Chapter Text
It’s whispered in the kitchen, it’s whispered in the hall
The broom blooms bonny, the broom blooms fair,
The king’s daughter goes with child, among ladies all
And she’ll never go down to the broom anymore.
It’s whispered by the ladies one unto the other,
The broom blooms bonny, the broom blooms fair,
“The king’s daughter goes with child unto her own brother–
And they’ll never go down to the broom anymore.”
Sheath and Knife, Maddy Prior
-
/r/sgacads
is st cecilia rly a pregnancy school?? [o levels]
/u/anxiousorange
hiii sorry for the 29583th school admissions post today lol but i just got my o level results back and they’re pretty ok ^_^ so i was thinking of going to st cecilia junior college since it’s near my house but the more i hear about it the more i want to reconsider… like apparently the people are very party type which is not really my thing?? and ofc everyones heard about how its got the highest pregnancy rate in sg o_0
is this true? or just say say one
comments (8)
/u/academicweapon
As a SCian it’s not true LOL none of us get bitches
/u/theatrekidaf
skill issue
/u/sharpsdisposal
we’re too busy failing physics :/
/u/zombiegrave
q: how many scians does it take to change a lightbulb?
a: none. they like it better darker
/u/aw_bass34
Q: What’s the only test SC girls can pass?
A: Pregnancy test :P
/u/gregorythomas91 [s]
Damn old rumour, probably from 1990s, 2000s around there. But it’s not really unfounded. Especially with what happened in 2008.
/u/anxiousorange
what happened? im scared lol
/u/gregorythomas91 [s]
You haven’t heard meh? It was a big deal back then, I’m shocked they’ve covered it up that well. Let me try and remember.
-
You never told me what really happened over those few blistering months in 2008, but I guess I wasn’t alone in that. Even when the newspapers shoved a mic in your face, even when you were being grilled by the lawyers, even when you were standing on that trap door, waiting for the drop– what really happened was a secret you’d bring to the grave.
So it’s all inference and extrapolation and linear correlation– sue me. How else am I going to make sense of that moment? How else do I come to terms with why you did what you did? Could I have known? Could I have stopped it? Was I even, when it came down to it, your friend– or was I just somebody who let you copy his lecture notes?
I don’t know. What I do know is this:
It was some mid-week mid-afternoon, indistinguishable from any other. The bell had just rung, and the whitewashed corridors were packed with sweaty kids rushing to PE, squeezing past those dragging their feet from class to class. We were part of the latter group, squinting against the September sun as we ambled across the quadrangle to home class. Above us, the school motto loomed in oversized light-blue letters: Remember you are in the presence of God.
I was mentally calculating how long the Malay stall queue would be when you said, casual as always, “Eh, pass me your market failure notes later, can? I’m yellow-slipping after GP.”
I raised an eyebrow. You weren’t a stranger to leaving school early, but you’d been doing it more and more often lately, and at this point I hadn’t seen you stay for Shooting in ages. As your club captain, I was supposed to be concerned. As a friend– well, I was intrigued. Of course I’d heard the rumours, passed from homeroom to homeroom, Friendster account to Friendster account. Who in St Cecilia’s hadn’t? “Is this related to whatever you and Camilla Wong have going on?”
“Cam’s not my girlfriend,” you said, after a brief, completely unsuspicious pause.
I snorted. “She doesn’t let anyone in this school call her that but you, dumbass. ”
You ducked your head down to hide a smile, your dress-code fringe falling into your eyes. It was a strangely endearing habit. “Fine lah. We’re– seeing each other.” Then you continued, hurriedly, “But don’t let anyone else know, OK?”
“Fine, I’ll write you off CCA for today. But don’t make it a habit, ar? Hold pen, not hold hand.” Despite myself, I grinned. Sure, the two of you made an unlikely couple. Wong was an ex-Convent girl and student councillor, all relentless energy and long hair tied so high it was prone to hit people when she spun, while the only time I’d ever seen you really alive was behind the barrel of an air pistol. Back then, I thought it was cute. Opposites attract– wasn’t that the backbone of any drama worth its salt?
I wouldn’t realise, until later, that despite how different the two of you appeared, at the core of it you were the same– pale and skinny and drowning in your school uniform, searching for exits the moment you stepped into a room. Always, always halfway out the door: of your school, of your body, of the life you knew.
But back then it was just a September afternoon, and we were only seventeen. You smiled back at me, all cheer, like you saw something I didn’t, like you saw something I never would.
-
In the end, though, this isn’t my story. This is yours. So let’s tell it your way.
-
The newly minted 1T26 trickled slowly from assembly into the classroom, chopeing the best desks and nervously rotating between the same few ice-breakers: orientation, secondary schools, O-Level points. As you entered, you cast a glance over the sea of blue pinafores and green pants. Still reeling from the sheer increase in the female population, you took a desk at the back, between the ancient, peeling noticeboard and the window looking out on the covered tennis courts. You were tall enough to see over all the heads, anyway.
Soon, your home tutor arrived, a round-faced lady toting an oversized Cath Kidston duffle bag, and wrote her name on the board in neat block letters: Mdm Alvares. The class stood to greet her, chairs scraping hurriedly against the linoleum. She beamed back, her smile all teeth, and was busy setting up the visualiser when the door slammed open.
The class spun in their seats. “Sorry,” the intruder sheepishly said, leaning against the doorframe. Some of her hair had fallen half-out of her high ponytail, her pinafore already wrinkled at the hem. A dusting of freckles covered her pink cheeks.
Mdm Alvares squinted at the girl, then the laminated name list. “And you are?”
“Camilla Wong.”
Mdm Alvares looked out over the class, scanning the rows, and her eyes landed on an empty seat in the corner whose sole occupant was your beat-up Jansport. Realising where this was going, you sighed, putting your bag on the floor.
Camilla smiled, made her way in–
and put her bag down at another empty seat, half a class away.
–
There was nothing in this world you hated more than 4PM Maths lectures. That day the aircon was actually working, which you would normally have been grateful for, except for the fact that that sharp, recycled wind was blasting directly at the very back rows of LT5, right onto your face.
You were trying so hard to 1) figure out plane vectors and 2) stop yourself from getting hypothermia that you wouldn’t be able to recall, later, the exact moment that Camilla fell asleep on your shoulder.
When you realised this, you froze. Oh, you thought, and didn’t know what else to think. On one hand, it would’ve been so easy to wake her. Just a poke from your pen, and she would’ve jolted up almost instantly. On the other hand, though, her long eyebrows brushed against her freckled cheeks, and her chest rose and fell in these small, slight motions, and–
Before, you had only ever seen her as a baby-blue blur in the corners of your sight, always in motion even in the earliest of classes. But Camilla, asleep, tucked in the crevice between your shoulder and neck–it felt fragile, thrumming, tense. Like something made of glass, nestled gently in your hand, that it would only have taken a squeeze to splinter.
The next twenty-two minutes were the longest twenty-two minutes of your entire life so far. Even so, when the bell rang and Camilla pulled herself upright, you found yourself missing it already.
–
After that, it was like a switch had been flipped in your brain. It was only then that you began to really Notice Camilla, capital N, italics. You noticed her with her head bowed in mass, noticed her shoving fishball noodles into her mouth at lunch, noticed her arguing with your classmates over technicalities in GP. But you noticed her the most in Monday zeriod house meetings, when the artificial grass glimmered with dew and the syrupy dawn light made the whole world seem like a Hollywood coming-of-age movie. You watched her toss her braids over her shoulder, wipe the pearls of sweat off her flushed face. Her red, red shirt rode up as she stretched, revealing a sliver of pale flesh above the waistband of her shorts–
It took until then for her to notice you Noticing. Her eyes flickered over to you, she winked, and blew a kiss.
You felt as if you’d walked out onto the PIE and been hit by a truck. It was a wonder every single smoke alarm in the school didn’t go off right that moment–a cacophony of ringing like firecrackers all strung up, exploding pop-pop-pop from the foyer to the science block to the hostel. It swallowed every other sound, every other thought. Then she turned away, a grin still lingering on the corners of her lips.
–
During one of your lunch breaks, Camilla pulled you out of class. She had to ask you something about your PW survey, she said. As far as you were aware, you weren’t in the same PW group. You knew this. She knew this. The entirety of 1T26 knew this, too, so you headed down to one of the wooden picnic tables underneath Block D, the one tucked beneath the staircase next to St Pat’s room. Both of you hovered awkwardly around the bench for a moment, doing the calculations in your head–how close to sit? What to say? You shifted from foot to foot.
All of a sudden, Camilla slammed her hand down on the table. You jumped. “Walao eh. I legit can’t do this anymore. Is this a Thing? Are we having a Thing?”
You swallowed, eyes darting.
“Make up your mind, sia.” She rolled her eyes, laughing under her breath. “St. Francis boys, I swear.”
“No, wait, yes–” The words spilled, embarrassingly and pitifully, out of your mouth. You feared you were not beating the all-boys’ school stereotypes that day. “I mean, I did, but, um–” Just stop, your brain chanted. What’re you saying? You’re only making it worse. Kill yourself. Kill yourself. Kill yourself.
“So that’s a yes,” Camilla said, and surged forward to shut you up herself.
–
The next thing you knew, you were stumbling into the stairwell together, the door banging noisily shut behind you. “Why–” Camilla started, and you said, “Nobody ever uses Staircase 6. Now come on.” You pushed her up against the curved concrete wall, not caring that the low ceiling scraped against your head. There was that wild, exhilarated look on her face again, like she still couldn’t believe that she was actually doing this. Beautiful, even in the dull grey light. Her nails dug crescents into your skin.
The air was all heat, sweat, too much cherry blossom perfume. You worked at your tie–quicker than you’d ever been able to in all your years of schooling–as she undid the buttons on her uniform shirt, revealing the freckles that dusted her pale shoulders like so many stars. As you unbuckled her bra in one quick motion, she gasped, then giggled. “Damn, Yeoh. You’re good at this. Is there anyone you haven’t told me about?”
In between kisses, you came up for air. You could’ve made a joke about not having many opportunities to practise in St Francis, but the real truth was that your desperation shocked even yourself– this wasn’t the careful boy that your pastors, parents, teachers, knew. Your heart threatened to burst from your chest like the bullet from a gun. For the first time in sixteen years, it felt– really felt– like you were fully alive.
“Just you, Cam.” You dipped back down. “Only you.”