NS15

We've talked about this. I've written about it a hundred times and it's getting old. We've long walked away from here, considering how I've never had this in my routine and how you've graduated years ago. But sometimes, I feel pulled back. I know only I still feel this way, despite you being the one who passes by more often.

I don't believe in coincidences anymore. I think things will always happen for a reason. 

You said this on a hill seven stations before, in the dark and stillness of midnight. It makes me think of the many times we've crossed paths, enough for me to have difficulty brushing it off. From you calling me out at Boon Lay to you and your friends and I being the only parties walking that usually crowded path at Paya Lebar.

This station was another, right in the middle of the red, in the middle of the month. Twice, when we both popped out at the same time to walk beneath the sun instead. When I was with someone else but you jumped in like a wrecking ball breaking all the walls down.

But there were one or two intended moments that stick to my head too. Waiting for you before we took the train to town and looked for your shoes, and when we sat there for an hour, waiting for the peak hour to pass.

After school, even though my school was somewhere on the other side of the line. I still remember being in maroon and you in white with red sleeves. My mom bought this shirt for me, you were saying.

Countless trains passed but I hardly took notice of them with you beside me. You sat straight, while I had my legs up and crossed on the bench. I made you laugh more often than you did me, when I failed at a game you'd been acing.

There is also another memory from three years ago, when you were the only friend I trusted with a secret. Anybody wouldn't have known what to do, anyone would have been frantic. Nobody's life would have stayed the same if it happened to them.

Mine certainly didn't, but you made it easier just by being a friend. It was your turn to make me laugh, though your lending me a shoulder to lean on wasn't new. Overlooking your school in the dead of the night was what made me love you like a best friend, and it never really stopped.

Maybe Yio Chu Kang was where I fell and never quite got up again. When you laughed in the middle of all those trains, when you stared at me with your wide eyes on your school roof; I gave you the power to hurt me, and you never hesitated to shoot. Hopefully it's nothing more than a monument now, for you to reminisce polytechnic days and for me to reminisce you.