Your True Stories

II Two: Playing Cupid II

II ~ Playing Cupid ~ II

Submitted By: Anonymous 

13th March

So there was this one dude. Let's call him Max. He made a quick, permanent entry into my life, and left just as quickly. He was in my school, my bus, and my apartment complex. He even showed up at my private tutor's. We only made fleeting contact, but I did talk to his sister occasionally. The only time I ever had conversation with him was when one of his friends started stalking a friend of mine he claimed he "liked" [we called it a borderline obsession with her] to tell him that I needed his friend to piss off. That was the height of our interaction.

He, I found out,  was a known bad boy, walking the school's corridor's every day like he owned it. His "squad" was popular for being players in both sense of the term: playing the girls, and playing sports. One of his friends, let's call him Adam, even appeared on billboards advertising his skill in football. Relationships, for them, never lasted more than a month, or two. Three was a milestone, and 4 was almost unheard of.

Then, one day, he stopped me in before I was getting out of the bus. "I need to talk to you. Wait outside."

I was positive this was a prank, but he shot it down. He quickly told me to make a Facebook account, as he "needed my help." 

So I did.

It turned out that another one his friends had taken a liking to another one of my friends: he wanted to play cupid between them. 

One thing led to another, and the said guy turned to smoking after being rejected by the said girl. Said girl later started dating someone else, which is a story for another day. Surprisingly, my unlikely friendship with Max stayed strong even after the failed cupid attempt.

I was a topper in almost all subjects. He rarely passed any. But I have to say, he's taught me more than anyone else has.

This dude, who I would never have given a moment's notice before, taught me how to live a little. He showed me far more important things in life than the structure of a cell. And he showed me how distorted and deceptive their world really was and just about how lucky I was. 

And then he disappeared. He was still physically there, but at the same time, not. One thing led to another, but I realized that we had stopped talking for the better. 

People come and go; things change, for better or for worse. If life has one inherent characteristic: it is its inexhaustible variety. I guess that's what I've learned, and I hope that one day when I look back, I won't regret my choices or actions. 

C'est la vie.