Class

Sometimes, my brother shoots me a scathing glare if I ever decide to embarrass him in front of other people. Other times, it shows in a snapped sentence or two, traits I see in Dad as well.

I noticed it last night and returned him a disappointed glance before retreating to a corner of the room to will away any dark thoughts. 

二姨婆＇s house was buzzing with the same unfamiliar people I’ve been seeing my entire life. A framed photo of the generation above hung proudly near a trophy cabinet,  all donning mortarboards with their hands on my grand aunt’s shoulders. 

Compared to the well dressed people around the bungalow, my family was the only ones wearing cheap, plain polo tees with jeans and I, very guiltily, felt a rush of embarrassment. We were the outcasts, the HDB dwellers setting foot in a doctorate household, the only ones arriving in a van that didn’t even belong to us. It belonged to a company that stresses the fuck out of Dad and yet he daren’t quit from for he was our only breadwinner. 

For the first time ever, I sat uneasily in the house, aware that the awkwardness I felt was, in fact unworthiness.

–

An uncle told me that the market was saturated with Web designers and I painfully smiled at his good-natured reminder. Later on, I recounted this to my brother in the van and he snapped that “It was your choice to take it anyway.” 

I looked at him briefly, wondering if that was the moment to accuse him of thinking that I made my family look bad in front of the others, and that if I had went along with his fake-ass guise we’d fit right in with the wallpaper, the dark blurs between the bokeh of their starry lives. I wondered if he felt inadequate too. 

I decided against it, pursed my lips and turned away to put on some Modest Mouse.