to speak again,

“I wish I hadn’t gone to LA two years ago. Not after everything that’s happened-”

There’s something in his tone that disturbs me, but I can’t nail it down. So I turn over to look at him in the face and ask, “What happened?”

“The night you disappeared into the woods.” He seems surprised that I didn’t know what he was talking about.

“I don’t remember much of it-” I mutter.

Like I said, my brain crashes when too much information assaults it. Usually when I freak out, my mind zooms into one or two things, just to keep me safe. Just like computers go into Safe Mode after they crash.

But that night was a total blackout for 12 hours. I don’t know how I got myself into the woods or know where I was until my brother found me.

Thank God you’re safe, Babe. I’m not letting you out of my sight again.

That’s what he said, and that’s why I threw a tantrum when he left me behind for college two months later. And perhaps that’s why he couldn’t quite look me in the eye when he says, “But we do. I do. And I feel horrible for leaving you behind.”

I’ve forgiven him. Mostly because I’ve learned how to protect myself. Having a pocket knife makes me feel safe, but I’ve also become more withdrawn than ever. It is what I like most – being myself, and that’s not the life my brother wants to lead. So I say, “Don’t be silly. You don’t want to be stuck in this sleepy place, taking care of me the rest of your life, do you?”

“Babe, that wasn’t what I meant.”

“I know. You told me your dream is to travel the world, find new adventures, spread your wings, no one telling you what to do.”

“It’d be nice if we could roam the world together,” he says dreamily.

Yes, it would be nice, indeed: both of us going on an adventure, not knowing where we’ll end up, getting lost in strange cities, making friends who speak exotic languages, solving one big mystery after another.

It would be like a never-ending quest.

I’m in a turban, and he’s wearing a kilt, playing with lions in the Saharan plains. Like the guy he shows me on YouTube who made friends with a whole pride of them.

That is his dream.

And it is my despair.

If we could.

The reality is that I can’t even go a new part of town without having to stop every five minutes, take a deep breath to orient myself. Dad designed the City Hunter games in such a way that I get exposed to new places slowly, pushing the edge an inch at a time. And when Samuel left for college, it was a cold, hard knock of reality: I realize I’m just a stone tied to his wings.

It is too much to hope for things to change for either him or me, but I will regret it if I never know what he really thinks. So I pluck my courage out from my throat and ask him, “Will you bring me along? If one day, I’m not a burden to you anymore?”

It is a long shot. But that means it qualifies as a dream; it doesn’t become real.

The intense gaze returns. But this time he softens it with a long, tight hug. That is his answer.

Amor ch’a nullo amato amar perdona. Love, which exempts no one who’s loved from loving.

Mom quoted this from the Dante’s Inferno, one of her futile attempts to spark my imagination and interest in classic fiction during my home-school days.

I wish I could believe it; when one person is completely in love with another, the other must unavoidably be smitten as well. Just like no one can resist the adoring gaze from a baby or the steadfast devotion from a puppy. Who can refuse the hearts and dignity that lie completely raw and naked at your feet?

There are so many flaws in this logic that pull my brain apart. If the saying is true, then why are there so many songs, movies and books about broken hearts? Just run a search in Amazon, or IMDB, or lyrics.com; it’s the same results everywhere.

And a broken heart isn’t a metaphor.

Medically, a broken heart hurts in the same way as pangs of intense physical pain do. The University of Michigan demonstrated that the same regions of the brain that becomes active in response to painful sensory experiences are activated during intense experiences of rejection.

If only we can bridge the gap between dreams and reality like the way we do with a hug. Hold on long and tight enough, and the two worlds eventually merge.

Over the next week, Mom and Dad make trips to the hospital, taking tests, x-rays, scans – all kinds of stuff to get her ready for the operation. By then, Samuel has pretty much fulfilled his social obligations to catch up with all his old friends. He’s home more often now.

With my new goals in mind, I’ve included a few more routines into my life for the next two weeks.

6.00: Run further down south of the lake. (Explore new area by myself.)

6.45: Say hello to the old lady who always sit on the bench every morning.

7.00: Practice Parkour with Peter. (I need to ask Samuel to get him to reply to my messages.)

7.45: Take a bus home instead of running back.

8.00: Swim.

9.00: Read the episode guides on the most popular TV shows.

9.30: Read a fiction book to Mom.

It helps me to focus my attention on a book by reading it to someone. At the same time, I am doing something for her as well. She used to read bedtime stories to me, stories that made absolutely no sense at all. Like how a wolf talks and a girl dumb enough to mistake him for her grandma. I was quite sure the author was talking about a very hairy pedophile. But anyway, Mom will probably like the idea or me reading to her because she likes to listen to audio tapes for stories.

The rest of the day will be pretty much hanging around with my brother. Depends on what he wants to do, but in between those times I slot in certain things I can accomplish.

For example:

12.00: Send a message to Peter every day and tell him about the latest episode of Game of Thrones.

This is the best time to message because most teens don’t wake up very early. But I also want him to see my message early enough so that he’s more likely to reply to me.

Samuel sees me messaging and tells me maybe I should cut it down to once a week. And he says I should stop doing it if he doesn’t reply to me after I send two messages. He also suggests I watch a bit of football; Peter will love to talk about that.

So far Peter is the only boy who’s been friendly with me. My plan is that after he promotes me to be his friend, I will start messaging Rachel. Boys can get hostile where their girlfriends are concerned, so it’s better that I wait and observe how he reacts.

12.30: Cook lunch for Mom and Samuel using whatever is in the fridge. At least this gives Mom a break during the day.

Depending on how well these things go this week, I may slot in a movie, a trip to the supermarket and ask Peter out to do something.

Meanwhile, I run out of video Skype to subtitle, since Samuel is here. So, I’ll just slot in 15 minutes after lunch to practice Face Reader every day.

“Why don’t you come out with me instead? Hang out together with my friends, I’ll be around if they freak you out. It’s a better way to read faces,” he says.

“W-Won’t I embarrass you?”

“We’re going boating at the Red Desert Lake next Sunday. It’s pretty quiet. I don’t think you’ll freak out. Besides, Peter and Rachel will be there. They hugged you didn’t they?”

And so I hug my brother for allowing me to tag along.

With the eight pm slot freed up, I have more time for journal-writing. And my brother comes up with another brilliant idea.

He says, “Why not do a video journal instead? That way you can watch your own facial expressions and you can learn how to talk to people. It won’t take more than fifteen minutes to do one.”

And so, finally, my last fifteen minutes before bedtime will be spent on video-journaling.

It’s harder to sleep at a fixed time nowadays because Samuel is hanging around more. He normally doesn’t wake up as early as I do, so I jog with him in the evening. And he varies his route every day so that he takes me to somewhere new. At first, it is another part of the woods, the lake or a quiet area of our property. Then we venture further and further to other parts of the town which I’ve never been before, where there are more people.

With him around, it is easier than I thought. The constant running and the proximity of his scent makes me feel safe.

It’s like going on a safari into the lion’s enclosure; it makes a lot of difference if you’re in a bus or if you’re on foot. Nonetheless, it’s a good start, and I’ll probably be brave enough if I try it alone the next time.

Our evening movie sessions have also seen some changes. Instead of the usual zombie and alien flicks, he’ll show some comedies. They’re easier to watch because the range of expressions is usually limited to happy faces. Although, most of the time, I don’t quite catch the joke, so I become quite bored throughout. But then, I’m not complaining because I’m enjoying lying on his shoulders with his hand stroking my hair.

Dad says Samuel looks like he’s stroking a purring cat. He even joins us sometimes, sitting on the other side of the bed. And I will alternate lay my head on Dad, instead, in case he feels left out and thinks I don’t love him anymore.

When they laugh, I laugh along as well. It’s not because I catch the joke but because laughing is infectious. They look funny and silly when they laugh. So I end up looking at their faces more often than I look at the screen. When normal comedies don’t work on me, Samuel downloads some comedies that he calls slapstick humor. Finally, one of them makes me laugh without Samuel explaining to me what’s going on.

It’s a very old movie called The Mask, with Jim Carrey. His face is all green, and his expressions are much exaggerated, so it’s a lot easier to understand what’s going on. Just like they are with very young children, big movements are easier for me to follow. The one scene that made me laugh is when he started to make everyone do line dancing. It was so silly, and I laughed so loud that Mom had to run down to my room, hair frenzied and eyes wild to see if I have finally gone mad.

Those were the best days of my summer: when Mom was still up and about, when Samuel was close to me, and when Dad was still able to smile.

Mom won’t allow me to cook my first meal unsupervised. She’s afraid that I’ll hurt myself in the process or I’ll burn the kitchen down. For all my bravado, it turns out that she is right. Despite my internet research on cooking, nowhere does it say that I’m not supposed to pour oil into a wet wok when the fire is lit. As a result, hot oil jumps out and hurts my hand, freaking me out and making me scream and duck behind the cabinet for a good five minutes.

Mom sighs heavily, and Samuel is bending over laughing and slapping his thighs.

After that, I write a very angry email to the author berating her for making false claims that her step-by-step Mediterranean cooking guide isn’t thorough at all. I had to do her job for her by including all the proper insertions:

2 garlic cloves, minced (KM: to about 2mm by 2mm)

Juice and grated zest of ½ lemon

2 tbsp salted capers, soaked in water for 10 minutes, drained and rinsed

6 anchovy fillets in oil, drained (KM: dry wok before pouring oil in)

2 tsp fresh thyme leaves, chopped (KM: to about 2mm by 5mm strips)

¼ tsp chili flakes (KM: optional, since Mom doesn’t like spicy)

14 ounces oil-cured green olives, drained and pitted

Up to ½ cup extra-virgin olive oil (KM: Between 1/3 to ½ cup)

Freshly ground black pepper (KM: Not kept in fridge for more than two days)

My second attempt is less disastrous after I revise the instructions and watching a YouTube video how the chef does it exactly.

Samuel calls me anal for the meticulous precision in my cooking. It takes a bit longer than expected but he isn’t complaining when he eats my green-olive tapenade.

It takes a few tries here and there to get things right, but eventually I find myself doing more things for Mom than I ever did before. She still refuses to let me touch the iron, but at least I can wash the laundry and cook her meals. That must count for something to put her mind at ease.

When the day comes for Mom’s operation, everyone wakes up extra early. I wake up an hour early so that I can be done with my swimming and still have enough time to make an omelet for Mom’s breakfast.

Our whole family is at the hospital on the day she goes for her operation. Mom puts on a green gown and a blue cap for her head. A bunch of nurses and doctors gather around, talking to Dad. Samuel and I stay close to her while she sits on the bed. Her hands clench tightly onto mine and Samuel’s. When the doctors are done, they ask if she is ready.

She hugs me close for a long time and kisses my cheeks – left and right and right and left.

“Take care of your brother.” That was the last thing she says to Samuel before she goes in to the operating room for the next twelve hours or so. There is nothing else we can do but wait.

And wait.