Back then, my weakest subject was English. Yup, amazing isn't it that I grew up being actually pretty good at it hahaha. I remember it like it was yesterday. The smell of chalks, the scraping of desks, and the long orange ruler. And I remember that one day, the day I met her.
It was supposed to be an easy task. You just had to match the pictures with the words. Ruler-ruler, eraser-eraser kind of stuff. But like I said, I was dumb. So it took several failed attempts, and the teacher kept asking me to redo until I had them all correct but she wouldn't tell me why they were wrong. And I couldn't ask anybody else because...I never talk to them.
I was getting tired and my book was a mess by then. Miraculously, nobody came and helped me. What a snob hahaha. And the next thing I knew, a girl came and gave me the answers to every question. I knew she was a girl by her voice but I wouldn't dare to look up. And I also heard other kids telling her to stop helping me. The reason? Well they said that if you helped a dumb kid, you'll turn dumb as well. That's like the dumbest thing ever right? So I thought yeah this is it, she's going to walk away now. Bye-bye saviour.
But she stayed there with me, telling them that it's okay, that she wants to help. So at the end I braved myself and looked up. She was smiling, and at that time I thought that she was the most beautiful girl I've ever met. That's when I realized who she was - she was the most popular girl in class, with pretty face and good brain. And here she was, talking to me, or rather helping me out.
"Best friends are people who make your problems their problems, just so you don't have to go through them alone."
After that fateful day, we became the best of friends. I didn't know how it happened, or what is it that she saw in me, but she stuck to my side like glue. So I began to open up to her, I slowly let her in to my bleak and mysterious world. And she - she brought colours into my life. And soon I found out that I was actually a fast learner, I just started a bit late than the others. So sometimes we would take turn on who got number one in class. Sometimes she scored the highest, sometimes me.
We made it all the way to high school. And then something changed between us. I'm telling you, high schools are evil. They turn allies into enemies. The competitions are tough, the pressure was mountain high, and we got lost in them. We became distant, like strangers. Then one day she just moved to a different school. I thought we were through.
But then I guess we grew up and fate gave us a second chance. We met again at the same matriculation. We were close again, I had a sleepover in her dorm, and life was great. Then I had to leave matriculation to enroll into TESL programme. And we both cried on my last night there. We promised to keep in touch.
But like any other promises, it was difficult to hold on to. We got caught up with our own lives, and years of separation pulled us further apart. For five years, I didn't see her or heard anything about her. She was gone, again.
This year, I met her. On her engagement day. She still had that same smile when she was seven. She looked nervous, yet I knew she was happy, that was probably one of her happiest days ever. Then it hit me - if I hadn't been such a nerd back then, I wouldn't have met my best friend.
Being a nerd taught me one thing - treat people the way you want them to treat you.
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