The Past is Only the Future with the Lights On

It had been another one of those nights.

You know the ones I'm talking about.

You lie, restlessly, in bed for hours, kicking and turning every couple of minutes because your comfort doesn't satisfy you. No matter how long you keep your eyes closed, you can't seem to fall asleep. And, as hard as you try to stop thinking and attempt to trick yourself into not caring about these horrid thoughts, it still won't work.

Yeah. Basically one of those.

Frank's actions - or rather, lack of - today (or was it yesterday?) really ticked me off, and I simply couldn't get over the fact that he just let me walk out like that. Didn't come after me or anything. You'd think, if he were miserable like Dahlia had said he was, that he'd want to stitch things back together between us, am I right? But no. Apparently not.

I wasn't sure how much longer I could persist like this, either.

It had already been a fucking month. How much longer could I go withoutthe reason I was still alive Frank?

Oh, shit. It finally dawned on me just how dependent of my happiness I was on him. I mean, sure, I knew that without him I wasn't as happy, but this was just ridiculous.

I did not need him to be happy.

I just needed to be in his presence to be content.

Practically growling at myself for making no sense, whatsoever, and only frustrating myself further with these incoherent thoughts, I rose to my feet and tiptoed down the staircase to the front door, much like many other nights I spent restless and couldn't sleep. My body still encased in my warm pajama pants and a big t-shirt, I quietly pulled the front door open and stepped out into the cool, chilly atmosphere of the outdoors.

For the duration of the last thirty or so days, it had been custom for me to come out here in the middle of the night and spend a good couple hours out here, allowing me to sort my head and get some fresh air as I did so.

Sitting my bottom down on the familiar bench on my porch, I sighed lightly and immediately brought my knees to my chest, casually resting my head on them.

This was normally the time I'd spend, thinking of ways to 'accidentally' run into Frank so that he'd be in a position that he'd be forced to talk to me. Any contact, however, would be just fine with me. Just something to show him that I was, in fact, still alive. Now, I was beginning to come up with ways to have him brutally and bloodily beat to a pulp.

I'd much rather have that than talk to him, now.

Caught up in my thoughts, as always, I had been too occupied to notice what had been out there with me this whole time.

"I thought I'd be able to find you out here."

Oh god. His voice was enough to make me freeze in my spot, make my heart beat accelerate.

Looks like I would no longer have to think of ways to talk to him. It appeared he was actually gonna give it a shot this time.

Slowly but surely, I turned my head to look at the porch next to my own, a small, dark figure sitting in its swing. Even in the darkness, I could easily tell who the silhouette belonged to, even if he hadn't just spoken in that unforgettable voice of his.

"Are you actually talking to me?" I asked in disbelief, looking behind me to 'see if anyone was behind me' to emphasize my comment.

His dark shadow arose from the bench and walked towards me. With a frustrated sigh, he bent over and leaned his elbows on the railing of his porch, stressfully resting his head in his hands and running his fingers through his knotted hair.

"Kelly, I'm so sorry for how I acted earlier at the mall. I had no right to ignore you like that. Not when you deserve an explanation," he said softly and sincerely once he'd pulled his head up from his hands.

Crossing my legs, I looked away from him, thinking of something to say to him. I had been waiting so long for this, I wasn't sure where to begin. Perhaps with where he's already brought us, yes?

"How'd you know I'd be out here?" I asked suspiciously, glancing at him from the corner of my eye, only to see him hopping over the rail and then proceeding to do so with my own.

Sheepishly scratching the back of his mop of messy brown hair, he looked down, hesitantly sitting down as far away as possible to me on the bench as he could. "I haven't been sleeping much lately either," he admitted, continuing once he got a look at my confused expression. "I've seen you come out here a couple times in the middle of the night."

"So you've been ignoring me, yet you still watch me? Isn't that kind of a contradiction to what you're supposed to be doing?"

He looked almost hurt at what I'd said. Good. He deserved whatever pain this conversation brought upon him.

"Kelly, I'm not supposed to do anything," he told me, baffled.

"Oh, I get it…You've been an ass to me this past month because you wanted to be. Okay, I understand now. Sorry, you had me confused for a second," I said sarcastically, ready to get up and storm inside at yet another failed attempt at talking to Frank, when a cold hand wrapped firmly around my wrist, sitting me back down.

"I'm trying to fucking apologize to you! Now are you willing to listen or not?" he raised his voice a bit with me, but was still careful to keep it fairly low, on account of my sleeping grandmother and the other neighbors that were most likely snoozing as well.

Stubbornly, I pulled my wrist away from him, crossing my arms over my chest and looking straight forward at the house directly across the street from us. "Depends."

Another sigh emitted from his lips, only sounding more frustrated than the last.

"What you asked me at the eatery earlier…about you being the reason for Victoria breaking up with me…" I nodded for him to continue, though I still had my stare on a yard gnome across the street. "Well it wasn't completely true."

Don't look at him. Don't look at him. Don't look at him.

"It was really what I did." He rubbed his closed eyes with his thumb and index finger, leaning over a bit. By now, he was mainly talking to the ground, instead of me, almost shamefully. "I kept relating everything to you, and you were always the one on my mind. And then I told Victoria about the day of our fight, and what I did," he said. My stomach tightened at the memory of that. He'd kissed me and I'd pushed him away. Do I get any more idiotic? "Well, at the time, we'd officially been dating for a day, so, as you can guess, she was pissed."

Why is he laughing? His girlfriend broke up with him because he'd kissed me.

There were a couple more minutes of silence between the two of us. Was it my turn to say something now? What would I even say? Was I supposed to apologize?

"Kelly, I know I've screwed up pretty badly in the past, and I'm bound to do it plenty more times in the future, but I just can't stand it when you and I are fighting," he whispered softly. He shook his head, smiling very lightly, and said, "I'm no good at fighting with you."

Damn. How am I supposed to stay mad at this boy when he says things like that?

Still, I couldn't let him off that easily…

"Frank, you have no idea how crap you've made me feel these last few weeks. You treat me like dirt, then just expect me to forgive you and make everything go back to normal," I told him, keeping my voice even despite the fact that my heart was racing obnoxiously inside of me.

Had I known this part of our conversation was going to piss him off like it had, I never would have said anything. But its too late to go back once the words have left your mouth, right?

"You fucking hurt me, Frank. And if you think I'm just going to pick up with things like they were a month ago, then you don't know me," I said, watching him stand up abruptly.

"Kelly, I'm trying to apologize here! I don't expect you to go back if you don't want to, but I'd at least expect you to accept my apology," he said, looking at me skeptically. He obviously was not prepared for me to spill something like that. "Because, believe it or not, I do know you."

"'You know me? You know me?'" I repeated his words incredulously, standing up as well and pointing a finger into his chest. "You don't know jack shit, Frank. I thought you did, but apparently I was wrong. You're just another boy, waiting to screw up my life at any chance he can get."

His face was turning bright red and he was now glaring at me, but I couldn't back down now. I had a point to make…whatever that was exactly…

"That’s a lie," he whispered through gritted teeth, his jaw taut and eyes sharp, on the verge of tears. "I know more about yourself than even you do."

"Oh really?" I asked, doubtful of his words. He couldn't possibly know more about me than I did. "Why don't you fucking prove it?"

With his brows knitted together and his eyes still glaring at me, he took a step closer to me, making it so he was practically standing on my toes looking down at me.

"I know that when you're really concentrated or intent on doing something rather hard, you bite your lip." So? Lots of people bite their lips. He was going to have to do better than that. "I know that you try not to show too much emotion, because it brings you attention. I know that you don't like attention. I know that you, unlike a lot of people these days, actually look for what's inside a person, rather than what labels they're wearing or who they're friends with." His voice became noticeably softer, as he tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. "When you're upset, you like being held. You rarely admit when you're wrong. You, still to this day, glare at Taylor when you pass her in the school hallways."

Woah. I didn't really do that, did I?

I wasn't sure if he was doing this on purpose or if it was honestly unintentional and he didn't notice, but Frank was slowly and unceasingly closing the proximity between us.

"When you eat, you eat your food in sections; always finishing one thing before moving onto the next." Unbelievable. "You're always looking down at your feet when you walk. Whenever you talk about your mom, you always manage to have a smile on your face. You -"

"Okay, Frank," I whispered hoarsely, gently wiping my damp eyes with the back of my hand.

"One more," he said insistently, holding up one finger. I chuckled and nodded my head a couple times. Frank smiled and, reluctantly, placed his lips next to my ear, his sweet breath tickling me. "I know that you missed me."

He pulled back a bit, revealing to me his blank face.

"So don’t you dare say I don't know anything about you."

Giving me one last, sad look, he turned on his heel and made to walk down the steps of my porch, but, for once, it was my turn to grab him and pull him back to me - no matter how much effort it took my weak little arms.

I wasn't quite sure what I was going to say to him. But I did know that I didn't want him just walking away after he'd just said all of those wonderful, meaningful things.

So, for lack of words, I let my actions do the talking, and pulled his lips to mine.