The sun glared down mercilessly at us as we soared through the air, pristine clouds swirling idly in the sky—a significant contrast to what I was feeling. I shifted in my seat with a sigh, trying to build a mental barrier around my mind to keep out the invasive fog laden with disbelief and anger. I still remembered my mother’s exact words, spoken in a kind voice but cutting into me bit by bit like a blunt butter knife.

  “I’ve taught you for years now, and all that’s done is make you resent me. From now on, I will only focus on myself, and the rest of you can do whatever you want for all I care. Do you agree that this is the best solution?”

  I berated myself for nodding mindlessly at the abrupt pronouncement, realizing I should’ve voiced my opinion and fought back, saying no, it was not the best solution! It was really her fault that all this had started, wasn’t it? I reassured myself that she would come to her senses and take her words back, but as the days trickled by without a single word, the frail seed of doubt in my chest began to extend its roots into my heart.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Beijing. The local time is 5:34 p.m.” The pilot’s voice boomed through the plane, and I gazed out the window at the bustling city of Beijing. Imposing skyscrapers shimmered in the sunset, luminous lights pulsed, and I couldn’t keep the excited smile from my face as I heaved my backpack onto my shoulders. Swallowing down a giddy laugh as I stepped off the plane, I couldn’t believe I was in the capital of China. I’d only ever heard people speak of it proudly or in awe, their eyes sparkling as they recounted their colorful stories. Now, it was my turn—my turn to carve my own story without others’ influence, to weave myself into the giant web of connections in the world, to paint the first strokes of my reputation and finally step into my true self.

  The chaos of the airport distracted my mind from my resentment, and I collapsed into a taxi after hours of locating my baggage and navigating through mountains of tourists. I groaned in relief as I stretched out my legs, sore and burning after not sitting down for so long. The driver glanced at me, asking for my desired destination, and I recited the name of the hotel as we zoomed off, away from the packed airport and into—well, the even more crowded city centre.

  People flooded every street and store, and I was temporarily reminded of a salmon migration, each frantically trying to reach their own location as they pushed and shoved through the disarray. We kept halting in traffic, wedged between cars, and drivers blared their horns at us even though we had done nothing wrong! Each piercing honk stretched out the balloon of tolerance in my chest with one more pump of hot air, but at this point, I was too exhausted to even care.

  When we finally arrived at the hotel, I hopped out eagerly, handing the fare to the driver, and skipped through the hotel doors—as much as one can skip while dragging a gigantic suitcase behind them, anyway. After a quick check-in, I headed off to my hotel room, watching with impatient eyes as the elevator rose slowly, the numbers on the screen increasing at the pace of a snail. It finally jolted to a stop with a ding, and I rushed out of the cramped metallic box and into my hotel room.

  It wasn’t grand or luxurious, but it seemed comfy enough, and for now that alone would satisfy me. I relaxed with a hot shower, the lavender-scented steam coaxing exhales of stress and emotion from me, then changed into comfortable clothes and leapt onto the soft bed. A wave of drowsiness washed over me as my eyes fluttered shut. A few more hours of sleep wouldn’t hurt.

  My alarm erupted to life the next morning right after the sun had crept sluggishly over the horizon, the frenzied notes of Chopin sweeping around my room like a howl of winter wind. I uttered a sleepy murmur of protest but forced myself to sit up and open my blurry eyes. I nestled my feet into white slippers, my heart still racing as I tapped the stop button.

  Silence filled the room, and I reached for my phone instinctively, absentmindedly clicking into WhatsApp. My mind realized what I had done a second too late, and I chided myself internally. For so many years, the first thing I had done whenever I had free time was check for any messages from my mother, and as hard as I tried to break that habit, I simply couldn’t seem to.

  Still, I thought as I placed the phone facedown on the nightstand, would it be too much to ask for her to at least send an “are you there yet” or “how are you doing” after your first-born daughter boarded a plane by herself for the first time? The rest of you can do whatever you want for all I care. I huffed in annoyance and—even though I would never admit it—disappointment. She had basically told me she wouldn’t care if my plane had crashed and I had died; what had I been expecting? Yet, there was an empty void in my heart, as if the bounteous vines of the knowledge of her love for me that had once filled that void had shrivelled to dust.

  I had made plans with a couple of my friends—some I’d met online who lived in Beijing, others old acquaintances who had moved here in recent years. I followed the directions on Google Maps blindly, finally arriving at the bus station. When a bus stopped at last in a cloud of dust and putrid fumes, I quickly got on and found a seat. Our plan was to board the bus at separate stations most convenient to us and make our way to the Great Wall of China together. Now that I thought of it, though, there were a lot of flaws in that plan, and I hoped nothing would fall apart—like us ending up on different buses.

  I stared aimlessly out the window, where delicate tendrils of sunlight had begun rubbing the sleep from their eyes and now stood straight and proud. To my surprise, the streets never seemed to become less busy, even this early in the morning. They said New York was the city that never slept—and I had never been there before, so I couldn’t be judging—but surely Beijing was more than capable of earning that honour too?

  The bus halted abruptly at its next stop, and I instantly recognized my old friend Ping as she climbed aboard. We had been good friends in the early years of secondary school, and her appearance hadn’t changed at all—the dazzling smile, the sparkling eyes, the polished glasses. I waved at her when she looked around, and her expression brightened as she spotted me.

  “Belle!” she cried as she plopped down next to me. She studied me, then said, “I haven’t seen you in so long. What’s new with you?”

  We began to chatter excitedly, catching each other up on the things that had happened during the long stretch apart. Over the next couple of stops, more of my friends boarded—some of them I recognized instantly as well. For some others, this was the first time I was meeting them in real life, so it took a moment to place them.

  Soon we were all together, grinning as we introduced ourselves and made friendly conversation. I marvelled at how quickly Lady Time tiptoed by when you were with friends, and soon we had arrived.

  We bought a quick breakfast, knowing the tour would probably take up the whole day, as the Great Wall, I was told, never seemed to end. Most of my friends bought baked goods such as milk rolls and egg tarts, but I simply couldn’t pass up the opportunity to try some authentic Chinese food. I purchased a small, steaming bowl of dumplings stuffed with chives, corn, and pork from a kindly old lady, and they sure didn’t disappoint!

  After we had wolfed that down, we headed to meet our tour guide. They explained to us the magnificent history of this famous landmark, and soon we were on our way. I gazed down at the never-ending stone path, like a slumbering dragon halfway to heaven.

  Feeling suddenly overwhelmed by the profound history that wrapped around this place, I reached into my backpack for my cell phone to take a photo—only to realize it had run out of battery. I slapped a hand to my forehead, having—as the Chinese saying went—no eyes to see my own foolishness. Luckily, Ping tamed my frustration before it boiled over and offered me her phone to take pictures, saying she would send them to me later.

  “I’ve been here before,” she told me with a shrug. “I’ve already seen it all! It’s different for you, seeing it for the first time. I still remember my first time here… it’s going to be the time of your life, and I want you to be able to keep a record of that wonderful experience.”

  Thanking her profusely, I took the phone and instantly took a few photos, the azure sky somehow enhancing the weathered gray of the Great Wall.

  We stopped a couple of times to rest, but after a few hours my legs were already protesting painfully. The tour guide suggested we stop for lunch, and my mouth fell open with horror just as my stomach growled—for whatever reason, I hadn’t even thought of bringing a lunch! Fortunately for me, one of my friends had a spare tuna sandwich and kindly offered it to me. I accepted it with a furious blush, feeling guilty for taking my friends’ things.

  The rest of the tour passed by in a blur, my mind fixed on my aching legs as I pleaded silently for it to end. When we came to a final stop, I longed to drop and kiss the ground. The beauty of the site had been lost to me long ago, and the only thing I could feel was the beads of fatigue slipping down my neck. Even the sun had exhausted itself; it dropped lifelessly on the horizon, too weary to send its children to embrace us.

  “We should have dinner together,” suggested one of my friends. We all agreed it was a good idea, and soon we were seated at a wooden table in a Chinese restaurant. We fell once again into comfortable conversation, but thoughts of my mother had resumed nagging me now that I had caught my breath. I wanted desperately to check my phone for a message from her—a word of worry, care, even a scolding— just to reassure myself that I still existed in her mind and she hadn’t erased me from her memory after that statement. Why did she think I resented her? I hadn’t done or said anything to make her feel that way… had I?

  The food arrived, and though I ought to have been hungry after all the exercise, my appetite deserted me. The golden flowers on the crimson tablecloth swirled, mirroring the tangled thoughts in my head, and the words of my friends faded into background noise.

        It was strange, suddenly having your lifestyle altered like that. My whole life had been governed by endless rules and restrictions. More than half of the things I wanted to do, I was forbidden to. Even on the rare occasions when I was actually allowed, my parents—especially my mother—would fret and worry about me so much that it became infuriating, and I wondered if they considered me a mature person with common sense, not a toddler. I’d wished for easygoing, permissive parents who didn’t really care about what their child did my entire life… yet now that no one was constantly asking for my location or calling me every hour to ensure I was okay, I didn’t really know how to navigate it.

     I scrunched my eyes shut. Life was so complex, especially when it came to relationships. It was like I was a boat tossed around by unforgiving waves, steered in directions I didn’t want to go… and the terrifying thing was, right now I had no captain behind the wheel, and I didn’t know where to recruit one either.

     “Belle? Belle!” A voice jolted me out of my deep pondering, and I blinked to see my friends staring concernedly at me. “Are you okay?”

  I forced a smile and nodded. “Just tired.”

  “I think we all are,” chuckled Ping. “It’s getting late too, and it’s been such a long day. Shall we settle the bill and head home?”

  “Yes,” the rest of us chorused.

  A waiter came along with the bill on an obsidian tray, and we exited the restaurant after we had each paid our own share—well, everyone but me, because they insisted I was a guest here and wouldn’t let me pay. The cheek of it all! As though I hadn’t already taken enough from them.

     The ride on the bus back passed quietly as Ping and another friend dozed off—we were all exhausted anyways, and I just stared out of the window, lost in my thoughts. My friends got off one by one with hugs and smiles, and gratitude cut through my grogginess for how I had been able to meet such wonderful people in real life. As I watched them descend the steep steps, the metaphor of life being like a train, and passengers getting on and off at different stops had never felt more realistic. The day had unfolded as amazingly as I could ever have hoped; and yet I felt that in another life, under different circumstances, I would’ve been able to connect with them more, to further deepen our relationships. 
 
      I let my head fall heavily against the stiff fuchsia seat, my mind pounding. Only my mother was able to affect my life like this, whether through arguments that crushed my heart like glass under devastating hail or praise that shone through my day with the warmth of the summer sun. How was it possible that I still loved her so much, and yet also hated her with all my heart?

     The first thing I did when I got back to the hotel was charge my phone, leaving it on the nightstand as I went to wash my hands. When I returned to check, the screen was glowing with an avalanche of notifications. Hope and dread churned in my chest as I caught sight of the daunting eighty-four messages sent by my mother and the tens of missed calls. My aunt contributed too with a respectable twenty-one messages and eight missed calls, and I couldn’t decide whether to grin or lament my terrible luck. I had forgotten how much my aunt worried about me too throughout the drama with my mother, and I groaned as I tapped “call back”. I didn’t have the courage to face my mother first, so I called my aunt.
  
     The moment she picked up, she immediately exploded into a rage, fuming about how everybody had thought I was dead and did I realize how many years I had shaved off her life?

     “My cell phone died,” I mumbled sheepishly, apologizing repeatedly. 
  
     “Have you called your mother back yet? She’s been bombarding me all day, urging me to put my efforts into trying to reach you too. My poor sister has been beside herself since your flight landed!” 
 
     I knew my aunt’s way of speaking—scolding first, then sympathizing— and knew this was her way of encouraging me and showing understanding of my difficult situation.

     “I’ll call her back right after,” I promised with a sigh. “Don’t worry, Auntie, I’m fine.”

     She ended the call with a grumble, leaving me to stare blankly at the dazzling screen, the call button glaring next to the contact labeled “Mother”.

     Her first word blasted through my ears and nearly deafened me. The fire of her rage and distress seared my skin through the phone, and I could only wince as I nodded along, already used to her exaggerated words and blazing tone. Yet, I couldn’t keep the glad smile from dancing daintily on my lips. She hadn’t forgotten me; I was still her daughter despite everything. 

     And suddenly, I knew—no matter how much I believed I detested her, and no matter how much she hollered at me— we still loved each other, and none of the obstacles in life would ever change that. Perhaps, I thought wryly as I made little sounds of acknowledgement, hollering was just her love language.

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