Letter

Monday December 22, 1990

Dearest Devanayagam,

Devanayagam, sometimes I think about what happened if we never met and never fell in love as we looked at each other’s eye in the first time. Would it be easier for you and for me to not make the hardest choice in this secret relationship? Please understand that I’m not trying to make it hard for you and push you to run away with me. It’s just that I love you so much and my heart has broke into pieces after I got your letter back, I swear it never could be fixed.

I understand your decision to stay with what your parents have arranged you into. You would rather leave me with tears and bleeding heart because we both are always trapped by the family and this culture. My dearest love, I wish I can be a bird so I can fly out there and be free or be whatever thing that I can make my own decision for my own life. I’m so jealous of Johnny because he is allowed doing what he likes to do and be what he wants to be. Why can’t I?

I’m so sorry Devanayagam, I’m so sorry that I got you into trouble because I couldn’t keep the secret as your wish. I thought that my parents would change their mind and let me finish the final term in university if they knew that the one I beloved isn’t Chinese, he’s a great man, who can take care of me and give me a sweet home. But I guess I was wrong and I broke our love into dirt, into nothing. I’m so tired and I’m so confused, I’m just by my own now. Even you, Devanyagam, the one that I thought that he will always be my side but he still can’t reject everything for me. If you decide to stay with all these arrangements, marry a better woman, my true hope and from the bottom of my heart I hope you will be happy.

I will run away from all of this to find and have my own life as I have planned before and of course I know this plan will be without you. My family would turn into a mess and a shamed of me but I would have a better life. Even if it’s not, my heart is already dead and I know I can...