...

it's his birthday in five days. i've marked it in my calendar last year, and i never took it out. call it needless torture, call it insanity, call it helpless sentimentality. i just didn't really think i should just backspace him out of my life. and yet it seems like i am now persona non grata to him. i have not heard from him in ages, except when i drop him an email asking about the book he owes me.

speaking of which, the book arrived just the other day. which is probably why i am on this little sentimental road trip. it may have started a week earlier, though. after the company dinner celebrating the last day of the chinese new year's celebrations. while waiting for a cab, i decided to use an opening my colleague brought into our conversation. inebriated as i was, i started getting teary-eyed at the mention of the one i had to leave behind - or rather, the one who wanted to be left behind. i blamed my tears on the alcohol. because honestly, i was pretty ok before that. (excluding hormonal swings brought about by monthly cycles, of course.) it was then that i realised how much i was still hurting. i simply shoved everything into the deep recesses of my mind, perhaps my heart, pretending that nothing is wrong. and for the most part, it was true. but once in a while, a bubble breaks the surface, and the reality of the situation manifests itself.

i am suffering from a broken heart.

when i saw his handwriting on the envelope that my book came in, i felt a sharp stab in my chest. then i turned off the lights, closed my eyes and went to sleep. but not before a few tears made their way to my pillow.

he thinks - or thought - i would be going back to london. but he never really wrote to ask. i never really made an effort to let him know. he didn't know when i moved to singapore. he never asked. i never told him. but i asked him to send my things to my sister's home, where i'm staying at the moment. i just let him put two and two together. he's probably not that stupid.

part of me wants to write him a final good-bye letter (more like email) on his birthday. i'm assuming he will think i will remember. (we all know i do, but it won't hurt not to let him know.) a note from me on his birthday, he will assume it is full of well-wishes. but not this time. i wanted to send him a postcard two weeks ago, to make sure it arrives in time. then i thought - why the effort? i know i still think of him, but he doesn't have to know that. all because i have never heard from him since the day i spoke with him on the phone. overseas call. back in december. i get more information from our other classmates than i do from him. then again, everybody else is probably getting the same treatment. but i'm not everybody else. i was his "angel" and "saviour" - words he has used himself not twelve months ago. how easily men forget.

i read through our old emails, and all those hollow, unfulfilled promises he made just kept jumping out at me. i may be biased, but i'm not stupid. i can assume to be a bit objective - it's been over four months, after all. what i've read just... i am at a loss for words. it underscores his being a complete bastard, and my being a ridiculous martyr. part of me wants to send him an archive of the email highlights, and let him judge how much of a user he was. maybe still is. and i am not alone in this opinion. my other female classmates have said as much. he used me, but perhaps it's not so much his fault because he didn't do it consciously. but does that mean it's right? hell, no.

and he wonders why he can never get along with all his ex-girlfriends. that should be sign enough that he is a real jerk. but apparently, he is also very, VERY dense.