Ten years.

"Hellow?" The voice from the other side was accented and sounded weird, somewhat deep. But it felt like home. The overbearing scent of cologne pricked my sensitive nose, and I felt an allergic reaction on its way. But now wasn't the time to fixate on things I couldn't help. The sun shone brightly over the grass in the university lawn.

"Earth to Alex! Can yew hear this?" He spoke again, summoning me out of my thoughts. He was standing next to me, waiting for me to respond. "Hm?" was the only intelligible thing to come out of my mouth.

"I just finished telling yew my entire life story, and this is how yew react?"

"Well, for starters, I've been through it all." I replied.

"And howw exactly does that help mey?"

"You can learn from my experiences. It's not like changing a little bit will hurt. Watching sappy romances, reading what you like, and listening to your kind of music is going to kill you. Of course, you might become a little unpopular, but who'd rather be popular and unhappy?"

"Yew don't get it-"

"Oh yes, I do. You're exactly the person I was ten years ago. Wanted to be little-Ms.-Popular, but in the end realised that being happy with your own self is much, much more important."

"Not tow mey, it's not."

"Oh, you feel that way now. But things will change. Believe me, they will. There'll come a time when you're forced to listen to that music you so utterly despise right now, and you won't be able to do anything about it. But midway through the song you'll realise it's not actually half bad. You might even become a fan, who knows. You'll slowly realise that pretence is a waste of time. Your definition of 'cool' will change - drastically, if I might add. You'll change, you see. Actually, you don't right now, but you will. That's a given."

"Fack yew. I'll stay troow tow myself." He argued, smiled, and hit me playfully over my head.

I smiled to myself. "You'll see in ten years. Or maybe change will come sooner for you, Tom."

And as Tom and I walked to our next class, I couldn't stop myself from thinking of all that was ten years ago, and all that could have been.