I thought college would be a new beginning for me. New school, new teachers, new surroundings, new people to meet and a lot more. It's funny when you think about it. The feeling isn't the same now that you won't experience it anymore. All you can do is to relive these memories. Relive, that's a word that will remain a word for me. Wanna know why?

I remembered it clearly, like it was just yesterday. I was just another kid on the block. There was nothing special about this girl. It was only on that dreadful day that they realized there was more to it than just a girl who wanted to see her friends together for one last time. To sing those old songs that we used to sing when we were together. To do the old stuffs that we've been doing before we got separated because of our new lives. It was only on that dreadful day that they realized that I wasn't just mad at them by not showing up but there was something else. It was more than that. It was more than not showing up when they promised to. It was something else. Something I hid from them until that day.

When I entered college, there were so many things that happened so fast. There were so many things that won't slow down and it began pulling me to the bottom of a bottomless pit. Fortunately, I had found footholds to bring me back up. But still college isn't your idea of a good time. If it weren't for that promise we made the summer before we entered college life, I wouldn't have survived my first weeks here. That promise kept me going. It still kept me going even if some people who made that promise with me didn't keep that promise. Well, I can't blame them because I know they also wanted to have a new life in college. But still it kept me going. I tried to understand their situation.

I kept on understanding them until such time that it wasn't funny anymore. I could tolerate our not seeing each other once a month as promised but not coming to my eighteenth birthday was pushing it too far. I could understand them not going once a month but it was the start of the summer for them when I celebrated my birthday. The thing that really hurt me the most is that they promised and then they didn't come. They stabbed me on the back because of that. But still, I tried to understand them.

That gave me another idea to get them together for a reunion. It didn't occur to me that that would be the last reunion that I will attend to. It also didn't occur to me that they would not come on that reunion. I thought they would try to come because of the news that our choir moderator just got married and wanted to see us badly. But still for the last time they didn't give a damn. They all made those stupid excuses that "they were busy", "they have an important matter to do on that particular day", "they promised someone on that day that they go somewhere", "they have another choir to think about", and some are just plain "not interested". When I tried talking them into coming I did all the things that I could just to convince them that the event was important but still they didn't budge. I was even tempted to tell them my secret but I know that they won't believe me if I tell them. They would say that it is just one of my crazy ideas so that they would change their mind about the whole thing. As for me, I won't stoop that low just to see them for the last time because I thought that that wouldn't be the last time.

Unfortunately, I didn't see them for the last time. I saw some of them but not all. The reunion was fun but it would have been better if all of us were there for the event. It would have been better if we were all there doing the things we used to do before college. But the hell with the past, it didn't happened the way the few of us expected it to have happened.

And it will never happened again, ever. Because on that same day, my secret was revealed to those few people who came. The secret that I was dying all along. My heart was failing and I had tried so hard to cover it up until that day. I tried my best to look healthy, doing all the things that only healthy people can do. I even tried to do vigorous training just to let them know that I don't give up easily. But with everything that I had accomplished, still I can only do so much. I tried to stay alive but my body failed me that day. That was the last time I drew breath in this world.

But it did some good, my dying that day. On my funeral, I saw myself lying on the "velvet bed" and I also saw 'them' for the last time. At least they're complete on the day of my funeral. That was something, isn't it? At least I know that they still know me after ignoring every call I gave them so that I can see them one last time. But damn them! Why was it only just this time that they realized how important they were for me to see them? They have to wait for something like this to happen to me for them to be complete. They just have to wait for the last minute until they realize that they were too late. Too late to see me one more time and fulfill the promise we made that one summer after high school graduation. Too late to sing those unforgotten songs of ours that has created history for the school. Too late revive the lost group that had once beaten the theater guild of our old school. Too late to forgive and be forgiven, if they ever wanted that from me.

I saw all of them there on my funeral. All teary eyed and holding my favorite flower with a piece that they sung in front of my coffin. I wished they saw me smile that time. I guess after what they had done, making me wait for them but still they didn't show up, I still was the kind of person who doesn't bear any ill will.

Hearing them sing that song on my funeral made me ready to face what was ahead of me this time. I may go to heaven. I may go to hell. I may even stay in purgatory. But the only thing clear to me now is that I will always be with them and they with me.

I may not have touched them physically but I'm sure I had touched their hearts one last time. And they had touched mine.

I guess I was wrong about the word "relive". It's not just a word anymore, because I have relived again in the hearts of my friends and the unforgotten music all of us shared once. And forever it will stay.