First Love

Last night, I searched high and low in all my drawers for 2 Valentine's cards. I searched even between books in case I might have used them previously as bookmarks, but to no avail.

Then, suddenly I realised I wasn't actually looking for the cards. I was upset and needed another activity to derail me from getting more upset.

All these years, I haven't actually looked at Kenny. In those 2 years when he was my "bestest" friend, I saw him and aware of his existence. However, I have never really looked at him. He was always a substitute.

At my 15th birthday party, my entire mind in that evening was preoccupied by another party about 500m away organised by a neighbour boy whom I had infatuated for years. I hardly noticed who were at my own party and how many were actually my parents' friends and relatives. Exactly 10 hours after, a 17.5 year old boy named Kenny called me on my family phone and told me "You are a Princess". Thinking back of the white costume I wore and the big bow on my headband, I believe I looked more like a white witch than a princess! Anyway, no girls at that age could resist compliments.

After chatting like a decade on the phone and was on cloud 9 the entire morning, the rational part of me had alerted me to ring all my friends later that day, and I found out Kenny was in fact my uncle's youngest friend. He had recently moved to stay with his uncle, did not do well in his secondary 5 examinations due to his family problems, he was intelligent, humble and funny.

Kenny sometimes was like an older brother that I always wanted. He introduced me to the amazing world of Maths, and we used to have a common mantra that we copied from the popular tv show MacGyver: "There's no such things as ghost. There's no such things as ghost".

Kenny sometimes was like a boyfriend that you wanted to flaunt to all your classmates. Being 2.5 years older than most of the boys in my class, he was far more mature than them who spent all days teasing girls.

It's hard to believe Kenny is gone, forever gone. He passed away last Friday due to a maglinant tumour on his throat.

Last night and this morning, memories from 20 years ago were rolling on my mind like an old movie. I heard him saying: "Hey you are my Phoebe Cates". Honestly, in real life, I am hardly even 0.1% of Phoebe. Probably Kenny got the dillusion from his favourite film Gremlins where Phoebe played the lead role Kate Beringer.

He once told me "I would always be around you to protect you, unless you want me to go away and leave you alone. My love is persistent because I am seriously in love". He has many plans for our life - to work hard after he had graduated from his diploma, get a stable job, finance my degree studies, buy a house, get married and have a kid. No matter how long is the list of his plan, I was always at the central stage of his plan.

Things changed when I was 17 when I no longer believed love alone could bring food on dining table. Many times my sister Woofhams thought it was her that changed the shape of my friendship with Kenny, actually it wasn't her.

One evening on Thursday (in those days mobile phones were not around and teenagers having phone curfew was a trend), our family phone rang ...

Woofhams answered: Hello, who do you like to speak to? Oh, you are Kenny. Sorry, my sister told me to tell you she's not at home and she said not to call her again. Bye.

In fact, Kenny called me a week later and we had a 5 minutes silence before either one of us spoke.

Kenny asked me: Do you start to dislike me?
pancake Princess: I don't know. May Be. Yes, I am busy.
Kenny: Do you want to stop seeing me?
pancake Princess pondered a while: Yes, May Be (answering phone and revising for exams simultaneously)
Kenny: Do you want me to go away?
pancake Princess: Why are you so wishy-washy? Could you leave me alone, I need to revise for my exams.
Kenny: Go away, as in forever?
pancake Princess: Yes, forever. I am very busy now.

Only that Kenny didn't know when I put the receiver down 2 seconds later, I said to myself: Oh, forgotten to tell Kenny that he could call me next Thursday because I should have finished my exams by then.

Isn't life ironic? One short phrase could change two person's destiny, forever.

Kenny never called me or contacted me again after that. I waited one year for him to contact me, but found out not too long after from a friend's cousin that Kenny was seeing another girl. 5 or 6 years ago, I saw him and his wife - a pretty and younger woman, but he didn't greet me. Either he has completely forgotten about my existence or he just didn't want to look at me again - I don't know and I'll never have the answer again.

But, if there was time machine, I would want to go back to when I was 17 again and I wanted to tell Kenny that "Hey you could call me next Thursday. I should have finished my exams by then".