Like You Used To

The Memory Of Your Smile

I kept flipping, even if my fingers shook and my heart thumped wildly in my chest. Of course when she died everyone knew it was from a disease, but it was too sudden that no one was able to grasp the situation properly.

What we didn't know, and even her parents, was that she knew she was going to die.

Yet she never said anything.

February 3 2012

So this is it right? I won't be able to do what I want in the future, and I won't even get to graduate yet.

Why is it me?

Why did God choose to take her away, when there are a lot of people doing wicked and evil things in this world?

Why would He take her, a girl who had her heart broken repeatedly, who just wanted to have some control in her life?

Why can't it be someone else?

It's unfair, but it happened anyway.

February 14 2012

I only need this scenery to comfort me with the fact that I'll die soon. The sea calms my nerves.

February 18 2012

They still didn't talk to me, but why? Another rumor about me roamed around again? Good thing Ava wasn't affected by it, because she swore she won't believe anything bad about me. She looked sincere, so I took a photo of her.

February 20 2012

I liked the flowers in the garden. This photo made me realized how much potential I have as photographer, one that won't ever happen with me. It also made me cry a little. This simple photography.

My heart constricted painfully when I read one of the last few entries she had. 

I wanted so badly to tell the whole world what she had gone through, the harsh reality of having a disease and not having any support. Or even anyone to know about it until it was too late. 

February 25 2012

My days are numbered, and I still haven't told them yet. But this church is where everything began. Where my passionate dream about being a photographer when I took that one simple picture. For the last time, I want to remember it more than anything.

The finally entry made me stop. My eyes trained to the single photo attached to the last page, my breath caught in my throat. 

A flashback happened in my mind, when she was still alive.

She turned the camera toward and cheerfully said, "Smile!" I offered a weak smile and she placed her camera down her lap, pouting.

"Don't look so depressing, try again!" This time I tried a full blown smile and she clicked the button, snapping a shot.

She grinned. "Not so bad now right?" I chuckled and shrugged. Even though she doesn't usually strike up a conversation with me, she always maintained her friendliness.

"What do you want to be when you're older?" she asked quietly out of the blue. In surprise, I turned my head only to find her expression was serious, not playful unlike earlier.

"Well," I said uneasily. "I want to be a doctor. Nothing special." I shrugged.

"Why do you want that?" she asked.

I smiled at her. "Because as cheesy as it sounds, I want to help people. You know, cure them." She had a look of admiration before she grinned and help up her camera again.

"Right, better make that dream a reality!" she said brightly.

I looked back at the photo of me, smiling at my paper. That time I got accepted into university to study medicine. I was ecstatic, knowing I'll be one step ahead on following my dream.

February 28 2012

He looked so happy. I asked why. He said it was because he got into college, he's going to study medicine. I was happy for him too. But it just reminds on what I'll never get, no matter how hard I try.

Though looking at him, I wanted a great future for him, even if I can't. Maybe he'll make it, maybe not.

But I want the hope of the tomorrow, when I'm gone, I want to have the faith that this dream of mine won't be taken for granted. And just like he did, believe in fate.

Love with everything,

Camille.

I settled the book down. This time a shed of tear escaped my eyes. It wasn't right. Guys don't cry. We're supposed to be strong and stubborn and not let emotions get to us. 

But for the first time, I shed a tear for a girl I barely knew, who I will only know by this photo album and whose dream never happened.

I wished I could have turned back time. In the last day that I saw her, with her eyes full of incomphrensible sadness as she waved goodbye, I didn't know we were never going to see her again. I wished, that day I could've talked to her a little more,  got to know her a little bit more; I wanted to see her meaningful smile again, even just a glimpse. And tell her that she lived her life full of dreams and the future. That it wasn't a waste. Regret occupied my thoughts, but no matter how much I tried to think about what could've been, it never would have changed anything. Yet I can only hope that she's now in a better place.

And with that picture of me that she took, I knew that for a moment, just for a moment we understood each other. Just for a little time she and I found common ground.

Her dream.

She believed in it until the end when no one else did.

With a lovely smile on her face.