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Chaplin's, located at Holland Village, was home ground to me as I lived nearby and knew everybody there. As a result, I never needed to call anyone to arrange to meet there. I just needed to show up and "my people" would already be there ahead of me. Such, was the pinnacle of my social life but yet, I was incredibly lonely then.
It was a couple of months after my separation from
Tiffany when I met Lynn. I was introduced to her via Hoon, whom was my close girl-buddy back in school.
As the exams neared, Lynn would travel all the way to NTU to join us in the library to study. Thereafter, I would drive her home, before heading back to my own.
Come Friday, after we were done for the day of studying, we would all hopped into my car and we would all go partying the night away. We often partied so hard that we always ended up crashing at my place. Perhaps the good thing about living alone is that I could do whatever I wanted, have whoever I wished, and whenever I desired, at my place. Before anyone know it, Lynn was spending more and more nights as my place to the extend of having her own toothbrush in my bathroom.
Contrary to what everybody is thinking right now, nothing happened between us. I just got out of a crash-and-burn and wasn't really ready to get back onto the saddle again. Still, I appreciate having an additional person in the house.
Then one night at about 2am in the morning, my phone rang. It was her friends calling to tell me that she got pissed drunk at Chaplin's and they were on the way over to dump her at my place. I took the elevator down to my lobby shortly after and there they were waiting to unload her over to me. I carried her back and laid her on my bed.
A thousand questions must have been racing through my head then.
"What the hell is she doing on my bed at this very moment?"
"Why me? Why of all places, come to my place? Why not go back to her own home? Why here?"
"She REALLY drunk?"
"Is this some kind of an open invitation?"
"Should I take her?"
Frustratingly, there were not a single answer to any of those questions as I found myself sitting in the dining room playing back the questions over and over again.
I couldn't sleep as I was struggling mentally. Ended up sitting there until the sun came up. It was a beautiful sunrise but I was too distracted to appreciate it. She woke up, washed up and left without a word.
I blew it.
I was too stupid/scared/chicken/thick to have seized the invitation laid out in front of me. I may have played the gentleman that night, but I certainly didn't come out feeling like a winner.
She soon graduated a year ahead of me and starting working for a Japanese company in a sales position. She struggled initially to meet her monthly quotas and I had to jump in to help her by stringing some of my contact together for her. Her office was near my place and unknowingly, I got sucked into the role of the enslaved chauffeur again. Whenever she needs me to pick her up, I would be there within a single phone call. Ahh.... what a nice "friend", I was.
The last day we were together was a Friday. I was to go partying at Chinoiserie while she was to be meeting her friends for drinks elsewhere. We had an early dinner and got a couple of hours to kill before our separate appointments. As we were walking and window shopping in Wisma Atria, I tried to hold her hand for the first time.
She flinched.
The message was deafeningly clear. It was over and the simple withdrawal of her hand was all that she needed to do to get the message across.
I never called her again after that day and neither did she since.
Song that triggered my memory of her each and every time?
Love, Me - Colin Raye.
- Voxeros
21. JayWalk left...
Sunday, 14 August 2005 7:33 am ::
Sheena: We meet all kinds of people don't we? Funnily, I mini-cringed when I read the word "bitch". Perhaps I am a softie for I can't really get myself to really call somebody a "bitch" with such a gusto of hatred.
Oh well, it's over and in the deep past liao.