No longer your teenyboppers, instead the teen-agers (and still aging), May-Ann and I, vaguely relived a time gone by too fast for us to understand and appreciate. We hung out in Mos Burger and talked about life and all subjects beginning “L” (of which there is only one, okay maybe two that we care more flippantly about), worrying about where *this* is all leading to. By sticking our necks out, risking slaughter just to catch a glimpse of the promised land, that elusive bigger picture (that hides a better future, one with more meaning) which we still quite naïvely and sceptically believe, exists, I feel I’m 15 again. Almost a decade down the road, I still dream and dread the same things, except the venue changed from Parkway BK to Taka Mos, and my companion is no longer Geraldine.

I have no wish to return to that awkward stage of 15 though. JC would be nice. I will love to see if I could handle some things differently. Not necessarily better, just different. And I believe with all my heart, if the phenomenon of everyone owning a mobile phone holds true then as well, some things would have turned out entirely not like this.

I don’t think Yimin would ever read this (my entry) but I do feel regretful on hindsight that we fell out because of a misunderstanding over a guy. I was proud; I was headstrong, I was playful (okay, fine, I’m still all of that) and I probably caused her more pain than I realised. She would probably disagree and say instead that we just drifted apart. But I always felt that the guy sow the seeds (urgh horrid cliché) of discord for us.

I’m sorry I wasn’t more sensitive and just laughed it off when all these nonsense about me and someone else bopped around (totally untrue). It bounced off me but my friend remembered everything. She felt betrayed. And I felt betrayed because even if he did like me (I’m not saying he did. Anyway we kind of avoided each other, he and I, like the plague thereafter), so what? It’s not my fault; I hardly did anything.

We were just in the same committee by chance; same camping group by chance; he just happened to accompany me to the library (I feel like I’m living in a feudalistic society when I heard that he was teased mercilessly about this by his omniscient classmates); he just happened to be there. And it’s definitely not my fault the cute children whom we were organising the camp for thought we made an equally cute couple, and kept pelting us with questions of are we, are we. *sigh* Just writing about and thinking of it makes me feel terribly defensive and agitated all over again.

I remembered how angry I was when I found out how silently angry she was with me all these while. Hello? If someone I liked, like you, I mean that’s just too bad for me. I wun blame it on you! And it’s not even that I like him!!!! So I felt doubly wronged.

He was rather attractive, very well-built, proportionate, tanned, veined (hmm maybe my obsession with veins din start with *that* person) but that’s about it. He’s also very stingy (eek my current lover is beginning to look like he’s a projection of my JC past) which I hate. I’m sarcastic and hateful and very rude to him (it’s official). Absolutely no patience where he is concerned. And I’m too fast a yakker and thinker for him. He’s so slow, it’s painful to wait for a rebuttal, or simple response.

But my friend doesn’t understand. All she saw was my talking to him and vv (like hello again? We are friends mah. Plus the camp group we only knew each other well nuff to hang out). All she heard and trusted were the rumours.

We had a good talk over this, me and she. And I thought we were in the clear. But she was very sarcastic again upon chancing us together. And I felt very irritated that I had such a petty and childish friend.

So yes, had I a chance to make, not amends, but to handle my deepest regret all over again, I hope Yimin is still my best friend, as I am hers. Or at least we din fell out because of some stupid guy who probably is still totally unware of what’s going on, that he ruined a perfectly gd relationship.

Yimin has now flown to Germany to work and is contactable only by email. We have led very separate lives since JC and it’s only mid last year that we resume some contact. It’s not the same (how can it be after that and since so many years) and we never really broach the TC issue again.

TC (the guy in question), I met him by chance again in Science canteen during my third year in NUS. Exchanged the obligatory numbers, had lunch together once and end of story.

It’s really not worth it, and it never was, since it never did amount to anything.

The part I did wrong was to write what happened down. It became one of my little romances, those I still am so fond of penning. Yimin was my Number 1 ardent fan in those heady years. She was brilliantly encouraging and only had lovely things to say. So I gave it to her some time after our talk and okay, it probably wasn’t such a great idea. Even if it was fiction and I re-worked a lot of it.

I’m really sorry, Yimin, Tiancai was shit. He’s an idiot not to know what a great person you are. He’s stupid for not trying to know you better. He’s stupid to think I’ll like him; and a greater fool if he thought of liking me (but I seriously don’t think his brains are big enough to carry such thoughts, much less me together with all my baggage).

And at this moment, I’m quite horrified by the years lost on us through TC. I think of you fondly, I do. And perhaps the day would come when I muster sufficient courage to email this page to you so that you’d understand. And maybe let me know I was wrong. It wasn’t TC that split us up. But till then, let him bear the burden. We did agree and giggle he’s strong, sturdy and steady ‘nuff.