Or maybe there was no escaping it.
Everywhere I went, every place in this city, I could see our faces. Every corner, every street. Memories rooted in all 4,748 days.
The only way to truly follow Andi’s plan was to leave Jakarta. Because here, there was nowhere to hide.
Suddenly, I was startled when a familiar song that could transport me back to the past started playing from ahead. The music sounded harmonious with the honking horns around us.
“Back in Black.”
Zeraiah’s favorite track.
A faint smile tugged at my lips upon hearing it, until I was startled—no, I stopped dead. Emerald-green eyes—lostto me for years—locked onto mine. The owner of those eyes stared back from the expensive car in front of me. I stood there, frozen, unable to move or think, and the ice cream in my hand fell to the ground.
For a moment, I was certain I had finally lost my mind.
We stared at each other, and I couldn’t hear anything except the thud in my ears.
“Zeraiah…?”
18
Tshabina
November 2013
“Please?” I coaxed him again, “I’ve been learning for almost a month now! I’ll be seventeen soon anyway, Zi! And besides, it’s close, we’re only going to the Carrefour across the road, aren’t we?” I kept pleading with Zioh, who warmed up his brand-new car in the parking lot.
When he turned seventeen last month, he received the car as a birthday present from his dad. According to Zeraiah, it was a BMW M5 (F10), which we were about to use for a shopping trip.
Dad had asked us to pick up some food and drinks for our planned barbecue, so we went to the nearest store to get everything we needed.
Zioh was never one for crowds or anything extravagant. If Zeraiah had always been the type to demand a proper party, Zioh would have preferred a small gathering, the immediate family, and us.
So that was what we had last month for his seventeenth. We had dinner together, spent the evening as a family, and that was it. Still, he’d received lavish gifts: the car from his dad, shares from his grandparents, a Vacheron Constantin watch from Mas Zaeem, a luxury pen set, and a designer shirt from his mother.
I had no idea what Zeraiah had given him, but Zioh’s face flushed red as soon as he opened it, and he’d spent the entire night grumbling at him about it. He had refused to speak of it since. As for Tsabinu, he handed over a new sketchbook set with all sorts of pencils, so I assume that was his gift.
So, you could imagine how nervous—no,embarrassed, I felt, clutching the little thing I’d brought for him. I almosttook it back that night, but Zioh caught me and coaxed me into giving it to him. He told me he would treasure my gift more than all the others, and he had to persuade me for quite a while.
It was a jar… A rather big jar. A glass jar with a wide wooden lid, filled with tiny paper stars in various colours. I’d written a note on every folded star, something for him to open daily. There were three hundred and sixty-five in total, meant to last him the whole year.
I didn’t know why, but something had shifted in him lately—something missing these past few years. When he showed up at my house in the morning, the dark circles under his eyes were deep, his shoulders sagged, and his smile was nowhere near as bright as usual, as if someone had stolen it from him. Perhaps… the weight of high school was dragging him down.
When I’d told Mum about it, she said it was the process of growing up. She’d said that children would grow, shed their old ways, and take on new ones as they mature, that it was simply part of becoming an adult.
But I was sure it was more than that.
So, the jar was a reminder, filled with my little notes for every day. As I handed it to him, I wanted him to know, truly know, that he wasn’t alone.
That I would always be there for him.
I’d also knitted him a small black keychain with the letter “Z” embroidered on it. When Zeraiah told me Zioh would be getting a car, I immediately decided to make him the keychain to go with it.
That night, he and I had sat together in the garden beside his house, the lovely big garden where we’d always swum, run about, had barbeques, and where Mama Nadine planted her hundreds of flowers. Nervously, I handed him my gifts.
I’d watched him, waiting for his next move as he unwrapped them, my heart pounding, and Zioh lookedbreathtaking that night. Since he’d begun following Mas Zaeem to the gym a year ago, he’d grown taller, and his arms and chest were more defined. It had pushed Zeraiah and Tsabinu to start going as well, leaving me often alone with Mama Nadine whenever my mum was away performing and their dad was at work.
But with Zioh, I couldn’t deny it: he looked so refreshed after a session, as though a weight had been lifted from him. Most importantly, the gym transformed him into a sight I never tired of.
