Perfect

He was the perfect guy there ever was, the perfect student that every teacher wanted, the perfect embodiment of a loving son, the perfect guy any girl would want.When someone remembers the first time one learned that the earth is not flat an image of a ship hulk in class 2 textbook comes to mind, for me and anyone in my class we remember the arrogant egocentric boy who volunteered the information when we were still ignorant 7 years olds.

We first knew about him when his name came up in the School topper list when we were still in Junior high. After that there was no stopping him. His name would pop up as topper in every exam.Competitions and he will be among the winners, debates and he would be involved, sports and he will be running among the participants, you get the idea. Teachers always wanted him to be Captain since he would be the first person to get things done and if we had a group assignments, we would all wish to be in his group because we knew he would do anything to make his group win.I guess he was egoistical up to a certain level but when you have that kind of brain to back one up, who would not get a bit high into the head and everyone acknowledged him as such. To top it off, he was not bad-looking either so if his brains didn't make him the most popular guy in school, the girls going gaga over him made him known anyway. But the fact was he was a good guy, charming, funny and friendly with everyone despite his popularity. If you were in trouble he would be the first person to help you and you could always count on him. That was the way he had always been and for all the years to come since I knew him he just seem to excel more and more. 

It is like what people say, in the end the nerds will always turn up at the top and the popular boy in school will end up being a dumb jock or the fact that one can only go up to a certain height before falling down into the dumps.It happened to him in high school.That was the year he changed. The school mills said his parents went through a bitter divorce - I am not sure what the reasons were but everyone knew they separated nonetheless. In schools we would hear bits and pieces of what was going on with his parents, how the court case was proceeding and despite all talks about secrecy, rumors have a vicious way of being circulated especially in High school. But he wasn't the same guy anymore then.Believe me,I am not making excuses for his behaviour and I am sure he made a conscious decision to be the way he turned out to be.Perhaps he did it because he was tried of listening to people talk, perhaps it was all an act to tough-up the divorce,perhaps he was just a 16 year old kid unable to cope with his parent's divorce but fact remains that he changed.

It is easy enough to guess how he changed.He didn't hang around with the popular kids anymore, instead he would be with the hoards of boys who are traditionally marked 'naughty' in every school.The kind whose regular 'hang out' would be the dark alleys of places like Clock tower and Zangdopheri.He won't miss classes traditionally and didn't bunk even now but he wasn't concentrating either.He was still very brainy, you could tell by the way he still scored good marks but he would do anything not to call attention upon himself in class. He sat at the last bench, sleeping or under some kind of 'influence' and you would never see him make any effort to be present. He is still the same boy in some ways, a dark aura just seems to evolve around him. He would still help you if you asked him and he would still love me. But he wasn't the life of the party anymore but rather the brooding guy who stands in the background and nothing in his manner invites any questioning about his life making him an even scarier person to approach. 

I don't mean to make him a character larger than life or something that you only come across in fiction but I am in love with this guy you see, so everything about him just multiplies for me. I loved him since the day he walked into my class and never realy stopped.When we were teenagers I thought there would be no reason for the school's popular kid to have to do anything with me.There were so many girls better and prettier than me. So I never stood a chance with him. I thought I wasn't good enough for him thus, I never thought about a relationship with him. And now that I have grown up and come to terms with the fact that I want to be with him, the irony of it all is that he thinks he is not good enough for me.He says he doesn't want me getting involved in his complicated life because he is not good enough to pursue a relationship with me and that is just realy sad for me. Perhaps before, I naively loved him more for the fact that he was the popular guy in school and the fame that comes along but the fact that I still love him,after he has changed so much makes me believe that it wasn't all because of that. Believe me, it isn't anger or frustration that I can never have my relationship with him that you read in these lines, it would never be that, it is helplessness because although he thinks he doesn't deserve a relationship, I know he does but I can't do anything to change his mind.

So I always wonder when was the right time to get into a relationship with him? Was it when we were still teenagers figuring things out? Should I have pursued the relationship then when I wasn't ready? Or is the time now right when he thinks he is not good enough for me? Or was it never meant to work out anyway?