For three years, the man in the next room had been spying on me through a hole in the wall. It was not until I fell from the building, he had the guts to reach out and hold my hand. And, that was the first and the last time we spoke.

——

My body hung lifeless on the billboard and my face was still covered with the same makeup that I had applied carefully for three hours yesterday on the morning of the second day of the New Year. 

However, when the people in the neighborhood saw me, they did not say anything about the beauty of my face, instead, they were discussing the bad luck this incident would bring them.

Mariah Carey's Auld Lang Syne that were blaring loudly from the market early in the morning. The song made the festive atmosphere more pronounced like everywhere else in the world, except for this street. Ironically, the billboard where I was hanging was also featuring Mariah Carey.

When the police rolled my body over, they saw the gruesome scar on my neck. It was bright red and vile.

Sigh! I should have applied more powder there.

There was a man standing at the corner of the building above the billboard. He was looking at my lifeless body for a long time before turning back and walking slowly to his rented room with darkened eyes and a troubled expression.

"Did her boss dump her?" asked the vegetable seller granny loudly.

"What? Dumped her? She is a prostitute!" said a smoker with an even louder voice.

"I heard she charged forty-five dollars a night. It is way more expensive than the ones who were standing at Bazley Street."

What? Forty-five dollars! Get real! I charged ninety dollars.

It was almost empty at the police station. So, except for the hum of the electric fan, it was so quiet.

I did not have any idea where they took my body.

A man with a face full of fat was sitting on the desk and scribbling on a piece of paper with a cigarette dangling from his mouth.

"Captain Campbells, did you close this case just like that?" 

"Well, isn't it just a suicide case?” He answered with an impatient tone.

I hated the police the most, even when I was a child. They were not trustworthy.

When I was a child, they kicked my mother's vegetable basket, claiming she could not sell them there. When I grew up, I saw them break my sister's leg because of the same reason. However, they were the ones who took away all my mother's vegetables and they were also the ones who broke into my sister's room and bullied her.

In the stifling police station, he kept flipping through my files with his saliva-wetted thumb.

"Do you know this whore?" he asked.

"No."

"It's a shame though. She was only twenty-three years old."

"Don't we have to wait for the forensic report?"

"Are you fucking stupid? It's obvious she jumped from the building. Do you know how many people die on Creak Street every day? Do I have to investigate every single one of them?"

As he listened to his captain's scolding, the young officer lowered his head. He did not dare to refute his superior. 

"Case closed! I don't want to hear anything about it again."

The fat officer stubbed out his cigarette and left the young man alone in the police station.

Before he went home, he headed to the market to buy pork and vegetables. He planned to make meatballs and then eat them with his son.

He was so funny!

"Zara Weston."

I heard someone call out my real name. It was a woman who was carrying a bag on her back and floral cloth around her head.

She tiptoed when she entered my old rented room and then started rummaging around.

For the last five years, I had been sending her money continuously but it was never enough. She always complained I gave her too little.

She kept searching every corner of the room under the dim light, trying to find my valuables. However, all she could see was a pair of pearl earrings next to the broken frame.

The pearl earrings were a token of love from Mac London. He said I was more beautiful than Jennifer Lopez when I wore them.

However, he was marrying his new bride at the moment and paid all the expenses with my money.

Cockroaches crawled from the pipes next to me and the damp air was making the room feel suffocating.

I knew the man next door was peeking from the hole again. I could hear the sound of his breathing.

He did not know I knew. He thought he had hidden his presence well.

An hour had passed but the woman still could not find any money. This made her furious. Her fist that was holding my earring was tightened and she was stopping her feet in anger.

My brother was going to get married and my family needed money to fund his wedding.

This was the first time, my mother "visited" me in the city. Unfortunately, I was no longer here.

"Didn't they say a prostitute makes a lot of money?" she murmured in disappointment. Then she lowered her head in dismay.

However, on the other side of the wall, the man's breathing grew heavier.

Hearing this, my curiosity intensified, so I floated to his room. I wanted to see his expression.

As soon as I went through the wall, I saw flies swarming around discarded instant noodle cups. I could also smell the reek of cigarettes in the air.

There was a small bed in the room and next to it, there was a photo frame of a little girl with pigtails in it.

Then I saw the man. On his thumb, the blood that stained it had turned dry and reddish brown. I reckoned the blood was mine.

Suddenly, the man dropped to his knees and sobbed. His mouth kept calling, "Amy, Amy …."

Suddenly, the police station was buzzing with activity and that was because of my mother

She was making a scene there. She demanded the police to give me the justice that I deserved and claimed I was a murder victim.

“Who would want to harm your daughter?” asked a bystander.

"I don't know." She sobbed. Her muddy tears flowed down her weathered face. I purposely floated and sat beside her because I wanted to know her real intention.

"Is Zara your daughter?" another bystander asked.

"Yes. She is my daughter," she wailed loudly but there were not any tears on her cheek. 

I was amused to see her action.

The woman had kicked me out of the house when I was fifteen, then sent me off to Dobson.

“You’re grown up now. It's time for you to help the family,” my mother had said.

Many girls from my hometown left just like me. We rode the van into the city and would be gone for many decades.

When I left my hometown, the stars shone brightly on the night I left. I did not feel sad at all, only a sense of relief.

The van was filled with sounds of people's breathing. I knew it was summertime because the cicadas were chirping continuously. 

"Zara," the leader pointed at me. "Wash your face."

Then he introduced me to a hairdresser and I worked there as an apprentice. 

Everyone at Lake Street complimented my looks. The salon owner even took the initiative to shake my hand, although his grip was a little painful.

It was vastly different from the fate of others who left with me. The other girls who came with me were sent to the restaurant to work as dishwashers while the boys were sent to the construction site to haul bricks.

The leaders said, "You are the prettiest girl among them." He then patted my shoulder and ran his hand through my ponytail.

Although I did not like the way he looked at me, he had done so much for me.

City people liked to drink and wear ties. The women usually wore high heels and they left trails of perfume in their wake.

Exaggerated earrings the they wore clashed with their laughter, creating a cacophony around them. They gave me a new name, Amy. And no one here called me Zara.

My mother was still making a ruckus at the police station. She refused to leave and kept calling out for the police to give her daughter justice.

The crow grew even bigger. However, it seemed only a few people knew who Zara Weston was.

"Granny, isn't your daughter called Amy? She has big waves in her hair and the scars on her body," someone asked. The man might be one of my clients.

“Ah, yes, yes, that’s her!!” my mother cried. Her remaining tears had dried up and her wails were so hoarse that they sounded like a tractor’s engine.

Yet, no one came out of the police station. Everyone here knew the truth. My mother just wanted to get some money.

"You should find Mac. He is Amy's boyfriend." Someone said.

Mac was the only one who did not mind the cigarette burns on my body. He also could make tomato and egg stir-fry for me, tell me bedtime stories while holding my hand and when he bent down to tie my shoelaces, he would say:

“I’ll only tie shoelaces for you in this lifetime.”

He was just a small-time photographer in a studio, with little income and I was merely a hostess in a hair salon. Those were the reasons why no one believed that we were in love.

So, where was he the night of the first day of the New Year?

Some said he was upstairs. Others claimed they saw him push me.

However, we broke up the day before New Year's Eve and he left me to return to Hamptown. 

"We're not compatible." He did not dare to look me in the eyes.

It was just like when he confessed to me. He gave me a heart-shaped ring that he made from candy wrappers that he collected. His mind and eyes were full of me. 

"I've liked you for a long time, Amy." His voice was so small and cautious. His hand that was holding the ring was trembling and the raindrops were still hanging on his eyelashes,

Everyone in the hair salon was watching and cheering at us.

Suddenly I remembered the time when I was a child and had a fever, my mother left me alone just she could buy some candies for my brother.

I could not stop shaking as he whispered, "I love you. I'll protect you forever."

Maybe my insecure heart craved love so much that I could not tell if it was candy or a trap. I longed too much to get love, so I said yes to him.

I said yes to a man who stayed with me during my fever, yes to the trap disguised as favoritism.

We were supposed to be happy until the call came.

My mother was adamant that Mac was the one who killed me and had run away with my money. It was all because someone had said that he had all my money.

So, the police had to send someone to arrest Mac.

Actually, this whole thing was quite amusing.

The next time I saw Mac again was in the courtroom. He was much thinner than he was before. The man was sitting in the defendant's chair with vacant eyes.

Next to him sat his newly wedded wife. The woman was wearing a floral dress. Her eyes were swollen with tears.

“You lied to me! Why? Tell me who that woman was!” She beat his chest with her fists and cried loudly but Mac just sat there without any reaction, like a deflated balloon.

“You said you’ve never been in love before. Why did you lie to me? We just got married."

I suddenly noticed a dazzling diamond ring on her finger. The sight made my heart clenched. It turned out, he bought the ring for her.

I had seen that ring a long time ago. I found it in Mac's pocket and I had been so naïve to think he bought the ring for me.

So, I had been waiting patiently for his proposal. However, all I got from him was "We're not right to each other."

It was truly too hilarious.

"I'm just playing around. I was too lonely. I have never thought she would die and I swear to you, I did not do it."

"You are the one I truly love. I want to spend the rest of my life with you." He took his wife's hand and said those words with such determination.

His words were like a blow to my heart, making me gasped for air because of the heartbreak.

I drifted away and returned to the rented room.

The man was still there. He was staring quietly through the hole in the wall with a cigarette in his hand. The floor on his feet was covered with cigarette ash.

I found a place to sit next to him and stared at him and he seemed to stare at me too.

The T-shirt that he wore had long turned yellow. He turned his gaze back to the hole in the wall and took a long drag of the cigarette. I could see that the blood stain on his fingers was still there.

I asked him that night, "Do you want it?"

Cockroaches crawled up the pipes and mold flaked off the walls.

He looked at me through his teary eyes. His breath labored. "Amy, we've met before," he said, then licked his cracked lips.

I lifted my skirt and sat on his lap. "You know, I won't charge you."

The damp weather in Gavaresh was unbearable, the air reeked of moss.

“That’s not what I meant.”

He hesitated for a while, then raised his hand to touch my face. "He hit you."

I stopped moving my hands.

"Does it hurt?" he asked.

The police had said I had three broken ribs and there were signs of abuse on my body.

“It’s him! He’s the one who killed my daughter!” my mother screamed in court.

“Your Honor, you must make him pay!”