The Butterflies from Last Winter

An Unexpected Meeting

22 July 2017 (continued)

Alec Kensington.

Now, where have I last heard that name?

Alec Kensington, the brightest boy of the class and the overactive idiot, was my classmate since kindergarten.

My kindergarten memories are surely hazy enough for me to narrate them correctly. In fact, most of my important memories are very hazy, specially when I were in all those voyages with my parents. To be noted, my father was a marine engineer.

The first few years of my life was spent mostly in the voyages with my parents. My father worked with cargo ships, as a result we'd travel a number of countries, mostly the countries in West Asia, Northern and Southern Africa and South America.

The beautiful breeze, the sound of rushing waves and the smell of the sea, which I call as the smell of freedom and don't ask me why, still wandered in my mind.

Primarily, I was homeschooled by my mom and dad as I couldn't attend the kindergarten. But it seemed that due to frequent visits in different countries, I couldn't develop my mother tongue quite correctly.

Fun fact, I spoke a mixed-up language which consisted of Chinese, Mexican and Spanish. And I didn't even know what I spoke.

Fearing the consequences, my parents decided to settle in my homeland, California. I lived in a small town which was surrounded by the serenity and the bounty of ocean view.

The sea port of Los Angeles is still now one of my favorite places. It's near to my home and also dad sets off for his voyage from this place. I've come many times to receive dad after he signs off, or to say goodbye when he signs on to another cargo ship.

Mom admitted me to a local kindergarten called Point Fermin Elementary at the age of 3, hoping that I would finally come with the touch of the society.

There is where I met Alec Kensington.

He was an energetic, active boy and ofcourse, the troublemaker. He hopped over the benches, pranked the boys and girls a LOT and used to be marked in the teachers' eyes. Everyone used to be annoyed of him, so did I.

I tried to compare the little brat version of Alec with this teen version of his, and got surprised as well.

He changed a lot. There was a lot of difference between the two persons besides the height.

He had an undercut (I was secretly missing that fluffy hairstyle he had, mainly because I hated undercut for no reason), an Adam's apple and owned a more lean figure than last time I saw him. He wore a black T-shirt and jeans.

I immediately hid my face with my grammar text book. For some reason, I didn't want to be noticed. I, who was suffering from inferior complexity since childhood, didn't want anyone to know that I suck at communicating, especially when it came to boys.

Luckily, none of the boys were looking this way, neither did Alec. He didn't even bother to take a glance at the back row as he was too busy with jabbering with his friends.

"Alec! All of you! Concentrate!" Mr. Al tried to calm the chaotic group of Alec and his friends.

"Yes sir," he added. His face revealed a slightly mischievous smirk as he looked back at the third row as soon as Mr. Al turned back at the whiteboard.

He signaled one of his friends to pass him something. A tall but dull-looking boy slowly took a copy out of his backpack and passed to the boy next to him.

"Yo guys fast," he whispered.

"As you see that the indirect speech is-" Mr. Al took his pointer stick to show the words and turned around to find out that Alec wasn't concentrating.