One Who Is Aflame With Love

Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose. ~ From the television show The Wonder Years

So Saz and I had a chat last night and we were meandering down that thorny path called memory. And I remembered a boy. A tall, dark boy with large brown eyes and freckles on his nose. My adolescent heart craved him for three years.

It all came flooding back, the scenes from my little crush. I got close to him at P6. He sat in front of me. His seating partner was a quiet girl, who rarely spoke, so he always turned around to me to talk. We were friends.

When PSLE came round, he started calling me at home often. We talked about what was going to happen after, which school we would end up in and whether all of us were going to remain friends. He brought up the topic of crushes once and demanded to know who I liked. When I refused to tell him (well it WAS him!) he asked for the boy's initial. I panicked because there was only another boy with the same initial as his. I caved and told anyway. He declared it couldn't be him so assumed it was the other boy. The following day, while waiting to go sit for our Science paper, he told the boy and the three or four other kids there. Horrified, I refused to talk to him. He apologized later and I accepted after some groveling on his part.

The funny thing is, I often wondered about the possibility of him liking me. Mabel, my friend had asked him before in class when I went off to take care of a P3 class (one cheeky boy actually slapped my bum). “Would you go for Norami if she was slim?” And his answer was yes. Of course, when Mabel revealed it to me, he became obnoxious and pushed me around when we were skateboarding later that same day. (God, that was childish! The pushing bit that is) As for me, the only revealing I did was to sing Depeche Mode's 'Somebody' during my thirteenth birthday party and gazing at him all the while. Mortifying but freeing. I think I gave him one of the worst shocks of his lifetime.

He had asked me out to go for a tea-dance before. (remember this social thing hot in the 80s at CCs or somewhere or other?) But me being clueless, declined because he did not ask others to go. He came to my house with the other 'A' guy for Hari Raya when we were in Sec 1. At the end of it, as I was walking them out at the void-deck, they actually asked me, ''Don't you ever think of losing weight? You can easily get a boyfriend you know.'' I was annoyed yet perversely touched.

He was the first to break my heart, the first to make me cry, when I was fourteen.

The last time I saw my tall, dark, sweet boy was in 1993. He came for a football match. His school team against mine. We stared at each other at the bus-stop but neither came up to say hi. I still regret that. It would be nice to meet him again, now, as adults, sixteen years on and catch up on life in between.