Lost Love

Many a night I have stayed up just to write, not wanting to miss listing down the important things that happened during the day. I always tax my brain and note down the inspirations and lessons that I drew and learnt. It is imperative because they help me maintain an endless string of thoughts as an aspiring writer. On one of those nights I had decided to check the dusty, old high school box. Through the books, past papers, suspension letters, report forms, love letters…..I then bumped into my diary, I felt a pang of nostalgia while going through the diary and playing the footage of events at the back of my mind. I could not help reminiscing about my teenage.

As I opened the diary carefully, and flipped through the pages one at a time, then something fell out. Like a lightning response of a cornered black mamba I reached down to pick it, but froze midway when I realized what it was. It was a photograph. The photograph. The one I used to treasure so much, the one I smiled at countless times back then, in the classroom, in the blanket, whenever I opened my box. Let me confess, at any given time that I had set sight on it.

My heart skipped a beat as I finally picked it up. A handsome boy and a beautiful girl were sitting side by side under a tree, making faces at the camera, after having an ice cream face painting. Oh such bright smiles and sparkling eyes he and she had, the dimpled cheeks she had! Such care, love, and friendship. I resorted to a faint smile, closed my eyes and tried to recall the innocent childish laughter - the laughter that we shared - of the old days. Remembering it was bittersweet, for I knew very well that it was a moment in a lifetime. 

I thought of the years we spent together. Growing up wouldn't have been the same without her. I thought of the petty little cat fights we used to have, the arguments that I always lost. I thought of the countless bus rides with laughter, gagging and giggling, teasing and tickling, pinching and punching, and the whispered secrets. I could read her with one look in her eyes; she could finish off my sentences. I knew her like the back of my fingers. We made so many memories together; our story could make a best seller love novel. But one stood out among the rest - the day she told me she how special I was to her and that she loved me. We were having an evening walk, then she opened up, she said it so casually, like it was the most natural thing in the world. And I remember feeling so secure, so happy, and so overwhelmed... so... just so. I had been a shy chap but on this moment, quicker than expected assured her that I felt the same.

Time flies. Somewhere between then and now, something changed. I am not certain what. Maybe she outgrew me, or maybe we simply chose different paths in life. Either way, the love dissolved into the level of a mere acquaintance, which in turn dissolved into nothing.

I moved away three years ago. I left with a simple kiss, hug, goodbye, and a wave. That was it. Calls, texts after a couple of weeks turned to -No calls, no e-mails, no nothing - zero, zilch. To me it was as if  she was just a faded teenage memory.

I said I didn't care. She belonged to my teenage, and there only. But every single time I have said that, I have ended up overdosing sleeping pills or downing some large chunks of whiskey lest I join the insomniacs club.

Oh God. Why is it starting to hurt all over again? I thought I already forgot. For years, she has buried herself in her marriage, her new friends, new family and of course a new life.

But that picture - that lone, old, faded photograph brought back everything, a blast from the past. It was as if the memory box in my heart, that had remained untouched for so many years, was opened again. And it was filled of memories of her - of us.

But was there ever us? When I thought we were meant to be was this just being pathetic - my fantasies, my heart, my brain?