By Daren Shiau

We would position our bodies such that no one could see us, or at least where our hands were. She would put her school file over her thighs just to be sure. It would have made more sense for us to find a stairwell but Fort Canning Park was near our schools and being in a park made us feel less guilty in a way. That was the year I failed my maths, I think. Whatever it was, it couldn't have been literature. We were good at it. In fact, that was why we would go to the park: to practise our Shakespeare, Wilde or Hardy or whatever we were studying. Julius Caesar was our favourite. The part where Cassius stabs Brutus was our unspoken cue to be ticklish and roll on the grass pretending like we were out to kill each other, though that was the furthest thing from our minds.

After we were done, we'd talk about people at school, our parents or music. If I'd bought a record from Supreme, we'd read the sleeve notes and lyrics together. We'd have leftover fries from our lunch at McDonald's YMCA but always ice cream which we'd take turns running down the slope to buy.

One day, after we had had our usual bout of Colleen killing me, we tried to imagine how we'd look naked at thirty-five. It was a wild thought. Thirty-five seemed so far away. We laughed every time we brought it up.

That was the day I lost my pendant. She'd given it to me three months before.

"It's stainless steel," Colleen had said as she put it round my neck emphasising the word "stainless" as if it conveyed some permanence or invulnerability. I found it in the grass eventually but I never told her because I wanted us to continue looking for it together. It just seemed like a good idea at that time.

I ran into Colleen at Cold Storage yesterday. She was with her daughter who was about five years old or so. Colleen looked older and a little tired. I didn't recognise her at first. I gave her my business card and she said that she would send me hers. We exchanged niceties and promised to keep in touch.

I went straight home after that and opened the bottle of wine I bought at the supermarket. I had pulled the sheets tight in the morning and didn't want to ruin it yet, so I just sat by the bed thinking of what we thought we would look like naked at thirty-five. I wanted to turn off the dripping faucet in the kitchen before going to bed but never got round to it. Instead, I fell asleep to thoughts of Colleen running up that hill, with the cone in her hand, squinting at the clouds and telling me between gasps: "Quickly, before it melts."

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