After almost three years of utter silence, three years of my foolish dreaming of her, three years of my yearning to hear her voice, suddenly ended by a text message that arrived so unexpectedly. I could not tell whether I was happier when I received the news of my passing the board exam or when she congratulated me after; but I am certain I have not since felt such happiness, for so long a time, when I heard her pleasantly familiar voice in the phone a few days later. In the days that followed, we exchanged many more messages and I, like someone finding again a possession that was once lost, vowed never to lose Stella's friendship again and guarded it with utmost care. That we were friends again, I told myself, is the greatest gift for a birthday that came unnoticed and passed uncelebrated.
But, as weeks sullenly went by, she withdrew gradually to that dark hole of her's, and at many times ignored to return my texts, or to convey that she is presently preoccupied with other things, or anything that initiated her abrupt ostensible cut, that I could not help but think that I somehow managed to put an unintentional spark to her violently volatile temper. She would casually reply, mostly never, to assure me that she is not angry and would leave it at that and would again return to her silence. I try to understand that she is perhaps indeed busy and I, in turn, would not text her for days - but to me, her merciless silence is an agonizing torture to my fragile mind and much more fragile heart, so much so that I become too attach to that abominable contraption and begin to develop obsessive-compulsive behaviors and a rather profound paranoia.
It was not until recently, with an incidence too delicate for me to presently write, and one that I could not stop thinking about, did I realize that perhaps Stella is not the Stella that I once knew or loved all those years. People change, as they say, is true enough; and for three years, I doubt that Stella have not since, in any manner, changed. But that she has become coldhearted, treacherous, and devilishly opportunistic, like a preying octopus, so much like her present friend (whom I have personally known to be a vile and vicious witch) - has left me disenchanted, dejected, half-angry and half-confused. I have often hope that I am wrong about her and that all I hear of her are untrue, that she is still that gentle person I used to know - for I am certain that little has changed in what I feel for her.
But that too has its limits.
