This is a story of me and my best friend, Karina. I met her during school holiday in an English course in our neighborhood when we were 12 y.o. But actually we went to the same kindergarden. She recognized me, I didnt, because I’ve always been occupied with my own world. We are an opposite-attract. She is the quiet, calm, elegant, shy one. I’ve always been the crazy, sarcastic, sadistical one with comical imagination and likes attention.

Despite the different personalities, we also have many things in common. We both like to laugh at anything and cringe at similar things. Karina likes to listen to my silly imagination, and I like audience like her. We met everyday at school and never seemed to run out of conversation topics. After school, it’s 40 mins to our homes. In public transportation (angkot), we talked and talked sometimes we made the driver mad because I was too noisy. I like to make fun of people who might not even know if Karina and I exist. Karina is too kind to make fun of people, it makes her feel guilty. Hence, she likes to listen to me because that’s actually what she also thinks, by only listening to me, she thinks she avoids sins.

These years of friendship means she has tolerated my weirdness and abuse to her. During lessons, I liked to draw, or write short diaries, or just draw my signature, NOT in my books, but hers. I liked to keep my books clean, so I sacrificed hers. I liked to give her my signatures, I never skipped a day giving her my signatures. I told her that I was gonna be famous one day.

Not only to her books, I also liked to do some experiments to her sensitive skin. If she scratches, it lasts longer than normal people like me do. Therefore I liked to pinch her just to see what color it would turn. And I like to press my tip nails to her skin and make patterns out of it. Her arms were my canvass.

Our puberty is full of stalking only without any results. At that time, internet was rare, our crushes were the popular kids that many other kids had crush on. We were just couple of kids whom even Google map couldnt detect. When school bell rang, we automatically met each other to continue the never-ending stalking. Even though I was outspoken, I had weak knees when it came to puberty flings and expressing my feeling. And Karina is worse. She could suddenly transform into the liberty statue with no fire. Literally.

When we’re 13, I introduced her to internet and chatting rooms. For us it’s the cheapest and fun way to learn and practice our english. We never chatted with Indonesians. What funny was that we always used one computer together. I knew what she chatted to everyone, including her first virtual boyfriend because I was her script writer. We were only 13, so we faked our age. MIRC raped our innocence when guys started to send us nude pics. We thought we were talking about pets. We didnt have pets, we just pretended that we had. Didnt understand why the guys (and sometimes girls) interpreted animals with nudity.

In 2007, I left Lampung. We still keep in touch until now by phone and soc-meds, still talking for hours on the phone even though it’s not every day/ week. Talking to her is therapueic as I need to burst out all the weird things in my head.

She’s always there since my first heartbreak.

And when she had her first broken heart, I was her bodyguard.

Karina has been witnessing my love life drama since forever. For her, my life is her entertainment. The longest time I was single was 8 months. That’s nothing compared to her 6 years of being single until now. But I think, she will tie the knot first.

This number is the duration of our friendship to date. And still counting. Stronger and weirder than ever.