Today, I'm gonna talk about my first love. First and only love, I would say. Okay I'm too lazy to do even that. I'm just going to paste an entry I wrote years ago, before I was fully over him. Don't get any wrong ideas though, him and yours truly share a merely platonic friendship now, a lil closer since we met up, but that's about it. For him though, I will always have a soft spot (:
Terence Sim Wei Hong, this is for you (:
The Last Time
Prelude
It was something like destiny when she realised he had actually appeared before her eyes a few weeks before she got to know him. After all the time spent getting to know him intimately without being able to picture his face or imagine him physically, she was instantly able to match his mannerisms to his moods and identify his feelings.
His face was one that was accustomed to expressions of menace, of hardness - yet from several feet back she thought she saw the shadow of something vulnerable in the corner of his smile, in the slight limp as he left the field.
She recognized someone who was more than he appeared to be, more than he showed to his friends, associates as well as acquaintances. He seemed to be one of those rare few that walked enveloped in light, who turned heads even on their worst days. It was then that she wanted to touch him, to shelter him. The way she felt this, so suddenly and so deeply, was like nothing she had known before.
When she finally saw him upclose, she thought his eyes were blue. He stood there with his steady, thoughtful gaze and his mouth a mere motion away and she felt a shift inside her. She wondered if it was possible to recognize the beginnings of one's own life less than a quarter century into it. It seemed fitting he should have blue eyes, like a fairy tale prince.
It didn't matter that his eyes were in fact brown, or that he was already involved. Something happened that day as she stood next to him, something she could not take back or ignore.
It was a recognition, a certainity of purpose such as she had never felt before. He was an enigma that aroused her curiousity and a fierce protectiveness. The focused intensity of him; his humor and compassion; his passionate gestures. And, something else - the hint of some fear or weakness, traces of something that had happened to him a long time ago and had dictated the shape of his life.
At that moment, she knew that whatever relationship they might have with each other, she would eventually lose him. All their experiences would merely have been markers along the road towards that loss. The nearly physical pain of this realization had startled her into silence.
She barely had time to know him, how could she already be mourning the loss of him?
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Transition
When she first encountered him, it was during a deciding volleyball match he was playing in in Hougang Sports Hall and it was a beautiful sunny day. He wasn't exactly what people would call handsome, but somehow, his sharp features that looked classic english yet asian at the same time managed to catch her eye.
The last time she saw him, it was in Bukit Gombak, another crucial volleyball match he was taking part in. By the time she arrived, his match was almost over. His team lost, but it was an expected defeat and she could tell that the loss did not bothered him very much. She stared at him; he was drenched in sweat, looking thinner than ever in his cyan coloured jersey. After he changed into his uniform of white and navy, he looked much better than she had ever seen him, and still she stared, transfixed, taking in his cocky attitude, his arrogant swagger, his confident stut, that adorable, cheeky little half smile and just the way he laughed, his expressions, every little thing about him brought a smile to her face. He was so close to her, about 2 metres away. She could have easily walked up to him and said hi or even give him a tight bear hug, but for the lack of nerve. He was seated between two girls, which managed to cause a mild twinge of jealousy to well up inside her. But she knew. That was him. Mr Frivolous. That was the guy she loved.
He did leave the girls for a brotherly chat with his close friend, a guy she held dear to her heart as well. She was aware that she should have seized the opportunity, should have gone up to him and try to talk. All her feelings. Her misgivings. Her doubts, fears. Everything. But she had to leave. The cab had arrived, and as she was leaving the stadium with her friends, she had to walked on the dull gray seats directly behind the one he was sitting on. She stared at the back of his head wistfully, and it was like he felt her gaze, for he spun around and met her eyes. There was a hint of startled recognition in his eyes and her heart started beating faster than it ever had. Maybe it was one sided but she felt such intense chemistry between both of them at that one cherished moment. But the girl behind her gave her a slight nudge and the moment was over, it was broken. As she left, she turned her head towards him, and he held her gaze for a while, then shrugged and turned back to watching the volleyball match after his. For her, her eyes never left him until he became a speck in the distance.
Never leave me, she often wanted to say to him, but she never did.
Now, instead, she would go to the window and look out upon whatever place she had chosen. At different times, in different places - rain gurgled in gutters; sunlight painted bright squares on the walls; branches trembled with leaves or were bare as charcoal sketches of winter. Standing there, she would replay her memories of him, in every place and weather, every encounter, every mood.
In the weeks following that final departure, she came quietly and steadily apart, as though some stitches had been snipped; as though a thread had been hooked onto his body, so when he left he pulled that thread and she began to unravel.
During this time she spent most of her nights in a bar, looking in to the faces of the men around her to see if any of them resembled the man she loved. Sometimes, after several drinks, she would find someone who did. There would be a moment when his remembered features fought with the features of the stranger, and then memory would triumph and for a little while she would think he had returned.
It was not long before she discovered that all men contained something that reminded her of him.
In person he had never been so handsome as the composite features she had assembled in her memory. Yet, because he was alive, with a scent and a warmth to his skin; because his every movement was a miracle of nerve and sinew, he was more beautiful inside his body than any idealized image she might have made of him. And more precious than the others could ever be, no matter how closely they resembled him.
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Epilogue
It has taken a year for the intensity of emotions to subside. She still thinks of him almost daily and she continues to believe there will never be anyone else. At least when she looks in the mirror she sees only her own face, and when she looks into faces of men who pass her on the street, she usually sees strangers who do not resemble anyone else she knows.
She wonders how many people she has walked past in the last year,
Thinking only of him.
Often, she wonders if he ever thinks about her, misses her, but she accepts that these are among the many things that she will never know.
Of all the possible futures in front of her, a life with him in one that been taken away, and she will never know if it would have held the most happiness, or the least. She will survive, maybe even be happy and fulfilled, but she will always carry him inside of her.
-June'24 2004
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