It's Still There. For Better or Worse.

Was reminiscing about 22 years of that chance meeting with 925 and googling random stuff when I came across a .pdf file containing his promotion.  

Of course the mind wanders back circa 1996, when I found out after graduating from XX Institute that he failed one module in his Electronics Engineering course thus preventing him from graduating with a certificate. During those chance meeting with him on the way to work, two years after my graduation from that institution and his stint in National Service, he told me that he won a book price in his first year in Poly, where we were both pursing part-time diplomas at that time.  I supposed he graduated with flying colours thereafter.

Who would have thought that today, he would go on to clinch promotional level up to CW2 in SPris.  Heard that he got married in 2005 and stayed in Anchorvale.   Stalking much?  Nah.

I have been mourning my lost ever since that day he left me swallowing dust at WTC bus stop back in the first week of March 1994.  It was the last 'after-school-meets' we had.  Although we were still friends, he did not venture more than the casual hellos and how-do-you-dos at the bus stop and the occasional unabashed bragging when we happened to sit together in the bus. 

I was the one who never overcome that feeling of rejection.  My spirit died overnight and I never moved on.  My emotional level is that of Miss Havisham who stopped all the clocks and died in her wedding dress in Great Expectations.

That explains why I'm still in that institution dealing with the students who were not even born when 925 kissed my hands in the upper deck of bus 154 that fateful night long, long ago.  I just can't seemed to let go.  

So there he was, as of 30 Mar 2015, a successful figure in life and here I am, in mid-life, working quietly in a corner with 0.85 cents in my bank account.  The heaviness in my heart was just too much.  Am not sure if it's about missing him or that all too familiar feeling I always get when I'm at the lowest point of my life. 

I marvel at his desire to pursue the better things in life.  He has always been the better one.  The smart one.  The good-looking one.  Even his part-time job paid better than mine during our school days.  That was the first time I heard the term "peanuts" in dollars and cents coming from him. 

I was almost gloating when I graduated with a certificate thinking that I was finally worthy of him, but it was years later when I found out that he didn't graduate from XX Institute. But, look, who has a better life now?  That ITC certificate is just a small obstacle that wasted 2 years of his life.  I can't help wondering if those 2 years actually meant anything to him.  Perhaps in his desire to erase that failing-to-graduate-with-a-certificate disaster, he would've successfully deleted me from his memory bank as well.  

I prayed that we will not cross path.  Even if we do, I hope he couldn't recognise me.  

But why deep down inside, I desperately want him to remember?