I felt okay. Late in arousal, late in arrival. I owe her a treat. And I mean to do it.

But once on the way home, the truth started sinking in. It somehow always manages to sink in when I least expect it. I was morose. I don't know if I always look morose but hell, today I feel morose. I felt more morose than usual. A newspaper is just one of the many ways to hide that moroseness. Works wonderfully well really. You pretend you're so absorbed in reading, that people mistake your fine lines and frowning wrinkles as being engrossed in a tabloid.

In the bus, I thought to myself. I don't want to tell anyone anything anymore. I'm sick of being depressed but I can't shake it off. Many things remind me whether I want to or not. I want people to care but I don't want to bother them. They have enough problems of their own and this is nothing. It's just one of those things that a growing adult like me goes through every other day.

But I've been deluding myself too much. This time I couldn't take it anymore and I had another breakdown. If I collapsed the other day, today my inner self crumbled into pieces. I didn't want to go home and I didn't have anywhere else to turn to. I thought of going to the library but wailing is not condoned in such places.

I sat down on a bench and tried to be rational. I fumbled with the paper, trying to shield my eyes into it. But at last my defences gave way. The kind soul passing by merely inquired whether I was alright and I cried. I cried like nobody's business. I was angry with myself and I am still furious. She was kind and she listened. She related to me her own experiences, which were far more worse. And at the end of it, I acquired myself a sister. The elder sister that I never had.

Alas, she listened to the wrong one.

Kak Ita told me that she knew how I am feeling. Of course she knew. She went through it herself. She didn't know it but she did tell me one of the many things in life which she had encountered, and it was an ordeal. It was truly an ordeal. I marvel at her for being able to withstand it for four years now. Four solid years of rebuilding your life, with no one close around you.

She knew that I didn't want to tell anybody. She knew that it was hard and that people were always sympathetic. But she also knew that they didn't know how it felt like because they're not the ones going through it. It's always easy to ask about someone's well-being and be the concerned person. But it's not easy empathising. Don't tell me you're sorry or that it hurts or whatever shit. OF COURSE it hurts. It bloody hurts. It hurts because this world has turned out to be a sad place where no one is truly sincere. No one cares about what happens to other people who don't have anything to do with them. No one will come forward and ask you whether you're okay even though you're down and out unless they're forced to or they receive a reward. And that's what the world is reduced to. A lending place. A place where people lend their shoulders but not themselves. Not their pure selves.

I am not writing for anyone's sympathy. I write because I don't know who else to turn to. Kak Ita will return to KL tomorrow and I'm going to miss her, even though I've only known her for a day. I can't tell relatives nor friends because that's just it, I don't want to.

I don't need sympathy.