Rendezvous
23 September 04 : 04.51 PM
I saw Clare crying in the toilet today, after our Math paper. I went over and asked if she's okay, and she was choking on her words while she told me she didn't complete her paper. I told her I didn't too, which was true, but I knew I would still pass. My only regret would probably be if I didn't get an A (as egoistic as that sounds.)
I tried to think back about our friendship, what we talked about and bitched about and what we laughed about together. I couldn't remember a thing; it was so long ago. I'd lost my best friend when I decided she didn't know what was best for me.
We were best of friends when we came into this school. We debated on who's cuter; Freddie or Le'En. I always rooted for Freddie. Freddie used to be too shy to talk to me, so that once, when I was 13 (and he 14), he walked pass me and said a "Hi." with a slight smile and awkwardly walked away. She teased me about that for the rest of the year. I always teased her about Jerome, or some other upper secondary guy she liked. Shit I forgot.
But I always remember that morning when Ms Kannu came to me and told me to refrain from 'bad company' and that my grades were 'worsening'. I knew she was talking about Jon and all his friends, who would call my name and disturb the lesson going on when they walk pass my class. I wasn't mixing with them, I was just talking to them. No, make that, they were talking to me.
I knew that it was Clare who went to tell Ms Kannu about that. I confronted her about it and she admitted. Whatever happened after that, I forgot. But we drifted apart after that.
It has been 3 years already. She's best friends with that wannabe fruit-name girl. Freddie has a girlfriend now, who's in my class. Jerome and Clare broke up. I'm not sure what I'm looking for. I am now in the best class at school (yes after that 'worsened grade') and she almost retained.
I'm not sure if I'm regreting the loss of our friendship or I'm regreting change. Because right now I'm browsing through my old journals that I wrote all day long in class and her name hardly appears though we hung out together the most.
There was another so-called best friend after that. The girl who'd hug me when she saw me outside with other friends but not say to me at school because she didn't like me. Turns out she hated me for a long time already while I foolishly believed our friendship turned sour because of my negligence. So on whatever occasions she's nice to me now, I'm just only equally friendly back.
There other 'best friends' who I don't talk to at all now. Sarah Smith, Hui Yi, Glenda, Esther Chiam, Sze Yen, Fiona, Nicole Maddox, Esther Teo, Eva, Desmond. (James too, except he's calling me up again recently to go clubbing together.)
The people who never got the status of best friend seemed to stay with me the longest. They stay with me over the years and through whatever change in personality and preferences I undergo.
Like Ruby who would listen to me cry while holding my hand. I'd not said a word to for several weeks this year because I just didn't feel like. When I started talking to her again, we took off where we left, and she never got mad at me about it.
It's not that now I don't have friends I feel good enough about to name 'best friend' but I just don't believe in that anymore. One day or another someone's gonna leave.
I'd love to have Clare back as a friend. I don't even know if we are considered friends now. She probably doesn't even have my number now. There have been changes and we cannot go back to what we used to be. She might be disappointed with the person I'd become, or maybe she might be just like me. I don't know. All I know is that I can never make her stop crying the way she could have done for me in the past.