030909.

'Cos you don't get to be 18 more than once in your lifetime.

To my dearest Alau who'd turn 18 last 3rd of September.

Though I am not able to recall every minuscule detail the first day we met, for I am just being myself like that, fret not, 'cos I still remember every other detail of the day as if it is nailed right at the back of my head.

We have just finished one class that required us to be elsewhere when we walked back to the classroom to find two identical school bags perched on the same bench. Curiousity of every 13 year olds in the class was roused and the atmosphere was brewing with excitedness in our attempt to figure out whose bags did those belong to.

Naturally, I thought it belonged to a pair of twins who have just been enrolled to our class. Being someone who has always had a tinge of difficulty in making new friends and had not been successful in joining a click in the new school, I made it a point to make myself, ego aside, appear open and friendly.

Two new students walked in. One was wearing a pinafore, the other was wearing the compulsary white headscarf for Muslim students. I picked the latter because the former seemed too nice for me to be close with. She hung a fake tight lipped smile on her fair skinned face and seemed too timid for my liking. Little did the 13 year old me know that this was going to be a lesson for me to not judge a book by merely its cover. I should have also known that she was being downright fake! It didn't take long before both the former one and I mutually plunged into the waves of friendship.

It has been many, many years since the first day of our feud in the first year we became friends, and being on the receiver end of Cikgu Lim's bad day when we moved our tables right next to each other without his consent only having to place it back to its original state, pleading, "Cikgu Lim bahh," with a pout, throwing erasers scribled with the first four alphabets during exam, losing our voice after Sport's Day, crushing on the same boys (big HAHA) and hating the same chick, and having new friends to join in our existing click (only to really really despise them afterwards).

You have always been the constant speed dial in my life. Other friends seem to come and go, but you are here to stay. Know that our tales of everything we have ever done will never be too boring to retell, even if we spent our secondary school days away from clubs, drugs, or rock and roll. We're just like wine, we get better by years!

Happy 22nd birthday, Alau!

P.s. I'm glad you like the gift (or so you say haha) 'cos I think you embody all four traits but you're still my light at the end of the long and dark winding tunnel. Muah!