23:19, 17/05/2003

Dear Diary,

I'm sorry if I stain your pages with my tears, and I'm also sorry for writing in you so much today.

It's just that I found an old photograph today. I thought that I'd gotten over the incident with Rayne, but after seeing that photograph- it just brought back so many memories.

We were smiling in that photograph. I remember that Mama and Papa took that photograph of us at the beach. Rayne was wearing this flowery sun hat with a white ribbon. I loved that sun hat, and she gave it to me afterwards. I still have it at the back of my closet.

My memories of Rayne are both bitter and sweet. We were practically inseparable since birth, since our mothers were best friends even before we were conceived. We were born in cots beside each other. My first word was Rayne, and hers, Angel.

However, ever since we started attending school, we grew more distant. You'd think that, being young, social ladders wouldn't affect us.

But it did.

We hung out with a group of friends, people who were much more outgoing than me. I was the shy, reclusive one, and even though Rayne never said it out loud, I think that she silently resented my introverted nature.

At first, our relationship was as it was before. But then, slowly but surely, we began to drift apart.

Rayne started gravitating more and more towards the people we hung out with, ignoring me most of the time or replying me with short, curt answers. It was evident that things had changed drastically.

In our second year, Rayne and I were barely friends- we went through the formalities of partnering each other, but most of the time, unless she had no other option, she chose to hang out with the other girls. I was left alone to find my own friends.

That was also the year when Rayne moved to Austin, and Mama and her mother lost contact with each other. My relationship with Mama and Papa also snowballed from then. I guess Rayne's lively, almost constant presence in our home had been part of the glue holding our family together.

Anyway, I need to go before I cry even more. Until next time.

Love,

Angel