过路人

That guy whom I had a crush on

I met Checkers before my first year in poly. He was introduced by Ah Kow. Checkers, was a well-mannered guy who had shoulder length hair. He often wore checkered shirts over his T-shirt, thus this nick. He was usually seen hanging out by himself or in the company of Ah Kow. Next to the latter, Checkers looked so cool and good-looking. Heh. Anyway, I got to see him more often when I got into poly and I would always check out the Travelab (this travel agency in the school for the Tourism students to practice) whenever I walked past, just in case he was inside. He was a third year then. Now and then, I would run into him in the library and we would engage in small talk (He was there to read, while my friends and I were there to nap, in-between lectures). It was always pleasant talking to him. He was always polite and had an incredible smile.

After he graduated, I ran into him a couple of times. Once was at Great World City. I was there for dinner (before heading off to Zouk) and I happened to bump into him.

Checkers : Hi!

Me : Hi! What are you doing here? *trying very heard to conceal my excitement*

Checkers: Nothing. Just checking out some stuff. You?

Me : For dinner. My friends and I are going to Zouk after this.

Checkers: *smiles brilliantly* I see. No wonder you're dressed like that.

Digression: As we all know, girls tend to wear less material when we go clubbing. It's an international fashion code.

Me : *smiles sheepishly* Heh. Yeah.

I guess he was taken aback cos I was normally clad in just T-shirt and jeans in school.

The second time I ran into Checkers was at Bugis Junction. He was in rush when he walked past me and I called out to him. I was pleasantly surprised to run into him but we didn't manage much talk cos he was obviously rushing off. The farnie thing is, after he went up to the second floor, he could actually see me over the railings and he started talking to me from there. Yeah, I was one floor down and we were practically shouting to each other.

Checkers : Hey, so do you still keep in touch with Ah Kow?

Me : Yeah. (In fact, i was seeing him on the side, but never mind). Do you?

Checkers : Oh, that's good. No, we don't keep in touch anymore. You take care.

And he flashed that brilliant smile again. Heh.

Unfortunately, I did not managed to get his number both times we've met. And being an anti-social person, Ah Kow didn't keep in touch with Checkers either and they've lost touch since poly.

Haiz. Never mind.

That girl whom I avoided

KBimbo was this annoying person who, unfortunately, became my poly classmate in Year 2. She was the outcast of the class. Our reasons for banishing her were valid: she squealed instead of talking normally, tried very hard to apple-polish our lecturers to get into their good books, bragged about her ugly & rich boyfriend, tried to speak with a weird accent, dressed like an auntie and she was very ugly.

Okay, I'm kidding. She wasn't ugly. In fact, she was far from ugly. And I must add that she was blessed with a very slim body. Which was why it wasn't hard to understand that a couple of guys in our class once had a crush on her before they got to know her personality. But after a while, they realised that she had no inner beauty, at all. And they had to live in shame for the rest of their poly days cos the rest of us would constantly remind and tease these boys for their foolish choice for a crush.

A typical conversation with her would go like this:

KBimbo : What are you doing after school?

Sunshine Girl : I'm going to my boyfriend's place.

KBimbo : Oh, me too ... going to DD (her boyfriend) 's place after this. Aiyah, I find it so tiring hang out at his place. Gotta climb a lot of steps cos his house is so big, and so many floors ...

Sunshine Girl : .....

Their conversations were usually interrupted by me going up to Sunshine Girl (my buddy) and pulling her away.

KBimbo : Hey, where are you girls going during the 5-hours break later?

Sunshine Girl : Oh, we are going ....

Me : Come, Sunshine Girl, let's go! *pulls her away and led her away from KBimbo*

Yes, I was rude. But I had every reason to be. For one, KBimbo once sold our class out to a particular lecturer.

It was during a particular event management project. The class was divided into two groups and I thanked all the gods in heaven that she wasn't in my group. Her group members, stayed till wee hours in the morning to complete the project and during these times, they would gossip about certain lecturers. One particular lecturer, was on top of the gossip list as his lectures are often cited with examples that involved Sex tourism, Desker Road, and Changi. In fact, during one of our night trips, he altered our itinerary and brought us to Desker Road for an "eye-opener". I didn't care much about this lecturer actually; since I had the habit of filtering out the knowledge he tried to impart us with.

Anyway, the group members made fun of this lecturer by discussing about how lecherous he was. Apparently, KBimbo went to said lecturer and passed on this piece of gossip to him. The half of the class received a stern warning from him after that, and many of us didn't do well for his subject that year. The reason why we knew it was her: She was the only one who was apple polishing him and would go to his room as often as possible. After the stern warning, she immediately left the class and went to his room to "chat" with him.

Maybe it wasn't her. But we would like to think that it was.

After this incident (and many others that annoyed us), we tried all means and ways to avoid her. She wasn't part of our clique although she tried very hard to be.

On Mondays, we had a 5-hour lecture break and our usual practice was to hang out at Tampines Mall or at somebody's place near the school. Before the lecture ended, she would be asking Sunshine Girl where we would be going and tried to hint for an invitation. So, this was one time, where we all agreed that we would run out of the lecture theatre immediately after class, and straight to the bus stop. But before we could get to the bus stop, we realised that she was running after us! It was pathetic and hilarious at the same time. We detoured and ran off to hide in some remote stairway just to get out of her sight. After which, we took a cab instead, lest we ran into her at the bus stop. After an hour of exasperation from searching for us, she called my friend and started bawling, asking why we had deserted her. We didn't; she just wasn't part of our group and the rest of the gang knew that I loathed her. Being the more popular one, I obviously had the support from the rest.

There were other instances where she was being humuliated. Like how nobody wanted her in their project groups and we had to draw lots just to see which unlucky group would have to take her in. She was unhappy with this arrangement, as she wanted very much to join my group. One of my group members, feeling sorry for KBimbo, volunteered to drop out of our group just so we could accommodate KBimbo in. I reacted violently.

KC : Okay, in that case, I'll go join S's group and KBimbo can come into our group.

Me : NO!! *grabbed KC's hand* No way I'm letting you out of this group.

KBimbo : ... *pout*

So we had to draw lots all over again and still, she did not manage to get into our group. Heh. Just her luck. I feel sorry for the group who had to take her in though. I got complaints from them for the rest of the year.

It has been quite a few year since graduating from poly. Last week, as fate would have it, I ran into KBimbo at a grocery shop near my home. What the hell was she doing here? She doesn't even live in this area. But i avoided her nonethless, as I cannot imagine having to subject myself to the hypocritical and obligatory small talk with her.

The guy whom I cut out of my life

He was the one who taught me a lot of stuff I didn't know on bed. He was the one who encouraged me to smoke. He was the one who encouraged me to have affairs. He was, the Sex Demon.

I had an affair with Sex Demon that lasted a year. During this time, he was also seeing other girls and as we both agreed that our relationship was not exclusive, I didn't think too much about it. After some time, I got sick of it and ended things with him. But we didn't stop contacting. He was always asking me for favours and I ended up doing the most ridiculous things with/for him. Like how there was once, where I had to accompany him to spy on his ex-girlfriend who was threatening to kill herself after he initiated a break up by sending him her blood. We stood opposite her block for hours just to make sure she didn't try to jump or something. Actually, we couldn't have prevented it if she did try to jump cos we were too far to yell for her to stop. But it didn't cross my mind at that time.

On some nights, he would call me at 3am and asked to be let into my home cos he had forgotten his keys, or had gotten pissed drunk or was avoiding some weird psycho girl who was stalking him. My mom, soon got tired of a guy coming into my room at such times and warned me to stop. It was difficult to say no to him; he was such a sweet-talker with this overwhelming charisma that I couldn't seemed to reject him each time he pleaded to be let into my home. I did stop adhering to his requests eventually though. One time, he begged me to let him use my driver's license for a traffic offence that would cost him 12 points, which he didn't have. I succumbed after much begging. The final straw came, when he once again, pleaded with me to help him out for another traffic offence. I refused, and he had the cheek to tell me that this would be the time to test if I was a good "friend".

I think I can be a fantastic friend. But this guy, whom I no longer want to claim as a friend, is not worth my help. I made a conscious note to cut him entirely out of my life. I still keep his number on my mobile though, so I would know the calls to avoid.

The girl who ripped my faith in her

During his temporary job after graduating from poly, Ed met this girl, Cancer, whom he started dating. We hung out a lot together - having coffee, prawn-fishing and most of all clubbing. Cancer soon became very close to me and we continued to hang out after Ed was enlisted into the army. We would party almost every weekend and as Cancer was an extremely heavy smoker, I started smoking a lot.

After some time, things started to get a little weird as Cancer wanted to stick to me wherever I go. She met up with some of my friends for a couple of times, and she instantly wanted an invitation if I was hanging out with them. Everytime I received an sms, she would pop her head over and read my sms with me. She was invading into my privacy. Still, I let it go as there were times where she was a very good and loyal friend. Once, I got pissed drunk at a club and I couldn't even stand properly, let alone walk. This was this particularly guy (who was interested in me then) who offered to carry me to the cab. In order to stop this guy from getting fresh, she tried to piggy-back me even though she was skinny like a stick and probably was only half of my weight.

Nevertheless, I couldn't tolerate anyone who went around divulging my secrets. I had gotten myself into some shit which I wasn't proud of. She got to know about it and I had asked her to keep it to herself. This was not something that I wanted the guys to know about. (By then, she was joining us for almost every group meet ups.) But she told them anyway and I was very, very mad. I gave her a very stern warning that anything regarding this issue was not to be shared with anyone else. I told her cos I trusted her. She promised that she would never say anything to the guys again.

But she didn't keep her promise. In fact, she was openly "discussing" my problem with the guys. One of the guys called me, out of concern, on what was happening to me. Apparently, he had gotten to know about this from another guy, and this guy had gotten to know about this, from Cancer during a group meeting when I was absent. While I appreciate the concern from my friends who wanted to make sure I was all right, I was furious with Cancer. She should know better than to be sharing my very personal issues with everybody. She wasn't looking for an option for me; she was gossiping.

On the day that I got to know this, I had just gotten a permanent job and wanted to buy her a nice watch for her birthday. I was glad I didn't. Anyway, I called her up, yelled at her over the phone, and told her never to call me again. She tried to get away with it by blaming it on the guys, saying they were interested to know about it. But my bond with the guys was way stronger than she thought. They knew when to respect my privacy and wouldn't pry on my secrets.

As such, I stopped all contacts with her. Even though she called me up a few months later, things were no longer the same. I juz couldn't befriend someone that had let me down before.

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And that sums up my life of 过路人.