As time passes by though, you open up to them, and they open up to you. You feel comfortable with one another, be it in a group or just one person. You tease them, you make them laugh, you comfort them, you stick up for them, you tell them your secrets; their mirroring your actions is what creates the memories with them.
They accept you for who you are no matter how bullshit your attitude and problems get.
Who are they? They are your friends.
I've known these girls since we were all in Sec 1. I had my own differing opinions towards each and every one of them, and most of them were just judgments. As i got to know them, I realised they were totally cool, and I looked forward to going school everyday. it was a good start to secondary school!
The years passed and girls came and left my life, with drama and gossip accompanying the cliques that formed in the classroom. Three years into secondary education, and we had formed a certain bond among the 8 of us.
It was our differences that made us one. We were multi-racial, we went to different classes, we had different fashion sense, we had conflicting opinions and clashing personalities, but we got along. We had recess and lunch together, we went on outings and we took photos together. All 8 of us. We made promises to be together for life.
Came 2012, when one of those girls made a move and stupidly left the friendship. Disaster after disaster followed suit her action, be it among the remaining 7 or between her and them, or just her alone. To me, we were sturdy when we were 8, but because a pillar crumbled, the rest of the building made way due to lack of support.
I was that crumbled pillar. I was the one who had decided to leave behind this beautiful friendship.
One of the 7 girls I had left behind was my ultimate best friend. She had always been there for me, and I always told her we'd be friends forever, always making plans with her to travel the world and go on road trips together. This changed when I left. We weren't friends anymore, and we didn't exactly appreciate each other's existence. We used our blogs to attack and defend ourselves [though I'm pretty sure she was the one who did most of the attacking].
Just this year, about four months ago in April, she decided to unblock me from Twitter and chatted me up through direct messaging. I gave her my number, and we caught up with each other; what school and course were we in, shit like that. We met up one Friday evening, after I finished work, to the rooftop of Tampines Mall, just sitting down and talking.
If she hadn't approached me first I wouldn't have ever bothered to make amends. We put the past behind us, and I started to make contact with the rest of the girls. I found out that after everyone went on to tertiary education, one of the other pillars had also given way, silently. Those who remained actually knew, way before graduation, that they were going to be left with 6, if I hadn't returned.
Yesterday was our first time in a long time gathering together again, the remaining 7 of us. Upon union, we gave hugs and one of them whom I hadn't seen in 8 months whispered to me; "Welcome back." I was glad to be.
One of my Poly classmates had drilled into my head the fact that secondary school friends are the ones who will stay with you. I haven't even spent half a year in tertiary education but I've already learnt the hard way that he was right.
I will never understand why we can never have precious friendships in Poly like how we did in secondary school. All I know now is the fact that the only ones who will ever completely accept me over and over again are these girls. Our building was demolished, but it didn't matter. We rebuilt our friendship, we forgot and forgave, and although we are one girl short, we can grow a million times stronger than before. This is just the beginning of our story, the common bond which seven uniquely beautiful ladies share.
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