Daniel--Ch. 1

"Time never fails to heal a wound."

Everyone said that to me when I told them about me and Daniel.

Sometimes I wonder if what had happened between me and Daniel really caused me pain or melancholy that I need time to heal my "wound".

I've always felt like, Daniel was just a dream, and that our encounter was just my own imagination which left me with that vacant feeling in my heart. After all, every summer love, does feel like a dream, or a teen movie, which you immediately forget what the film was about 10 minutes after you've walked out of the theatre.

Daniel's face is so vague now in my memory, but the feelings for him, is still here, which sometimes scares me at sleepless nights.

I met Daniel last summer.

He was a friend of Sam's, my ex-boyfriend, in England. Last summer, Sam was supposed to be back in Hong Kong and at the same time he was supposed to be returning a book I've left with him when we broke up.

Clinche does happen.

Sam, who was busy preparing for his thesis, failed to make it back to Hong Kong. And yes, you can predict how the story goes, can't you?

Sam asked his friend, Daniel, who would be coming back to Hong Kong, to return the book to me.

I still wonder now why Sam was so anxious about returning the book, he might as well mail it to me. Sometimes I doubt if he was trying to set things up for me and Daniel. And so, there we were, me and Daniel, meeting each other face to face for the very first time, somewhere at the seaside.



Written in September 2004