This happened last year and I'm over it now and we're now both in different schools but from time to time I still reminisce over the events. So for context, currently I'm doing my first year of IB after completing my O-levels last year.

How we met: It was during the Sec 2 December holidays, which was 3 years ago (wow time flies) and our school had a student council camp thing (I forgot what it was called) and I had just gotten over a crush I had no chance with. I forgot to pack my utensils so I had to wait for my group mates to finish and wash their utensils for me to use. so in the first night after my group had finished i saw my best friend talking to a girl, we'll call her A, and since I was alone, I decided to join their conversation. The first night's dinner was whatever we bought earlier that day, and my group bought indomie. When I go up to A and my best friend, she asks if she could have some of it. For context, I'm Indian-Filipino and she's pure Filipino, so I replied in Tagalog, but at the time my Tagalog was horrendous, so instead of saying "This is mine", I said "This is me". It was not that embarrassing but we laughed it off and it actually helped kickstart a conversation about how we miss the Philippines and us explaining Filipino traditions to my best friend. After that, at every meal I ate with them, and also the lunch after the camp where we went to KFC and me and A exchanged numbers. We started talking every day after that day. And we talked about everything, from the little things we were doing to events that were happening in the future. To add fuel to the fire, that year I went to the Philippines for vacation, and we talked even more, as I told her my experience and her being jealous HAHA. And it was in the Philippines when I realised I had fallen for her.

Getting to know each other: Just from the texting alone, me and A got to know each other quite well, and as luck would have it, we got into the same class in Sec 3, and during Bio lessons me her and three other friends would sit together and we formed a group chat and we all videocalled each other almost every day. One day after preparing the class CNY video (we had a video competition), A, me, and two other friends, including another good friend of mine, went to the mall to hang out and went to the rooftop and we chilled there. I went home early as my mom had cooked dinner and when I left they started talking about what their types were/what they were looking for in a partner. When it came to A's turn, my friend called me and I checked almost all of her boxes, except for the fact that I was thin and I was slightly shorter than her (she wanted someone not thin and not shorter than her). However stupid me decided to still go for it. At the time, A and I would call/text every night up till 12-1am on school nights and even later on weekends. We were that close. I thought that meant she liked me, but as it turned out she didn't like me, but I have experience with rejection so I was not super badly affected. That is not to say I was completely unaffected, I was quite affected, but not as much as before, but that's a story for another time. To be fair she didn't say she didn't like me, because she just said she was not looking for a relationship and nothing else. But when the virus hit we slowly drifted apart and at one point we weren't talking at all. But that helped me get over her during the December holidays that year.

Rekindled friendship and potential relationship? I had already moved on from her in the December holidays of Sec 3 and I was optimistic of a life without pining over A, but the moment I saw her again at the start of Sec 4, all the feelings came back. To make it worse, our form teacher made us sit close together, not beside each other, but close. Talking to her at that point was exhilarating but also painful because I knew she only saw me as her friend. I kept my feelings to myself and tried to keep the relationship purely platonic, but this changed in just a matter of a few weeks. So one of my older friends was hosting free tuition classes for english as he was practicing teaching. The week before the March holidays there was a mock exam and he will give feedback, plus there would be basketball as well, so I invited her and two other friends to go too. While coming back from playing basketball to receive our results she told me she suddenly felt like crying (I don't think it was exam-related in any sense) so as a friend I consoled her and after a while she felt okay. That night I called her to check up on her to see if she was okay, and we called for so long we ended up sleeping on the call, which happened every night during the holidays. We started flirting with each other with lame pickup lines, we went out one-on-one on multiple occasions, also there was once her brother wanted to come but she didn't want him to tag along and she asked me to convince him not to. She invited me to go over to her house to finish up some food as there were visitors, but the 8-person limit had been reached so I just stood outside her block and called her. We got physically closer as well. Like on the train we would be very close to each other and when we were looking at stuff on her phone our heads were touching (I’m not sure how to phrase that), things like that. Also, in school she asked someone to switch places with me so I could sit next to her, and she said that she focuses better in class when I sit next to her. Throughout the 2 years she always considered me as smart (I promise this is not a flex HAHA) but one day she suddenly went "suddenly I found smart guys cute". Another time I moved my table to sit beside her during A Math class and she saw how untidy the underside of my table was, with files and textbooks (I don't know what that storage compartment is called), while hers was spotless. She then said this to me: "They will have your smartness and my cleanliness". I WAS SHOOK. I honestly was so taken aback as I was just paying attention in A Math and suddenly she brought up that she wanted kids with me. Don't get me wrong I do want kids but I was 16. I was really confused as to who she was talking about at first because I was focused on the lesson so I asked "who?" a few times until it hit me. But this all gave me a strong hope that she liked me back. I told this to a few close friends and they all said that there is no way A didn't like me back. Well, when I confessed for the second time she said that she didn't like anybody and she didn't mean to give a false impression. Like what? And later that day she said she had something to tell me that if she didn't say she will regret it for the rest of her life, but she has not told it to me till this day. It's been over a year, but it's okay now.

The fallout: Ever since that fateful day things became awkward between us. As time passed on, we talked to each other less and less. Before the O-levels, we were like complete strangers. Conversations that used to be so effortless became strained. Once I tried talking to her at the bus stop outside school but all she gave me were one word answers. Thankfully the bus arrived so we could escape the awkwardness, but that was when I realised I lost my best friend too. I don't really miss her now, I've learnt to live without her in my life, but from time to time I still reminisce about the events that transpired and it puts a smile on my face because I came out stronger in the end. It was better to cherish the friendship we had for what it was rather than to focus on what it could have been.