i remember this nerdy kid who had lovely rosy cheeks. like the usual nerdy kid you know, she was very shy, didn't speak much and wasn’t a favorite when choosing teams for chinese garter. being the nerdy kid that she was, she spent most of her time in the library, head bent on that book that she has read three times already. i remember her as a scrawny with short hair that her mother never allowed her to grow long for fear the it would make her look thinner. her mother worries why she likes to stand on corners.

that kid. behind the faint smiles you'd never see that she could tell you the difference between nuclear fusion and fission, what the doppler effect is, the brownian movement, how sonic booms are produced and how big the milky way is. when kids her age asked for pretty shoes and dresses for their birthdays, she wished for a telescope—one that could see jupiter’s great red spot. she wanted to ask her dad to build a mini-laboratory at the back of their house. and no, dexter wasn't even a cartoon then. of course she never got any telescope nor a mini laboratory. but she never stopped looking at the stars or reading books on experiments, theories and scientists. at the age of eight, she fell in love with the things that the cosmos could never explain.

that rosy-cheeked kid. who would have thought? i killed her when i chose a business course over chemistry when i went to college.

because i was a coward.

because when i reached the two roads that diverged in a wood, i took the one usually travelled by. now i wonder how i could still make a difference.

that kid--she could have been a million other great things. but now she aids capitalists, analyses gross margins, profitability and returns on investments. but that's for now. because there are still traces of her--the geekiness, rosy cheeks and the longing to see jupiter's great red spot.