The Past is Only the Future with the Lights On

The hardest thing about life, I've come to realize, is when, even at my young age of seventeen, you've found the person that completes you and you know you want to be with them forever, but you know these feelings aren't neutral; they're not shared.

It's like forming a great band, but never putting out any records or touring. Crappy example, I know. But what I'm trying to get at, is that its pointless. Why should you love someone that will end up, in my case, unknowingly, breaking your heart in the end anyways? It was only a matter of time before Frank found someone new, I was sure of it. And then the unintentional heartache he caused would kick in. When him and Taylor were together the jealousy wasn't too bad, but now, I knew the pain would be unbearable.

Why had I allowed myself to get this close to Frank? I knew from the beginning he could never like me as more than a friend, so why put myself through this?

Oh, yeah. You can't control who you fall in love with. Right? If it was anyone's fault it was Frank's, for being so damn irresistible. I should have known I wouldn't be able to control my feelings.

Mentally kicking, punching, and throwing every available curse at myself, I looked up from the frozen yogurt Frank had purchased for me that I'd felt too nauseous to eat, seeing him try to slither his way through the over populated crowd of people to get back to me at our table from the restroom.

"Damn people," he sighed to himself, shaking his head, finally sitting down in the seat across from me. He looked up at me and smiled, but it was soon washed away as he noticed my sick expression. "Something wrong, Kel? You look like you're about to puke," he noticed, immediately placing an urgent, cold hand to my forehead to see if I really was sick.

I laughed a nervous, raspy laugh and nodded my head. "I'm fine," I promised him.

He reluctantly pulled back his arm, unsure whether or not he should believe me. "Did you want to walk home now? I don't want you to get sick."

"I'm fine, honestly," I repeated myself, this time with a more convincing laugh. "What else do we have left to do on our 'day of fun'?" I asked, using the name Frank had given today.

It was nearly six o'clock in the evening now and this whole time we'd been riding the many rides. This place wasn't like the carnival they had on Halloween. This was a real amusement park. Everything from generic cotton candy, as oppose to the pre-bagged crap they were selling on Halloween, to actual rides that stayed in place and weren't packed up at the end of the day.

Frank smiled at my sudden mood change and looked up at the nearly dark night sky, bright, shiny stars scattered across it. It hadn't snowed once today, which was odd considering it was only the day after Christmas, but I wasn't going to complain about that.

"Did you want to go for a walk on the piers?" he suggested, connecting his hazel eyes on me once more.

I nodded and rose to my feet, throwing my barely touched frozen yogurt away in a close by waste basket. As Frank came over to me, I assumed he was going to take my hand again, but instead, wrapped his arm tightly around my waist and brought my small body to his side.

Aside from the many people talking and screaming around us and on the rides and the carnival music most of these rides played, our walk to the piers was silent.

Every now and then, we would catch the eyes of an old couple and they would smile fondly at us, like we reminded them of what they were like at our age.

A lot of things have changed over the years, but one thing I've noticed that stays the same is love, as cheesy as it sounded.

I couldn't help but smile back at my elders, internally hoping that once I was their age, me and my gray haired, wrinkly skinned lover could look at the teenagers of that time and recall what we were like back then, even though that sound cheesier.

The piers had just as many people as the amusement park itself, it seemed; everyone, mostly tourist, running around and buying bread and trying to look for creatures in the dark waters below them.

"Where would you like to go now?" Frank suddenly asked, breaking the silence between us. I met his expectant, patient expression and smiled. Even if he couldn't be mine, I was extremely grateful I had him as a friend.

"I just wanna walk around," I said, in no mood to enter any of the little shops or anything.

He nodded his head and I watched with what little light the moon produced and the few lamp posts how his piercing practically shone. Even his eyes looked amazingly brilliant under this lighting. His pure beauty never ceased to make me feel overwhelmed. Like I didn't fit walking beside him. Feeling my eyes on him, he turned his head to look at me.

"What?" he laughed.

And that smile. My knees were already starting to turn to jelly.

"You're so pretty," I said honestly without thinking. My eyes went wide as I realized what I'd just spoken aloud and he laughed.

"Thanks, but it means nothing when compared," he said, not making any sense to me.

What the hell did that mean?

"Compared to what?" I asked, looking at him with furrowed eyebrows.

He smiled so sincerely, I couldn't help but smile back. "You," he whispered.

My smile grew into a large grin as I sighed and rested my head on his shoulder. I then remembered what I was supposed to ask Frank.

"Why did my grandma tell me my dad would never in a million years approve of my Christmas present? This doesn't seem all that bad to me," I said as the familiar feeling of my feet sinking into sand occurred and I noticed we were now walking along the beach. It was also much colder down here compared to the pier or amusement park. But barely anyone else was down here, due to the fact that the water was, quite literally, ice cold and so was the air that surrounded us, which was actually nice, in my opinion.

"That was just to throw you off, even though I was positive you'd never think I was bringing you here. But you know me, I like to make things interesting," he laughed.

Oh yeah. I knew what he was like when he wanted "to make things interesting."

We both suddenly stopped walking so Frank could sit down Indian style on the sand. Once comfortable in the wet, tiny grains of pebbles and sand, he looked up at me, that same goofy grin plastered across his face and motioned with his hands for me to sit down next to him. I did as instructed, allowing my eyes to roam over the, no doubt, freezing cold ocean a few feet away from our seated bodies, tiny ripples forming all over that I could only see in the reflection of the moon. Everything else was as dark as night.

Behind us, all the rides had been lit up in bright, gleaming colors, the screaming still heard but at a more distant range so it wasn't too bad. And to our right was the never ending pier, with shops and people loitering it.

The two of us sat there, completely quiet as we watched everything around us, for about another ten minutes until Frank's incredibly smooth voice broke the still atmosphere that had formed around us.

"You know, I never did kiss you yesterday as I'd promised," he realized with a smirk. "You made me break a promise."