When I was in grade school, I sat next to a boy.

Huy. Thin as a rake, whiter than marble, fingers that were even slimmer than all girls in class. He's dripping with toxin and dripped a bad habit of stabbing our classmates with his disdain sneer.

We got together quite well. Both of us were shamelessly egoistic and lethal, sticking out from our fellow classmates with our bitterness and redundant blunt.

There was also a challenge between us.

"Measured my heart." He said, one evening.

"Okay." I said, grabbing a ruler.

"You know you can't, right?"

"Watch."

I placed the ruler over his chest. Ten centimetres.

"No," He pffted. "You've to close your eyes."

"Why?"

"I'll lead you through my heart."

I smiled at his silliness but did as he told anyway.

He took my hands in his and whispered softly in my ears, where to turn and where to stop.

I ventured deep, deep inside, grabbing the stony walls of his heart. My hands slipped and scraped, and the air tasted palpable of acrid blood. The maze twists and tumbles and twists and turns and eventually I was not even sure where was I going.

At the end, there was an abyss.

"That's my heart." He said.

I picked up a rock and threw it. It echoed once where it hit the side, but that was it.

"Are you brave enough to measure that?" He has asked. "Jump down there and see how deep is my heart?"

The sensation of standing so far over the edge, with my feet delicately balanced over the black pit was so real, it jolted me back to reality.

When I opened my eyes, my hands were sweating.

He smirked and pecked my cheek.

And I realized perhaps I was the one that got my heart measured, not him.