I WAS a very horrible friend when I was younger. Back in my old school, I was not the kind who went befriending everyone. I was more of the type who would keep a small, though precious circle.

My best friend at the time also happened to be my seatmate for most of our second grade. I remember huddling by our tables, especially during particularly boring classes, and whispering to each other, for she was the listening kind of friend, I think?one I could turn to when something was bothering me. We would talk about things I would be embarrassed to tell anyone these days (not even my closest friends), and so sometimes I wonder how I ever managed to say anything at all.

The thing is, I cannot get much farther than that. I don?t remember her face, her voice, or even her name. I know something was there, yet I cannot, for the life of me, recall what it was, besides the little tidbits I would get from time to time. And if she was already the closest to me, what more for the rest? What about the sacristan, the girl with the puppy, the dude with the weird name, the twins, the rich kid, and the others I have completely forgotten? What can I remember about them all?

Absolutely nothing.

Boy, I was such a wonderful friend. You would think I would treasure those few.

Oh, sure, I came back, after my first few classes following my transfer to Ateneo. My dad would drive me all the way from Quezon City to Marikina, and I would walk those halls again, this time as an outsider. Those who still recognized me would gather around, call the others, and we would talk for a little while.

But then the visits gradually became less frequent, as we got caught up in our own academics. Eventually, they ceased altogether.

* * *

There was a time when I seemed to have forgotten them completely. That was during those years following the cessation of my visits, those times when I was busy adjusting to and enjoying my new school. In those days I had little or absolutely no thoughts about my old school and the friends I had left behind.

Perhaps, you can say, it was because I was young.

It was only until last year that I began uncovering the trove of memories. I am not sure when it began, although I have some reason to believe that it might have been the English composition that triggered it (which, in itself, is another story entirely, but for your information, it was supposed to be entitled ?Why I Remember Her?). I knew there should have been something there, but I simply could not remember.

On some nights I would wonder if they ever recalled. I would wonder if they, too, spent sleepless nights tossing and turning, trying to remember anything of what once was. I would wonder what might have happened if we had kept in touch, if we had not become strangers to each other, as we are now.

Occasionally I would receive a word or two from my parents about my old school. Mostly it would be talk about my old rivals (in academics, that is), who had transferred and become scholars in some distant, faraway schools. Yet I heard nothing about that precious little circle of mine.

Little is left for me to do then but ponder. On those days when the ghosts of my past come back to haunt me again, they would whisper that, after all, my friends had been there for me when I needed them, and I repaid their kindness by forgetting every last one of them. My mind would wander, and I would wonder at my own ingratitude.

How unintentionally cruel human beings can be.

Ejay R. Domingo, 14, is a second year student at Ateneo de Manila High School.